page_title: Drumcree conflict
section_title: 1990s and 2000s: Garvaghy Road
hierarchical_section_title: Drumcree conflict / 1990s and 2000s: Garvaghy Road
caption_attribution_description: Lower Shankill, Belfast. Drumcree.
context_page_description: The Drumcree conflict or Drumcree standoff is a dispute over yearly parades in the town of Portadown, Northern Ireland. The town is mainly Protestant and hosts numerous Protestant/loyalist marches each summer, but has a significant Catholic minority. The Orange Order
  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/Irish nationalist part of town. The residents, who see the march as sectarian, triumphalist and supremacist, have sought to ban it from their area. The Orangemen see this as an attack on their traditions; they had marched the route since 1807, when the area was mostly farmland.
  There has been intermittent violence over the march since the 1800s. The outbreak of the Troubles led to the dispute intensifying in the 1970s and 1980s. At this time, the most contentious part of the route was the outward leg along Obins Street. After serious violence two years in a row, the march was banned from Obins Street in 1986.
  The focus then shifted to the march's return leg along Garvaghy Road.
context_section_description: Although a few years passed without serious conflict over the Drumcree parades, both sides remained unhappy with the situation. Orangemen took the new route each year, but continued to apply for marches along Obins Street. Meanwhile, residents of Garvaghy Road and the surrounding Catholic district (see map) remained unhappy about what they viewed as "triumphalist" Orange marches through their area. They made their opposition known in a number of ways: through the tenants' associations that represented each housing estate, through the Drumcree Faith & Justice Group (DFJG), and through local politicians. A 1993 survey of people living on Garvaghy Road found that 95% of them were against Orange marches in the area.
caption: A mural supporting the Portadown Orangemen on Shankill Road, Belfast. On the left of the picture is a UDA/UFF flag.
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