"This isn't about a parade going down the Garvaghy Road. It's about those who are marching trying to reverse the political process, trying to kill off the Good Friday Agreement and once again put the nationalist community under siege," stated Molloy, who represents Mid Ulster in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Sinn Fein is the party that has been leading the fight for a united Ireland free from British rule.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement provided for the establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly with limited self-government powers. It registered the continued weakening of British rule over the northern six counties of Ireland, including the weakening of pro-British groups such as the Orange Order.

For years, the Orange Order has organized hundreds of triumphalist parades in Northern Ireland, aimed at reinforcing anti-Catholic repression and upholding the Protestant privileges that have been central to London's rule in the north of Ireland. During these parades, nationalists have often been assaulted and their homes attacked. But in recent years, opponents of the rightist marches have made gains. In 1998, for the first time, residents of Garvaghy Road prevented the rightists from going through their neighborhood.

This year it took just 12 minutes for the 2,000 Orange Order members and supporters to pass by, prevented from going down Garvaghy Road. Marching in military formation with many Union Jacks and other pro-British regalia, the turnout was lower than in any previous year, according to all onlookers this reporter spoke with. As they passed the assembled Garvaghy residents, many of the rightists hurled abuse and threats to kill Breandan MacCionnaith, a spokesperson for the community. At one point, masked members of the paramilitary Loyalist Volunteer Force appeared and a banner of another paramilitary faction, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, was displayed. MacCionnaith and other leaders ensured no one was drawn into these provocations.

That evening a few hundred of these rightists clashed with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police outside Drumcree church, overlooking Garvaghy Road. In the previous week, after an Orange Order march had been blocked from Garvaghy Road on July 2, there had been similar clashes involving relatively small numbers of people in others parts of Northern Ireland.

On the afternoon of July 10 a protest was called by Portadown Orange Order leader Harold Gracey in support of their efforts to march down Garvaghy Road and seeking to bring the Northern Ireland Assembly to a standstill. Orange Order members and loyalist (pro-British) paramilitaries blocked many roads that evening.

In 1996, in a similar action, farmers had joined with their tractors to block roads, and broader pro-British forces had backed the week-long action, bringing Northern Ireland to a virtual standstill. In response, the British rulers imposed a virtual curfew on Garvaghy Road and forced the parade through. This time the rightist actions were much narrower and marked more by the role of the paramilitary groups.

"They think this is their town," said Pamela Wilson after the Orange Order parade had passed by. She has lived on the Garvaghy Road for 20 years. "They don't want us to have equal rights, instead they herd us in this area, harassing us whenever we go to the town center. Eleven have been killed in the last five years as a result of their marches."

Geraldine Driscoll added, "They should go home, because we'll never go away." She emphasized her support for the stand of the local residents coalition calling for talks with the Orange Order to resolve the issue.

One example of the growing confidence of the nationalist residents of Garvaghy Road was described to this reporter by John, a young worker at Denny's food processing plant in Portadown. The plant has 350 workers, divided evenly between Catholic and Protestant. John, who preferred not to give his surname, described what happened on June 16 when workers found reactionary placards placed at the factory entrance. One sign read "Paras shoot to kill," referring to the 1972 Bloody Sunday murders of 14 Irish civil rights marchers by British paratroopers. Another sign, referring to the murder of a local Catholic man, Robert Hamill, read "Hamill's dead--ha ha."

"When we got into work, we didn't start work and sat in the canteen for an hour. Eventually the management came and agreed to get the RUC to take the placards down," John reported. The Protestant workers continued working. "Some supported us, while a few laughed about it."

He said that since then, gangs of loyalists have been outside the factory when they leave, "so we've got the management to open the gate that leads into our area." He also reported enthusiastically that workers in the plant have just secured a majority vote to be organized into a trade union.

"We've seen the true face of the Orange Order in the last week when Harold Gracey refused to condemn the violence and the loyalist paramilitaries," MacCionnaith stated in an interview.

The Orange Order, an exclusively Protestant organization, has been a key pillar of British rule. But along with the broader Unionist forces--those that support the "union" of Northern Ireland with the United Kingdom--it has been seriously divided and weakened by the last 30 years of unbroken nationalist struggle.

Significantly, no major figure from the Ulster Unionist Party, the largest pro-British party, was at the July 9 parade this year. And former Orange Order leader Martin Smyth took his distance from the Portadown actions.

The Newsletter, a pro-Unionist Belfast daily, editorialized that the Orangemen of Portadown "are exhibiting all the signs of consigning themselves to the wrong side of history." Likewise, an editorial in the London Times was headlined "The Orange Order must stop marching towards the fringe."

The British rulers took advantage of this high point of the "marching season to send 2,000 extra troops, deploying them once again on the streets in Portadown, Belfast, and other areas. The razor wire and other barriers had been erected by the British troops to enforce the ruling that barred the Orange Order from marching through Garvaghy Road--in what residents leader Breandan MacCionnaith described as a "ring of steel" around the community. Francie Molloy said nationalists "do not see the British government as their protectors. At this point the troops are here as a necessary evil, but we want to see the whole security presence removed."

A few days after the government-run Parades Commission ruled against the Garvaghy parade, it said that an Orange Order parade could go through the nationalist Springfield Road area July 12. "It's a trade-off," said Robert McClenaghan as he and 120 other residents mounted a protest July 7. Residents there already confronted a June 24 Orange march through their area.

McClenaghan pointed to a high wall separating this predominantly Catholic area from the predominantly Protestant area. Over the wall you can see several flags of the paramilitary Ulster Freedom Fighters flying. "They come through a gate at the top of the road which is only ever opened for these marches," explained McClenaghan. "On June 24 there were 100 RUC jeeps [armored Land Rovers] to protect the 1,000 Orange marchers. We had 3,000 on our counterprotest."

Pete Clifford is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union. Julie Crawford, a member of the National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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