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CNN Live Saturday

Protestant Marches in Northern Ireland Kept from Catholic Neighborhoods

Aired July 07, 2001 - 17:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Residents of Portadown, Northern Ireland awoke today to find razor-wire strung throughout their neighborhood and British troops on patrol. The barricades intended to keep Protestant marchers out of the Catholic enclave on Sunday and avert another year of violent clashes that occur around these march seasons.

Tensions have been on rise in the troubled British territory now that the peace process is near collapse.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FIONNUALA SWEENEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Drumcree Church in Portadown: Locals watch as British army soldiers race to finish their work, one day before arguably the most contentious parade of Northern Ireland's marching calendar. Their task: To ensure that after church service on Sunday, members of the Protestant Orange Order will be unable to march towards the nationalist Roman Catholic Garbaghy Road, whose residents object to the parade.

BRENDAN MACCIONAITH, GARBAGHY ROAD RESIDENCE'S ASSN.: From a Catholic nationalist viewpoint, they stand for supremacy. They stand for domination and they stand for a denial of nationalist rights.

SWEENEY: This annual parade through a small village in the Northern Irish countryside has, for many Protestants, come to symbolize Unionism's struggle to retain its identity in the wider search for peace. Orangemen say they want to uphold their traditional right to march peacefully. But some say the presence at Drumcree last year of loyalist paramilitaries has undermined their cause and created a dilemma within the Orange Order, founded solely to promote and defend the Protestant faith.

CHRIS RYDER, JOURNALIST: Well, they have exposed the divisions within the Orange Order. The Orange Order has said they don't want support from Protestant paramilitary organizations, yet the biggest embarrassment to their protest has been caused by these Protestant paramilitary organizations.

SWEENEY: The Reverend John Pickering has been the rector of Drumcree Parish for the past 18 years. He says the church and the Orange Order are separate entities. REV. JOHN PICKERING, RECTOR, DRUMCREE PARISH: The church absolutely dissociates itself with all trouble. The Orangemen come to the service, they go out and make their protest, and then unruly elements get among them. But because there is unruliness, that is not to be associated with the church.

SWEENEY (on camera): The Drumcree march is taking place against the backdrop of increasing tensions throughout Northern Ireland following the resignation last weekend of David Trimble as first minister over the issue of IRA disarmament. Police intelligence reports indicate there may be less violence at Drumcree this year than in previous summers, but most agree that the propensity for violence will hinge on the size and strength of loyalist paramilitaries who come to Portadown.

(on camera): Some Orangemen deny a debate on the future of the organization and what it stands for is under way. But some believe that if the order is to survive and remain relevant to Protestants, it must change.

RYDER: The Orange Order has swept all the problems that it faces under the carpet. Does it stand just for marching where it's not wanted or does it have some wider purpose in protecting the Protestant religion, Protestant civil rights, the Protestant heritage as it sees it.

SWEENEY: In the meantime, Reverend Pickering knows his sermon this Sunday could be influential in determining events after the service.

PICKERING: I'll be thinking about the barrier as a symbol of the end of the road for the Orangemen and as Orangemen feel it. I will be saying that some people feel that the barrier is the end of an era in Northern Ireland, but I'll be saying it need not be like that. There is a new day, there is hope ahead.

SWEENEY: Fionnuala Sweeney, CNN, Drumcree, Northern Ireland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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