‘Let them live in peace’: Protestants and Catholics alike express relief in Drumcree

In a loyalist enclave of Portadown a group of young men cheer as they watch a Premier League football match on their friend’s phone.It is lunchtime on Saturday and a high court challenge against a decision to ban an Orange Order march down the nationalist Garvaghy Road is due to begin 30 miles away in Belfast.One of the men is from a Protestant background and says he is “relieved” that the two-week standoff has ended.“Let them live in peace. Give it up. There was no need for a march,” says the man, who does not wish to be named.READ MOREThey are standing on a street in the Brownstown area of the Co Armagh town, a short distance from the loyalist Corcrain and Edgarstown housing estates.Murals of the Portadown True Blues flute band and Mid Ulster UVF are painted on gable ends in Edgarstown.Paramilitary flags fly above them.Pointing to his six friends, the man says three of them are Catholic.Leeds United have just scored a goal against Arsenal and they are celebrating on the street.There is no talk of Northern Secretary Chris Bryant’s intervention the previous evening that led to the Orange Order march from Drumcree Church being halted “in the best interests of peace”.Instead, the group is looking forward to travelling to Belfast for the evening to celebrate a friend’s birthday (a Leeds fan).They work together in a pharmaceutical company in the town.Bosses banned the Drumcree dispute being discussed in the workplace from “day one”, says the man.“A lot of people from my background aren’t happy and have a different opinion to me,” he adds.“But we’re all friends. We all think the same thing, there was no need for it.“Both sides don’t want it.”Another friend from the Garvaghy Road joins him.“As soon as the parade got the go-ahead, everyone was talking about it. There have been a few heated conversations in work.“We speak it among ourselves but it’s only banter.“We’re all in our late 20s and knew there was no point in going back to dark days, especially when there’s been peace.”Orangemen gathered outside Drumcree Church on Saturday ahead of the legal challenge, which has been adjourned until Monday.One man stationed outside the church refuses to discuss the fallout following Bryant’s ruling.[ Orange Order legal challenge to Garvaghy Road parade ban adjourned to MondayOpens in new window ]Overnight the order issued a statement expressing its “profound disappointment” and said it was seeking urgent meetings with the Northern Secretary and PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher.Blue and Orange flags in support of the Orangemen – emblazoned with “Here we stand and we can do no other” – fly outside some homes in the loyalist housing estates.A resident, who has one of the flags hanging from an upstairs window, is unwilling to give his reaction to developments over the past 24 hours.“I don’t trust Irish newspapers,” he says.A woman in her 20s who grew up in the loyalist stronghold says she was “happy” when she heard the news on Friday night.She adds she is too frightened to speak publicly.“My family wanted the parade at the start but then they got sick of the circus around it. They felt it was dragging on for too long and causing too much tension,” says the woman.On the Garvaghy Road the last of the tents which filled the road during the standoff are being dismantled.Only one gazebo remains standing by midafternoon.Much like Brownstown and Edgarstown, nationalist residents are reluctant to go on record.“We work with people from the other side and we don’t want any tension,” says a man packing away crates of bottled water.A concert was due to be held on the Garvaghy Road on Sunday but has been cancelled.“It’s over. We’re relieved someone saw sense – but there’s to be no triumphalism,” says the man.He admits he is worried about the impact of the standoff on his three children.A Facebook post has appeared overnight warning parents from a Protestant background not to let their children “mix with those from Catholic schools”.“My wee lad’s school is beside a Protestant school. There’s probably only one person that owns that unionist [Facebook] page but that’s the level of hatred,” he says.“You would be wary about going into town. If you went into a bar, you’d be on edge now.”Some older residents are more optimistic for the next generation.There has been no violence throughout the dispute, one pensioner remarks.Sectarian tensions during the Drumcree standoff in the 1990s were linked to 21 murders.The loyalist community “has been told to obey the law, which it’s done the whole way through,” says the pensioner, who lives on the Brownstown Road.“In this town now, the amount of hardline loyalists is basically nil. All the old hands are gone,” he adds.“I honestly don’t think the younger generation is interested. “I’m a Protestant in my late 60s living in a loyalist area and I don’t believe there’ll ever be the trouble that we saw about here 30 years ago.“I think that ship has sailed.”