Debate contribution: Orange Order Marches
Debate contribution by Ms Michelle O'Neill on .
- MLA
- Ms Michelle O'Neill
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 21 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Orange Order Marches
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5742202
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Member for the question, which is very topical given that the adjudication will be made this week. As I have done repeatedly throughout recent weeks, I send my full support and solidarity to the people of the Garvaghy Road. That is a very strong and proud community, as you have heard our colleague John O'Dowd restate in the Chamber. It is a community that is confident and very much focused on the future, and one that has made much progress over the past 30 years. I saw that for myself when I visited the community in recent weeks. It is also a community that has suffered an awful lot of heartache, pain and trauma as a direct result of the dark and miserable period of unwanted marches being forced through its heart, and the mayhem and murder that accompanied that. Last week, everybody was reminded of the murder of Robert Hamill. That all happened around that time. When people think about Drumcree and the Garvaghy Road, they think about Robert Hamill, the Quinn children and all the deaths that occurred at that time. Today, you see residents of other areas coming forward. Again, John O'Dowd spoke about it earlier. We have a letter from community associations across the North that talk about all the work that has gone into trying to move things forward, uphold citizens' rights and find local accommodations, and the potential for all that to unravel just because the Orange Order wants to get its way at Drumcree. That is a desperate situation. The letter speaks for itself. The people of the Garvaghy Road do not want those wounds to be reopened. No right-minded person out there wants those wounds to be reopened. It begs the question as to why the Orange Order and political unionism want to reopen the issue. I do not think that anybody else wants that.
316 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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