An application for an Apprentice Boys parade through a nationalist area of south Belfast has sent a “wave of fear” through the community, according to a parades’ campaigner.
Hundreds of residents from the Lower Ormeau area have contacted Gerard Rice about the proposed loyalist march along a route that was a parading flashpoint and site of a sectarian massacre during the 1990s.
The Parades Commission is currently considering the application by Belfast Walker Club for a procession on Saturday November 7th.
This is the first proposal at a contentious parading site since the commission ruled that a controversial march could go down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown last month.
Protestant loyal order parades have been prevented from proceeding over the Ormeau Bridge into the nationalist area since 1999.
The latest application would take in the scene past Sean Graham’s bookmakers where five Catholics were murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1992.
Rice has represented the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community, a residents’ advocacy group, since violent clashes erupted over parading disputes 30 years ago.
There has been relative peace since then, he said.
The group has lodged a “full submission” to the Parades Commission.
“This community remains resolutely opposed to parades coming down through the area,” Rice told The Irish Times.
“I think the overwhelming opinion, from both sides of the community, is that no one wants to go back.
“Even though the application was made last week, people only found out about it yesterday. It was like a wave of fear going through this community.
“Hundreds of people have contacted me about concerns and apprehension they have around the potential for what happened in Drumcree happening here.
“We have done our best to reassure people that it will not happen.”
Previous applications have been made by the Apprentice Boys to walk to the route as part of annual Remembrance weekend ceremonies.
Last year’s bid by the Belfast Walker Club was banned from the Lower Ormeau area – the march still went ahead through non-contentious areas – after the commission ruled there were continuing “sensitivities”.
The fresh proposal is for 80 members to parade from Ballynafeigh Orange Hall before passing through the Ormeau Road, across Ormeau Bridge and onwards to Donegall Pass.
“This is not a new application or response to Drumcree,” added Rice.
He pointed out that residents “never had to go to the Parades Commission about this parade – until now”.
“The commission has always issued a determination,” he said.
“It’s always been the Apprentice Boys come down the road, get on a bus, and go to Donegall Pass and then go on about their parade.
“That’s the way it’s been.”
Statements made by Orange Order representatives earlier this week – loyalist activist Jamie Bryson claimed “traditional routes” would be marched once again – have “heightened concerns” among residents, Rice added.
On Monday evening, an unnotified parade took place on Belfast’s Shankill Road in what was the first organised protest by loyalists since the Orange Order’s parade along the Garvaghy Road was banned by Northern Secretary Chris Bryant.
Rice said he hoped that the Parades Commission “would see sense”.
“There hasn’t been a threat of a parade on the Lower Ormeau in 26 years,” he added.
“Work has been quietly going on across the communities over that time.
“The groundswell of opinion is that young people are not for going back. What we are trying to emphasis to people is ‘go about your business and behave normally’.
“In the Lower Ormeau, marching and the hurt caused by it is never far away.
“This parade shouldn’t happen.”