A DEAL IN DERRY

By Anne Cadwallader

BELFAST — A ground-breaking agreement between both sides in a dispute over a loyalist parade in Derry city was reached Monday after long talks between the Apprentice Boys leadership and the Bogside Residents’ Group.

It means that this Saturday’s main parade in Derry will proceed, but so-called “feeder parades” in vulnerable nationalist areas will not be forced through areas where they are not wanted.

Nationalists accept that the Apprentice Boys can march the full length of the city walls, provided no band music is played and no UVF and UDA banners are paraded through the city center.

There will be strict marshaling to prevent a repetition of drunken mobs running amok and abusing onlookers and shoppers in the city center, while the Bogside Residents’ Group has canceled a planned protest.

There will also be changes in the numbers and route of the parade, with only one side of the Diamond being passed in the city center and 13 Apprentice Boys laying a wreath on the city’s Cenotaph war memorial to represent the whole order.

Donncha MacNiallais, spokesman for the BRG, welcomed the compromise, saying it showed what was possible, given good will. Direct talks were still needed, he said, as the Apprentice Boys still refused to meet the BRG in person.

“If this has been applied to the Drumcree situation, we may have experienced the tragedies which occurred. I believe this approach can still be applied,” he said.

Alastair Simpson, governor of the Apprentice Boys, said it was “a small but significant common-sense step taken for the better future of the city and maintains the dignity of the event.”

In Portadown, however, loyalist bands are nightly parading close to the Garvaghy Road, accompanied by stone-throwing mobs, keeping that community “under siege” according to Breandan MacCionnaith.

“These crowds are gathering illegally, intimidating this community openly, yet the RUC are not attempting to disperse them. Loyalists are coming within a few yards of Catholic homes that were attacked in 1996,” said MacCionnaith.

The Orange Order has filed for a parade every Sunday this month, and another is also being planned in support of the Orangemen’s stand at Drumcree church for Saturday, Aug. 15.

The DUP leader, the Rev. Ian Paisley, and Free Presbyterian minister Willie McCrea are due to speak. The Parades Commission has so far not indicated whether it will be allowed to proceed.

The parade organizers say they expect 1,600 supporters to turn up, along with eight loyalist bands. The parade will take place at the same time as a postponed local community festival, with an open air concert and children’s activities on Garvaghy Road.