Northern Ireland on Edge as Orange Order Parade Cleared for Garvaghy Road

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham appealed for calm in Northern Ireland on Sunday after a late-night ruling by the High Court in Belfast cleared a contentious Orange Order parade to proceed down Garvaghy Road in Portadown.

The march is the first time in almost 30 years that an Orange Order parade has been permitted to travel the road, a notorious flashpoint during the Troubles. The court hearing concluded at 2:15 a.m. Sunday, giving the parade its final go-ahead.

Thousands of protesters, many wearing balaclavas, gathered to block the marchers. Fireworks were set off nearby about five minutes before the scheduled 8 a.m. start, and a loudspeaker announcement warned participants in an unlicensed counter-parade that they would be liable to arrest.

Burnham said there had been "big gains made in Northern Ireland, and we don't want to see things go backwards," urging restraint on all sides.

Garvaghy Road was the scene of violent clashes over several summers before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement largely ended the bloodshed that left 3,600 people dead, some 50,000 wounded and thousands bereaved. The peace deal sought to balance competing identities in a region that remained in the United Kingdom when the rest of Ireland won independence a century ago. Irish nationalists in the north, most of them Catholic, seek unification with the Republic of Ireland, while largely Protestant unionists want to remain part of the U.K.

Mary Lou McDonald, president of Sinn Fein, the party historically linked to the Irish Republican Army, said the people of Garvaghy Road would "not be drawn back to the past." She called the situation "madness" and "primitive treatment of any community in the year 2026," adding: "It is intolerable, and it will not be tolerated."

Gavin Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the largest pro-U.K. party in Northern Ireland, accused Sinn Fein leaders of inflaming the situation. "The rule of law cannot apply only when Sinn Fein likes the outcome," he said. "Our institutions are founded on respect for the police, the courts and the rule of law."