A request by Bangor Orange District Lodge to use Ward Park to commemorate Orange Victims Day was denied because it was not requested with enough time for equality screening, an officer for Ards and North Down Borough Council has said.
At a council committee meeting in Newtownards this week, councillors and officers responded to controversy after the request to use the park to honour deaths of Orange Order members during the Troubles was denied.
The council officer said the request should have been made at least 12 weeks in advance.
The council said it had a legal obligation “to promote good relations,” including screening third party requests to use the council’s land. The screening process meant the memorial could not be held on September 8.
The council also said the use of a flagpole was turned down in line with the council’s current flag policy, under which the Union flag is flown only on 15 designated days per calendar year at its war memorials.
Two weeks ago, North Down MP Alex Easton said Ards and North Down Borough Council’s decision was “a grave injustice” to all those murdered by the IRA.
He said the council’s decision to hold an equality impact assessment was “a bureaucratic obstacle that disregards the significance of this event” and said the decision caused “deep hurt and disappointment to families of victims, veterans and the wider community”.
At the council’s Corporate Services Committee meeting this week, Wesley Irvine, Independent Councillor for Bangor Central and Orange Lodge member, said many people across the borough “didn’t understand or were dismayed” to learn that Bangor Orange District Lodge weren’t able to have a short act of remembrance at Ward Park last Sunday.
He said: “It was deemed necessary (by the council) that an EQIA (equality impact assessment) would be required to be carried out before permission could be granted for that particular act to take place.
“Unfortunately that process was not known by the organisers, they didn’t know that would have to be fulfilled. It put our council in a bit of a sticky wicket, that we were being seen to turn down a service primarily to remember members of the Orange Order who lost their lives during the period of the Troubles.
“I don’t think anyone in this chamber would put obstacles in the way of that service taking place. Services like that are important for healing, for remembrance, and it is important we have space for innocent victims to be remembered.”
The Orange institution lost 343 members to violence during the period known as the Troubles. The September date chosen by the Bangor Lodge for the memorial refers to the killing of five Orange lodge members at a rural Orange hall meeting in Tullyvallen on September 1, 1975. The date of September 1 is remembered as Orange Victims Day.
Councillor Irvine said the Bangor District Lodge was planning a meeting with Ards North Down Council Chief Executive Susie McCullough in the coming weeks.
DUP Councillor for Bangor East and Donaghadee James Cochrane said: “I would like to commend the District Lodge for the very dignified way they held their parade and wreath laying, as individuals, on Sunday. I think it was a credit to the institution.
“I am committed to working alongside fellow councillors, council officers and members of the institution to ensure that next year we will be able to have the service.”