The DUP’s Carla Lockhart has described an application from the Orange Order to march down Portadown’s Garvaghy Road during Sunday’s All-Ireland football final as “forward-thinking”.
Since 1998, the Parades Commission has repeatedly told the Orange Order they could not march down the Garvaghy Road at the end of their annual march from Drumcree Church.
The Upper Bann MP denied the latest application from the Portadown Lodge was a stunt to increase tensions, calling the application “forward thinking”.
“I think it’s a positive attempt on the part of the Portadown District to complete their church parade which would consist of a 10-minute parade down the Garvaghy Road in ranks of four with two accordion bands, something they have been seeking to do for the past 26 years,” she told BBC Good Morning Ulster.
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“They have been at the hill at Drumcree every Sunday – 52 Sundays in a year – and I believe this is a real opportunity for their civil and religious liberties to be upheld.”
She added: “Their assessment is right, most of the people on the Garvaghy Road – I would assume – will be cheering on and supporting the Armagh team.
“So I think this is a real forward-moving step and supporting the application and meeting the Parades Commission at 2pm today.”
Ms Lockhart then accused the Parades Commission of making “cut and paste determinations” over the years and failed in their legal obligation to facilitate mediation.
“This is an opportunity for the Parades Commission to do something different and for our culture and heritage to be respected.”
She also said that “demographic change” on the Garvaghy Road, including young families with no memory of the previous tensions, had changed the situation.
Former SDLP MLA Dolores Kelly called the application “absolutely crazy”.
“Talk about being chancers, and for Carla to suggest that this is because of demographic change.
“If she wants to talk about demographic change she should look at the route out to the church, which is actually now through quite a built up area.”
Saying the application was “picking at old wounds,” she said not too many would forget the worst years of Drumcree when “the British army and police were there en-masse.
“There was barbed wire across the fields where there were people killed.”
Ms Kelly continued: “I spoke to a senior member of the Orange Order a few years back.
“It wasn’t about just a return parade, it was about asserting a right. And Carla and others should realise that there’s no absolute right to march in any area.
“The desire of the Orange Order to march wherever they want, those days are long gone and they’re not going to be resurrected, regardless of any demographic change.
“It’s only going to be where there’s consultation, communication and good neighbourliness.
Calling it an act of “bad faith” from the Orange Order, she said Ms Lockhart would have better served her constituents by sharing her good wishes with the Armagh team.
On that point, Ms Lockhart said: “I don’t take any interest in it and I don’t follow it, I’ve obvious issues with the GAA around naming of clubs after republican terrorists, their constitution.
“But certainly, on a very local level I wish them well.”