Residents of the Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Northern Ireland, have spent days blocking their street to stop a Protestant Orange Order parade from marching through the predominantly Catholic area for the first time in 28 years.
Residents have linked arms and stood guard in their community, preparing to resist the parade, according to Al Jazeera.
The standoff follows a court decision that cleared the march to proceed. Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal on Saturday overturned a temporary injunction that residents had obtained to stop the parade, rejecting a final legal attempt to block the route, according to court reporting.
Around 35 members of the Orange Order were due to march down the Garvaghy Road, a largely nationalist area of Portadown in County Armagh, on Sunday morning, and the rally pressed ahead despite police warnings, the Irish Times reported.
The Garvaghy Road was at the centre of the Drumcree conflict, a series of disputes over Orange Order parades in the 1990s that brought repeated standoffs between marchers, residents and security forces. Parades through the road were halted 28 years ago.
An appeals court ruling this year allowed Orangemen to march the Garvaghy Road for the first time since then, reviving tensions. According to an account of the dispute, residents responded by blocking the road while Orangemen refused to disperse or take another route.
The confrontation has renewed a long-running legal and political dispute over parading in Northern Ireland, with residents maintaining their presence on the road and further marches contested.