After a court ruled that a Protestant parade could go ahead in a Catholic area of Portadown, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald joined protesters in the streets to blockade the march. The Drumcree parade, organised by the pro-British group Orange Order, sparked some of the most serious incidents of violence during the Troubles in the north of Ireland during the 1990s. Since 1998, the Orange Order has been banned from completing its march through Garvaghy Road, a Catholic enclave in Portadown, County Derry. But last week, parade organisers were told they could enter the area for the first time in decades following a series of legal challenges. Over the weekend, hundreds of protesters took to the streets to prevent the parade from entering Garvaghy Road, fearing a return of sectarian violence. McDonald said she and fellow protesters could not bear “the idea that anybody would seek to set this place back 30 years and revisit the trauma that this community endured”. In 1998, when the newly established Parades Commission first banned the Drumcree parade from entering Garvaghy Road, widespread disorder broke out across the north of Ireland. Three Catholic children living in a Protestant area were killed in an arson attack on their home during the standoff.

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