Orange protest in Shankill passes off peacefully

A massive protest by Orange Order members and their supporters in Belfast has passed off peacefully.

A massive protest by Orange Order members and their supporters in Belfast has passed off peacefully.

Over one thousand people, including a dozen bands from different Orange Order lodges, took part in the march in the Shankill area of Belfast as police kept a discrete presence.

The protest was held after Orangemen postponed a contentious parade which was banned from passing through a nationalist area in west Belfast.

However, the Order has warned it is determined to march along its traditional route in west Belfast before the autumn after it abandoned plans for today's Whiterock parade.

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The Order's North and West Belfast Parades Forum decided to postpone the contentious march in the Whiterock area of the city after the Parades Commission rerouted it.

Residents in the nationalist Springfield Road area welcomed the abandonment of today's march.

In a statement, nationalist residents said the only way to resolve the matter was for the parade organisers to resume negotiations with the residents.

However, DUP councillor and Orangeman Nelson McCausland said the Order was determined to march in the area without being re-routed, as the forum decided to stage a protest parade in the Shankill area instead.

"The protest parade today is only the start and we would encourage people to support that protest parade. Then over the coming weeks and months that campaign strategy will unfold," Mr McCausland said.

"It undoubtedly will include such things as an exploration of a legal challenge to what the parades commission has done.

"But in the end we are determined to secure our basic right to parade there to the Whiterock hall as brethren have done for the past 48 years."