It has been a depressing and revealing week in Northern Ireland. The unexpected re-emergence of the long-dormant dispute over an Orange Order march from Drumcree Church down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown has laid bare some uncomfortable truths about the state of civil society almost three decades after the Belfast Agreement was signed. And it raises equally awkward questions about the fitness for purpose of the institutions the agreement put in place.
The credibility of the Parades Commission, the body created in 1998 to take the heat out of contested marches, is now in tatters. A judge found that it had been processing the Portadown application on autopilot, and its attempt to repair that failure produced a determination few people could follow. Whatever the legal merits of its decision to permit a parade, nobody appears to have thought seriously about the likely consequences.
Those consequences were entirely predictable. A mass sit-down by thousands of people was joined by nationalist politicians, including First Minister Michelle O’Neill. That in turn sparked outrage and calls for criminal proceedings from unionists, who argued that a head of government who joins a protest against a lawful ruling sends a corrosive signal about which laws are binding. The bitterness and rancour continued throughout the week.
The irony is that the regulation of parades has been one of the success stories of post-agreement Northern Ireland, as a combination of cross-community mediation and firm rulings led to agreed solutions at all the major flashpoints with the sole exception of Drumcree. What the current events show, and what the people of Portadown know, is that despite a generation of peace and significant demographic and cultural change, old sectarian resentments remain as entrenched as ever in many places.
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The PSNI has been criticised for its role in the commission’s decision. The force has been left in a difficult position, although the absence of injuries so far is to its credit. It remains to be seen whether prosecutions follow, and against whom.
The Court of Appeal will hear the residents’ challenge on Monday, and every side should accept its verdict without qualification. But no judgment can resolve what is a question of how neighbours treat one another. A lasting settlement will demand that residents and Orangemen alike make do with less than outright victory.
Above all this sits an Executive whose two leading parties seem more concerned with not being outflanked by provocateurs and intransigent voices on their own sides than with seeking a solution.
The architecture that was devised in 1998 and amended by the St Andrews Agreement of 2006 held out the hope that sharing power would slowly generate trust. That hope increasingly looks misplaced.
