More than 50% of people in NI back move to ban Orange Order parade at Drumcree

Just over half of people in Northern Ireland believe the British government was right to intervene and ban the controversial Orange Order march at Drumcree, according to a report published on Wednesday.

Polling by research agency More In Common found 53 per cent agreed with Northern Secretary Chris Bryant’s decision to block the parade following a two-week stand-off between members of the Orange Order and residents of the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown.

Nationalist and Alliance voters overwhelmingly supported the Northern Secretary – with 91 per cent of Sinn Féin voters, 84 per cent of SDLP voters and 81 per cent of Alliance voters saying it was the right decision, but a majority of unionist voters disagreed.

Overall, the same proportion of respondents - 53 per cent - said the Parades Commission was wrong to give the go-ahead for the march on the Garvaghy Road for the first time in 28 years.

More sympathise with the Garvaghy Road residents (38 per cent) than with the Portadown Orange Order (21 per cent), while among Protestants, fewer backed the Orangemen (42 per cent) than chose not to take a side (44 per cent).

The report found the “clear priority” for people in Northern Ireland was that the stand-off in Drumcree ended without violence, with 82 per cent agreeing it mattered to them.

This desire to avoid violence was shared regardless of religion, political affiliation or whether respondents supported the Orange Order or the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road residents in the dispute.

The only resolution deemed acceptable by voters of every party was that the Orange Lodge’s “right to parade is confirmed, but it chooses not to use it”, the report found.

The march, in Portadown, Co Armagh, was given permission by the Parades Commission to go ahead on September 27^th, but was blocked by residents, leading to a two-week stand-off.

Bryant intervened on October 9^th to revoke permission for the parade following a request to review it by the Chief Constable, who said all options save for a “substantial public order intervention” had been exhausted, and this carried with it an “unacceptable risk of serious injury, disorder and a wider contagion effect.”

The Drumcree march was a flashpoint during the 1990s, leading to widespread violence and death, including the murder of the three young Quinn brothers in their home in Ballymoney, Co Antrim in 1998.

Wednesday’s report – “Drumcree: What Northern Ireland Thinks” – was based on the views of 1,019 adults surveyed online in Northern Ireland between October 9^th and 26^th.

Respondents were “weighted according to age/sex interlocked, local authority, 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election vote, ethnicity, and community background interlocked with age and education level”, the study noted.

More In Common was founded in the aftermath of the murder of British MP Jo Cox in 2016 and describes its work on the island of Ireland as “a research agency working to understand and help leaders better navigate public opinion and expectations across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland”.

The study, which it said was “the largest examination of public attitudes in Northern Ireland so far following the resurfacing of the Drumcree dispute in recent weeks”, also looked at the impact of the dispute on voting intention and voters’ opinions on Stormont.

It found that in the wake of the Drumcree dispute Sinn Féin’s support increased by five percentage points, from 25 per cent in its July poll to 30 per cent in October, while the DUP remained “steady”, rising to 18 per cent from 17 per cent over the same time period.

Half of respondents (49 per cent) said Drumcree was “not a strong enough reason” for any party to pull out of the Stormont Executive, while a quarter (27 per cent) felt it was.

The report concluded that unionist voters were “more open to a Drumcree-related Stormont collapse, but they are split”, with UUP voters more likely to say it was not a good enough reason, DUP voters split, and the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) “the only group where a clear majority – 72 per cent – would back a Stormont walkout on Drumcree.”

Asked whether leading unionist figures “did more to calm things down or make them worse”, Deputy First Minister and DUP MLA Emma Little-Pengelly was “the only figure that DUP, UUP and TUV voters all credit with calming things down”.

Loyalist activist Jamie Bryson received no such credit from any unionist group, and among Protestants as a whole was “the figure most likely to be seen as having made things worse”.

Conleth Burns, associate director at More in Common, said it was “clear … Sinn Féin have been the main political beneficiary from the Drumcree fallout” but the DUP “remain the main party of unionism”.

“Beyond the politics, it’s clear that divides on Drumcree are deeply felt across NI,” he said, with communities disagreeing “sharply on what has happened, who is to blame and what an acceptable ending to the dispute could look like”.

But given that “two-in-five don’t pick a side”, and most people wanted the dispute to end without violence, he said the study showed “optimism about the future endures”.