AT around 3am on Sunday September 27, bright lights illuminated the residents who were gathered on Garvaghy Road in advance of the Orange Order parade which was notified as leaving Drumcree church at 8am.

The crowd gathered together, linking arms and preparing for what they anticipated were the jets of the water cannon coming to clear them off the road.

As it turned out, it was the lights of two buses from Belfast, full of people who had come to support the local community.

Whilst there is a humorous twist to the story, it sets out starkly the re-traumatisation of an entire community who recall being dragged from the road in 1996 and 1997 in order to force through an Orange Order march after days of loyalist violence, murders and intimidation.

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The sectarian murders of Richard, Jason and Mark Quinn in the early hours of July 12 1998 was the turning point which ultimately broke the momentum of the Drumcree protest that year, and since then, the Parades Commission had ruled that the Portadown march should not include Garvaghy Road on its route.

The reversal of that decision and the subsequent legal battles and campaign of civil disobedience of the last week will return to the courts today.

But what has happened over the last week is monumental. People in their tens of thousands have visited Garvaghy Road to show their support and solidarity with the community there.

The Orange Order argue that this is only 35 silent marchers without bands or flags early on a Sunday morning that would disturb no-one.

At the same time, they freely acknowledge........

© The Irish News