Portadown's district Orange Order lodge has insisted there is no split in the Order over the standoff at Drumcree.
Despite the heckling of the Order's deputy Grand Chaplain, the Rev William Bingham, at the parade in Pomeroy, Co Tyrone, its spokesman, Mr David Jones, said: "We don't feel we're under any cloud or split at all. Our district is united under the stand we have taken."
The district is apparently considering options on how to deal with the standoff but refused to give details. Mr Gareth Watson, the chief marshal at Drumcree, said: "We will do everything in our power to make sure we'll get permission to march our traditional route. All our protests will be in a peaceful and dignified manner. I would not divulge what means we had to do so."
Talking to the Garvaghy Road residents is apparently not an option. When it was put to Mr Watson that the issue would have been resolved by talks with the residents, he replied: "Why should we talk to them?"
"At the end of the day he [Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith] has said that he doesn't want Orange feet on the road. We don't have to ask permission off (sic) anybody. Likewise they don't have to ask permission off me to walk up Portadown High Street."
The Armagh County Grand Master, Mr Denis Watson, a member of the talks team at Armagh Civic offices, expressed his solidarity with the district lodge, when he spoke at the county parade in Lurgan. He said the Order would have to move forward in a constructive way but it would not compromise its principles.
About 1,000 people attended and 600 people, including bands, paraded at Drumcree where the Portadown district remained to continue its protest, rather than joining the main county demonstration at Lurgan. There are 1,400 members in the Portadown district.
The District Master, Mr Harold Gracey, told those at the demonstration that "whether it's today, tomorrow, next week or a month from now, we're prepared for a long haul".
Rejecting any interlinking of the deaths of the three boys in Ballymoney with the Drumcree standoff, now in its ninth day, Mr Gracey said it had been "put about that it was a sectarian attack" to play on people's conscience. "When the facts come out we'll be asking for an apology from the Chief Constable". However, an RUC spokesman said police were investigating what they had called from the beginning "a suspected sectarian attack".
Mr Jones said the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, now realised the Order was made of sterner stuff and it had a lot more support than he thought. As for the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr Trimble, "well I just refer to him as our absentee Member of Parliament".
Asked about the level of violence at Drumcree, he said that individuals linked to paramilitaries had caused the trouble. "We're not saying that they were sent in by the paramilitaries but they may have been renegade members who were acting under their own volition. We had attempted to control that and we would ask that the other paramilitaries do the same."
Mr Watson did not think the violence was bringing the Orange Order into disrepute. "There is that element on both sides of the community. There is that element in England. There's that element who go to football matches."
The DUP leader, Dr Ian Paisley, arrived late last night in Drumcree, calling for the protest to be continued and urging all Orangemen in the new Assembly to "stand with us".
After addressing a crowd of approximately 3,000 outside the parish hall, he then went inside for a meeting with officers from the Portadown District Lodge. Also present in Drumcree were the DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson and his wife and Assembly member, Iris, as well as the former DUP MP, the Rev William McCrea.
