Latest on Drumcree Parade

(15 Jul 2001)
APTN
1. Orange order bands men begin march from centre of Portadown
2. Wide of street as marchers approach
3. Harold Gracey District Master Portadown Orange Lodge watches marchers approach Drumcree church
4. Marchers arrive at Drumcree church
5. Marchers leave church and head towards Garvaghy Road barricade
6. Pan from barricade to waiting Orangemen
7. Security on the other side of the barricade watching marchers
Pool
8. Various of Security
9. Wide of Church with marchers
APTN
10. Handing over of the letter
11. SOUNDBITE: (English), Harold Gracey District Master Portadown , "Please, please keep this peaceful. I am sure that the Reverend Pickering will appreciate that, if not me, I thank you all once. This protest will continue either with my leadership or somebody else's leadership but we will continue until we are allowed to walk down the Garvaghy Road, Thank you very much indeed."
12. Wide shot
13. SOUNDBITE: (English) Brid Rogers, Social Democratic and Labour Party (Nationalist Politician)
"Thankfully I think it is encouraging that it has so far that been peaceful and that the parades determination has been accepted however reluctantly by the Orange Order I would hope that over the next year we would be able to and they will be able to build can build on what is, what looks like, progress today and begin a dialogue with the residents which will lead to an accomodation which in turn will put an end to this period of tension which surrounds Drumcree every year."
STORYLINE:
An estimated two-thousand Protestants marched peacefully in the divided town of Portadown on Sunday in the Orange Order brotherhood's most controversial parade of Northern Ireland's "marching season".
Portadown members of the Orange Order marched from the centre of Portadown via predominantly Protestant streets on their way to a rural Anglican church on Drumcree hill.
But their return route via the town's major Catholic enclave, Garvaghy Road, was blocked by a six foot high-steel barricade flanked with razor wire.
The Orangemen then massed behind the steel wall.
The standoff has become part of an annual confrontation between Orangemen and British soldiers and police. It is the fourth consecutive year they have been banned from walking through the Catholic enclave.
Although hundreds of British troops and police were involved in the security operation only a few soldiers were visible at the blockade.
Despite the peaceful march, anti-catholic extremists have been increasingly active in the run-up to the major Orange marches this month.
Their latest victim, 19-year-old Ciaran Cummings, was buried Saturday, three days after being shot in the head by a gunman on a motorcycle.
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