ORANGEMEN throughout the North should follow the lead of the Co Antrim lodge in refusing to negotiate with community groups for the right to march, the Spirit of Drumcree group leader said last night.
Mr Joel Patton was speaking before a Ballymena rally called to support the decision of the Antrim Orangemen earlier this month to reject a proposed compromise with residents of the nationalist village of Dunloy.
Mr Patton said he hoped the organisers of other contentious parades would also refuse such accommodations during the coming marching season. He added that he did not know what would happen at Drumcree and other potential flashpoints, but hinted that nonviolent methods of protest could be pursued.
The rally was addressed by several Orange leaders centrally involved in local disputes, including Mr John Finlay, secretary of Dunloy Orange Lodge, and Mr Gerard Marshall of Dromore Lodge in Co Tyrone, where a similar dispute over marching rights is continuing.
Mr William Smyth, one of the organisers of the protest which overturned attempts by official Orange leaders in Antrim to resolve the Dunloy standoff, also spoke.
Mr Patton added the rally was also intended to take the pressure off small lodges like Dunloy, whose members felt forced to march in some form or another. "We need to get off this thing of lodges having to march. The main thing is that Orangemen do not suffer the ignominy of having to ask for consent to march in their own areas."
All attempts to broker compromises with residents groups should be resisted, he added, regardless of who was involved.
He did not envisage a repeat of the violence which accompanied last year's marching season, but did not expand on alternative tactics: "I'm not saying what they might be but I believe that confrontation is counterproductive."
