{"id":784174,"date":"2026-09-27T10:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T10:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/784174\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T10:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T10:42:10","slug":"drumcree-protests-as-controversial-orange-order-march-due-to-go-ahead-for-first-time-since-1997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/784174\/","title":{"rendered":"Drumcree: Protests as controversial Orange Order march due to go ahead for first time since 1997"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘It brings into question how the peace process works’ – First Minister Michelle O’Neillpublished at 09:55 BST<\/p>\n

09:55 BST<\/p>\n

\"MichelleImage source, Getty Images<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill, who is among the protesters on Garvaghy Road, says the reignition of the Drumcree dispute \u201cbrings into question how this whole peace process works\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some in the crowd blocking the Garvaghy Road this morning have been heard shouting \u201cbring Stormont down\u201d while O’Neill says there are those in “Orange Order and those within political unionism that want to drag us backwards”.<\/p>\n

Stormont – Northern Ireland’s devolved government – has existed for almost 30 years as a power-sharing arrangement between the largest nationalist and unionist parties. It has collapsed several times over the decades when one side or the other has withdrawn from government. <\/p>\n

The last time it happened was February 2022<\/a> with it taking about two years before the institutions were up and running again. <\/p>\n

Asked if the power-sharing could collapse, O’Neill says: \u201cYou heard it about the people\u2019s view of Stormont. You heard it about the terms of politics working for them, and you hear it here time and time again and we\u2019ve certainly heard it over the last 24 hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the point? What\u2019s the point whenever people are going to railroad over their rights? Whenever they\u2019re going to try to roll back in 28 years of progress?<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I can tell you what we\u2019re about. We\u2019re about the future. We\u2019re about building on our peace and progress. We\u2019re about not allowing people to bring us back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘It brings into question how the peace process works’ – First Minister Michelle O’Neillpublished at 09:55 BST 09:55…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-784174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}