Marching Down the Garvaghy Road: Republican Tactics and State Response to the Orangemen's Claim to March their Traditional Route Home after the Drumcree Church Service

Abstract

This study outlines the background and circumstances of the dispute over the Orange Order's claim to the right to parade down the Garvaghy Road after their annual Drumcree church service. This dispute has soured community relations in Northern Ireland and caused deep embarrassment to the British government, Unionists and many other groups for over five years now. However, it is the analysis of this article that such embarrassment and bad community relations was the desired outcome for one of the major participants in the dispute, the Republicans. It is argued that they deliberately set about conducting protests against Orange parades in the most confrontational manner possible. Their aim was to create a substitute for bombs and guns, an ongoing form of violence which they could use for political advantage during the talks known as the peace process. Whilst there is undoubtedly a long-established degree of nationalist resentment against the Orange Order on which Republicans were able to play, the open confrontations on the Garvaghy Road in recent years took much deliberate manipulation to become the violent clashes of today. The dispute is thus an example of terrorist tactics in which conventional terrorist violence is replaced by street violence. It is also an example of a case in which a weak and uncomprehending state made matters worse by trying to bargain with the perpetrators of violence.