by BILL HEANEY
Whose idea was it to allow the Orange Order to parade down Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Northern Ireland, at the weekend?
And why was there so much interest in Scotland in this event?
It is extremely difficult to get answers to these straightforward questions.
Police Scotland are saying little or nothing about why they filled a ferry to Belfast with a cohort of their finest men and women.
The first indication that they would even be in Portadown came to my computer through the internet on the Belfast Live website.
I suppose I have a special interest in Northern Ireland since I have worked there from time to time and even been shot at while accompanying the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on patrols through Belfast.
I slept in the notorious Europa Hotel, which was then the most bombed hotel in Europe, and flew in a reconnaissance helicopter over Crossmaglen in South Armagh, dubbed Bandit Country by the Army, again with the Argylls, who recruited mainly in Dunbartonshire, Argyll and Stirlingshire.
The picture above right is of Bill Heaney on patrol with the Argylls in Northern Ireland
But I digress. What were/are our police officers doing on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown 28 years after the infamous riot that took place there during the Troubles?
That riot made headlines for Northern Ireland for all the wrong reasons. Sectarianism was just one of them, and we have seen in recent weeks that it hasn’t gone away.
So, what were last weekend’s troubles all about?
The Drumcree conflict is a dispute over yearly parades in the mainly Protestant town, which hosts numerous Protestant and Ulster loyalist marches each summer, but has a significant Catholic minority.
The Protestant Orange Order, which has significant support and a number of members in West Dunbartonshire, insists that it should be allowed to march its traditional route to and from Drumcree Church on the Sunday before the Twelfth of July.
However, most of this route is through the mainly Catholic part of town. The residents, who see the march as sectarian, triumphalist and supremacist, have sought to ban it from their area.
During the Troubles in the 1980s and 1990s, the dispute intensified and resulted in large protests, riots, sectarian violence, and massive security operations.
The Orangemen had marched the route since 1807, along what was then mostly country roads. There has been intermittent violence over the march since the 1870s. The early conflict was focused on the outward leg along Obins Street, through the Catholic enclave known as ‘the Tunnel’.
The outbreak of the Troubles led to the dispute intensifying in the 1970s and 1980s. After protests and serious violence two years in a row, the march was banned after the 1986 march. Since 1987, the Orangemen have taken an alternative route.
The focus then shifted to the march’s return leg along Garvaghy Road. Each July from 1995 to 2000, the dispute drew international attention as it sparked protests and violence throughout Northern Ireland, prompted a massive police and British Army operation, and threatened to derail the peace process that led to the Good Friday Agreement.
The situation in Portadown was likened to a “siege” and a “war zone”. During this time, the dispute was linked to several killings by loyalists, including those of Catholic civilians Michael McGoldrick, the Quinn children, and solicitor Rosemary Nelson, as well as police officer Frank O’Reilly.
In 1995, hundreds of residents held a sit-down protest on Garvaghy Road to stop the march, resulting in a violent standoff at Drumcree between the security forces and Orangemen, along with loyalist supporters.
A compromise was reached, allowing the march through. In 1996, police banned the march from Garvaghy Road, resulting in another violent standoff at Drumcree.
After five days of widespread loyalist attacks, police let the march through after forcing residents off the road, sparking riots in Catholic communities.
In 1997, security forces locked down the Catholic area before dawn, and let the march through at midday, citing loyalist threats to kill Catholics if it were stopped.
This sparked widespread protests and violence by Catholics/Irish nationalists. From 1998 onward, the march was banned from Garvaghy Road and the army sealed off the Catholic area with large steel, concrete and barbed-wire barricades. Each year there was a major standoff at Drumcree and widespread loyalist violence.
Since 2001, things have been relatively calm, but the Orange Order still demands to march its historical route along the Garvaghy Road. The Parades Commission said this would seriously harm community relations and cause significant disruption and protest, noting the history of violence in the dispute.
It has kept restrictions on the watered-down parades, calling them “necessary, proportionate and fair”, diverting them away from Garvaghy Road, and saying that this balances the rights of the marchers with those of the residents.
But the residents refused to co-operate. In 2026, during the week just past, an appeals court ruled that the Orangemen could march on Garvaghy Road for the first time in 28 years, which inflamed tensions again.
This resulted in another standoff, with residents blocking the road and Orangemen refusing to disperse or take another route.
And that is what is happening now as I write this column on Tuesday afternoon.
The political questions include who came up with the idea of resurrecting this match when most people would have known it would lead to trouble, as it has here too.
When did the Scottish Government make this decision, and why, and who will fund the bill for travel, accommodation, and food for the Police Scotland officers, which is bound to be considerable at a time when public service budgets are stretched to the limit? Will it be Scottish or Northern Ireland taxpayers?
I think the public should be told.