What is the Garvaghy Road dispute all about?

For a few years in the 1990s, the Drumcree parade dispute was one of the biggest stories in Northern Ireland - and then, for 28 years, it fell out of the public eye.

Now, almost three decades on, the parading row, which sparked some of the most serious public disorder in Northern Ireland's history and was linked to several deaths, is back in the headlines.

It came after a court case in which a ruling on Drumcree by the Parades Commission - the organisation formed during the Drumcree dispute to decide on contentious marches during Northern Ireland's parading season - was overturned.

Now the commission is under fire, while residents and the Orange Order appear to be setting out their stall for a renewed fight over the future of the parade.

But how did we get here?

There are thousands of parades every year and most pass off peacefully.

Most are organised by the Orange Order, the most prominent of the "loyal orders" associated primarily with Protestants in Northern Ireland.

The order and its members take part in parades, which peak during marching season between April and August. The major day of the season is 12 July, when Orangemen and women march to commemorate William of Orange's victory over the Catholic King James II.

However, many Catholics see the marches as sectarian and, in the 1990s, there were disputes over those that passed through, or close by to, Catholic or nationalist areas.

Perhaps the most hotly contested dispute was over the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, used as part of the Orange Order's traditional march from Drumcree Church ever since since 1807 on the last Sunday before the Twelfth.

The route for their parade in Drumcree was used for centuries, but demographic changes means that it would pass through a mainly Catholic area - the Garvaghy Road.

Over a number of years the route became contentious, with protests from residents living along the road.

In the 90s, marches were seen as a public order problem, with the main responsibility lying with the police.

The march became a serious political issue in 1995 when Northern Ireland's police force at the time, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), decided to re-reroute the parade to prevent it from passing through the road.

There were intermittent clashes at Drumcree, with protesters throwing bottles and bricks and stones, and officers firing plastic bullets. Trouble occurred in several loyalist areas.

Eventually a few hundred Orangemen were allowed to walk the route, despite protests from local nationalists.

In 1996, the RUC again decided to stop the march from going down the Garvaghy Road.

This sparked loyalist violence across Northern Ireland, during which a Catholic taxi driver was murdered.

The serious violence that erupted featured in confidential state papers from that year.

The UK government and RUC then staged a dramatic U-turn, allowing a symbolic 1,000 marchers to complete their route.

This in turn sparked a week of rioting from nationalists. Amid this unrest, republican dissidents were blamed for a bomb attack at the Killyhevlin Hotel at Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, which injured 40 people.

The government set up the independent Parades Commission to try to find a solution.

The following year, the march is allowed down the Garvaghy Road, despite residents' protests.

This sparked nationalist rioting across Northern Ireland, with cars set alight and police firing hundreds of rounds of plastic bullets.

But it was the commission's ruling a year later that set the stage for a decades-long dispute.

The Parades Commission is responsible for deciding whether restrictions should be placed on marches. For example, they can restrict a parade from a particular area or put a restriction on music.

The commission makes its determinations after considering submissions from both sides.

In 1998, the newly established Parades Commission ruled the Orange Order should not march down Portadown's Garvaghy Road on the end leg of its annual march after the Church of Ireland service at Drumcree Church.

About 1,000 police and 1,000 soldiers were deployed to enforce the decision.

The Army and RUC built a barricade on the road which links Drumcree Church with the Garvaghy Road and dug a trench, which was then lined with barbed-wire, through adjoining fields.

Despite the commission's ruling, the Orange Order maintained it would march down what it said was its traditional route.

On Sunday 5 July, those taking part in the parade left their service at Drumcree Church and marched up to the barricade, where the stand-off began.

Over the following days, thousands of Orange Order members joined the marchers in Portadown to demand access to the road.

Widespread disorder broke out in Portadown and across Northern Ireland.

Between Saturday 4 July and Tuesday 14 July, there were more than 2,500 public order incidents recorded, according to RUC statistics in an Ulster University archive.

Of these, 615 attacks were on members of the security forces, including 24 shooting incidents and 45 blast bombs.

More than 140 houses were damaged in attacks during the violence across Northern Ireland.

But things were to get worse, with one of the most infamous incidents in the history of the Northern Ireland conflict, known as the Troubles.

Three children - Richard Quinn, 11, and his brothers Mark, nine, and Jason, eight - were killed in an arson attack on their home, in Ballymoney, County Antrim.

One man was later convicted over their deaths. Police believed the attack was motivated by sectarianism, as the boys were part of a Catholic family living in a predominantly Protestant estate.

Their deaths created widespread revulsion, extending even as far as then US President Bill Clinton.

The Orange Order's County Armagh chaplain at the time, the Reverend William Bingham, called for the protest at Drumcree to come to an end, saying: "No road is worth a life, let alone the lives of three little boys."

Stand-offs continued in subsequent years as members of the Order walked to police barricades in protest at the restrictions. Protests were also held by residents living along the Garvaghy Road.

The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland has applied to complete the full march for the past 28 years, with the exceptions such as during the Covid pandemic - but every year has been denied permission by the Parades Commission.

A small number continued to protest at not being permitted to parade along the route by making their way from Drumcree Church on Sundays for a short walk before turning back. They stopped when a member of the order took the commission to court.

While tensions do remain, community relations within Portadown have improved considerably since the peak of the Drumcree dispute.

For decades, the situation at Drumcree has settled into a relatively minor stand-off that no longer makes headlines.

However, that changed last week after a decision by the Parades Commission to impose restrictions on the 2026 parade was quashed in the High Court.

It follows a legal challenge brought by a member of the Order, which saw the commission concede it had made a procedural error in how it dealt with the application.

Not all six members of the commission had signed off on the final determination before it was issued.

The Order said it made "the position of the current commissioners untenable".

It has led to the biggest hurdle the commission has had to face, with calls for them to stand down, but the chair, Prof Evelyn Collins, has said she does not intend to resign.

One member, Billy Gamble resigned, but the five other members remain in place.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant asked the commission to outline how they intended to rebuild lost confidence in their work. After it replied, he concluded that all five members, including the chair, should stay in their positions in spite of the court case.

Instead of changes, he has ordered an independent review of the commission.

A judge-led review into the Parades Commission is due to begin this month and be completed before the end of November.

In a written ministerial statement, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Sir Chris Bryant gave more details about the review.

He said: "Although the terms of reference are still being finalised, the review will concentrate on the commission's decision-making procedures - placing particular emphasis on ensuring that decisions are evidence-based, transparent, robust and fair in order to eradicate the procedural defects that were identified.

"The legal framework of the parading sector, as set out in the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998, remains outside the scope of this review.

"The review will commence this month, with the final report submitted to myself and the chair of the commission within two months of the review commencing."

The chair is Professor Evelyn Collins and she is joined by four others on the commission.

The name of the judge who will lead the review has not yet been announced.

Sir Chris has asked officials to launch a public appointments process as soon as possible to appoint commissioners.

The Order plans to apply for another Drumcree parade.

It would include walking along the Garvaghy Road. One of the commission's next tasks will be to consider that request.