The Orange Order Won in Court but Never Walked the Garvaghy Road
Having secured the right to parade at a quarter past two in the morning, the Portadown district never passed along the road. Hundreds of nationalist protesters spent the day blocking the route in driving rain, many linking arms and singing, while announcements over loudspeakers warned they were liable to arrest and prosecution. The thirty-five Orangemen spent the day in a church a mile away, saying they would wait.
Three hearings in about seventeen hours produced a legal victory that events on the ground then cancelled. Justice Michael Humphreys, ruling at a quarter past two, confined himself to the constitutional point: “This court cannot substitute its own view or anyone else’s view for that of the commission.” The parade he cleared was already hedged to thirty-five participants with no bands and a ninety-minute limit. What made Friday extraordinary was the Parades Commission departing from almost three decades of its own decisions, a body created because the dispute over this road produced some of the most serious disorder in Northern Ireland’s history. Mary Lou McDonald, among the protesters, called the ruling “madness” and “primitive treatment of any community in the year 2026”. Michelle O’Neill said the day “brings into question how this whole peace process works”. Watch whether the Order notifies another attempt.