The marching season
The marching season in the Northern Ireland spans April to December. The majority of the marches are organised by the Loyal Orders: the Orange Order, the Apprentice Boys and the Royal Black Preceptory.
The Loyal Orders are secret societies from which Catholics are excluded. Members of any Loyal Order must swear that they have no blood or marital connection with any Catholic. The Loyal Orders are exclusively Protestant, Unionist and pro-British.
In Portadown, approximately 40 parades are organised each year by these and other loyalist groups. With the exception of the return leg of the Drumcree parade along the Drumcree and Garvaghy Roads, all the marches take place in the town centre or other areas of the town which are predominantly loyalist. Although these marches cause major inconvenience and annoyance to local Catholics, it is only the return leg of the Orange Order's Drumcree parade which nationalists actively oppose.
A number of marches go through areas that are predominantly Catholic, such as the Garvaghy Road in Portadown and the Ormeau Road in Belfast. Such marches are considered by nationalists to be akin to Ku Klux Klan marches through black communities in the United States.
In these disputed areas, the Loyal Orders refuse to meet with residents' groups to discuss re-routing parades and marches away from contentious and controversial paths.
The local member of parliament for Drumcree is David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, a member of the Orange Order and first minister in the new assembly. Trimble refuses to meet with the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition (his constituents) and has never responded to correspondence from the coalition.
An alternative to the Garvaghy Road route is available to the Orange Order. This alternative route — along the Corcrain and Dungannon Roads in Portadown — is that taken by the Orange Order into Drumcree.
Portadown is a predominantly loyalist town in County Armagh, with a population of 28,000. Almost all of the 600 Catholics there live in housing estates along the Garvaghy Road. Many had been forcibly evicted from their homes in other parts of the town by pro-British loyalist paramilitaries.