There will be no respite from the continuing tension in Northern Ireland. While Drumcree Sunday passed off relatively peacefully, Portadown Orangemen have intensified their campaign by calling for demonstrations across the North this evening.
By 12.30 this morning a cold, wet and windy Drumcree was practically deserted after a crowd of many hundreds dispersed, following a half hour stand-off involving youths and police. Bottles and stones had been thrown at the barricade at the bottom of the hill, as well as fireworks, but no damage was done.
Soldiers, landed by helicopter, advanced across the Rector's Field where many cars were shining headlights which showed crowds of youths spreading along the stream in the direction of St John's Cemetery. Two helicopters circled overhead. The cars were ordered from the field. Some flares and fireworks were fired but no one was injured. Earlier a youth was arrested when he crossed through the wired off area between the stream and the Garvaghy Road.
Beside the steel barrier at Drumcree bridge, the district master of Portadown, Mr Harold Gracey, yesterday exhorted Orangemen to persist peacefully with their protests in spite of warnings that such demonstrations were degenerating into violence. The Orange parade to Drumcree church took place without major incident yesterday morning. About 1,500 Orangemen, watched or followed by about 1,000 supporters, marched from Portadown town centre to the parish church. When they marched down to the 20-foothigh RUC/British army barrier they were denied access to the nationalist Garvaghy Road for the third year running.
The Orangemen dispersed after attending the church service and listening to speeches, but Mr Gracey insisted that they would maintain a presence at Drumcree until their parade was allowed to pass along the Garvaghy Road. The numbers at Drumcree yesterday were down on previous years, but the real test of the commitment of the Orange membership to the continuing protests will be in the coming days. Between now and Wednesday, the Twelfth, they must decide whether to support the escalation of their protest or allow it to peter out, as occurred last year.
Tension has been heightened by the Orange Order's call for protests across Northern Ireland between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. today. The Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, has expressed concern about this evening's protests. Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, spokesman for the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, said the fact that yesterday's parade had been conducted peacefully was merely a public relations exercise by the Orange Order. A car-bomb explosion outside Stewartstown RUC station in Co Tyrone shortly before 1 a.m. yesterday further fuelled community tensions. Nobody was seriously injured in the blast. The RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, blamed the "Real IRA" for the bombing.
The Sinn Fein Minister of Education, Mr Martin McGuinness, who visited the scene of the explosion in Stewartstown yesterday, described it as a direct attack on the peace process. Mr Johnny Adair the former UFF prisoner and anti-agreement unionist Mr Frazier Agnew were among those who gathered on Drumcree hill last night.