\u201cNobody wants a return to the past,\u201d MP Chris Bryant said in ruling against the planned march down Garvaghy Road.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/GettyImages-2298143710_x6cmzh.jpg\")
An Irish Republican supporter seen holding a sign saying \u2018From Cable Street To Garvaghy Road, Smash Fascism\u2019 during a rally. The 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street was commemorated on Oct. 4, in the east end of London, while Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Northern Ireland is the site of a recent dispute involving unionists and Irish Republicans. | Credit: Martin Pope\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The British government on Oct. 9 intervened in a simmering dispute in Northern Ireland, ruling that a planned unionist march through a Catholic enclave in the province would not take place due to a \u201crisk of serious injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Sir Chris Bryant said in a statement <\/a> that Portadown District Loyal Orange Lodge \u2014 part of the national Protestant Orange Order fraternity \u2014 would not be permitted to hold its parade down Garvaghy Road through a historically Catholic section of Portadown in County Armagh.<\/p>\n The procession \u201ccannot go ahead,\u201d Bryant said, citing local law enforcement opinion that it would lead to violence, disorder and \u201ca wider contagion effect across Northern Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n Bryant called for \u201call protests, rallies and demonstrations to be stood down,\u201d arguing that there is \u201cno excuse for a continued ratcheting up of tensions.\u201d<\/p>\n The weeks-long tensions have stemmed from historical conflicts in the region between unionists in Northern Ireland who advocate continued rule of the province by the United Kingdom and Catholic-affiliated republicans who largely favor reunification with Ireland itself.<\/p>\n Garvaghy Road itself was the site of numerous conflicts amid the Troubles, the decades-long conflict that saw unionists and republicans engage in regular violent and often deadly clashes. The CAIN Archive at Ulster University estimates<\/a> that more than 3,700 people were killed in the protracted fighting.<\/p>\n Police have largely banned loyalist marches from taking place on Garvaghy Road since the late 1990s due to regular instances of violence that broke out on that stretch of the unionist parade route.<\/p>\n The High Court of Northern Ireland, however, ruled in August against a ban on the march that had been instituted by the Parades Commission, offering unionists the potential opportunity to march down the street for the first time in years.<\/p>\n In his statement announcing the re-instituted ban on the march, Bryant urged residents to \u201cwork together to help repair the damage that has been done\u201d over the past several weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe community in Portadown has been on the sharp end of intense attention for a number of weeks,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will take time to rebuild relations. The least we can all do now is give them breathing space.\u201d<\/p>\n If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating<\/a> to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> for more information on donating to CWR. Click here<\/a> to sign up for our newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNobody wants a return to the past,\u201d MP Chris Bryant said in ruling against the planned march down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-798757","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\/798757","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=798757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}