After a thirteen-day standoff, a late-night High Court sitting, a Hillsborough Castle talking shop and enough appeals for “calm on all sides” to fill a hymn book, the Secretary of State has reached a startling conclusion. Sir Chris Bryant banned the Drumcree parade, explaining that an accommodation between the Orange Order and the residents proved impossible. Stop the presses. Something that brought peace between 1998 and 2026 turns out to be hard to arrange over a fortnight and a lot of biscuits.
The Parades Commission approved it. The High Court upheld it. Then the Secretary of State prohibited it, which means either the Commission got it wrong, the court got it wrong, or the real decision was always going to be made by whoever flinched last.
Michelle O’Neill said Mr Bryant could have stepped in at the very start, and she has a point. Closure came with a thirteen-day delay and a lot of hardship in between for the people who live there.
The Order, naturally, is aghast, and has accused him of capitulating to mob rule. That’s a stirring charge from people whose own supporters spent days facing police lines in a field, and whose deputy district master warned of “serious consequences from the Unionist community” if he intervened. Warning or promise? It’s generous enough to be both.
Sir Chris has done what residents, the Parades Commission and a long line of police chiefs did before him, which is say no. The only novelty was the run-up. Some will call it statesmanship. Others will call it the slowest “no” in NEI’s history.
Now there’s time to step back, the Orange Order should ask itself:’Are we an anti-Catholic organisation?’ Giving a truthful answer to that may be even more difficult than getting waltzing down the Garvaghy Road.
Very good jude