The weekly loyalist protest outside the Church of Our Lady in Harryville, Co Antrim, has officially ended. The announcement was made last night, eight days after a rerouted Apprentice Boys parade was allowed to take place at the nearby nationalist village of Dunloy.
The protest, which started in September 1996, was intended to highlight the parades controversy in Dunloy, but on several occasions descended into rioting and sectarian violence.
"The protest served admirably to focus attention on the Dunloy problem," said a spokesman for the protesters. "We can now bow out with a sense of achievement in the knowledge that our actions helped to keep the plight of Dunloy Orange brethren in the spotlight."
The protesters made no apology for their actions and criticised Protestants who showed solidarity with the Catholic parishioners, including the Ulster Unionist Mayor of Ballymena, clergy and the RUC.
Recent support for the protest, which once included Billy Wright, the LVF leader murdered inside the Maze prison, had waned to a handful, far fewer than the 400 who turned up each Saturday night at the height of the parades crisis.
A Ballymena SDLP councillor, Mr Declan O'Loan, said he greatly welcomed the announcement that the protest was over. He said the news would be welcomed by Protestant and Catholic people in the town. "This provides an opportunity in the context of the wonderful referendum result to rebuild relationships here," he added.
Mr O'Loan said he hoped the resolution of the Harryville problem might persuade the protagonists at the centre of other contentious marches, including Drumcree, to strengthen their efforts to solve those problems. The weekly Harryville protest generated great sectarian tensions in Ballymena. Each Saturday night scores of policemen were called to the town to protect Catholic parishioners as they made their way to evening Mass past a gauntlet of loyalist protesters. The church at Harryville was attacked on several occasions and there were a number of attempts to burn the building.
A number of Catholic homes and schools were petrol-bombed. The Church of Our Lady is in the middle of a staunchly Protestant area. During the worst of the troubles several hundred protesters gathered outside the church heckling and jeering as parishioners went to Mass.
Protestant clergy and Unionist politicians rallied to the aid of the parishioners, holding solidarity meetings outside the church at Mass times.