Northern Ireland After the Cease-Fire

by photographer Andrew Moore
2000 FiftyCrows PhotoFund Winner

The pictures submitted with this proposal portray the divisions and anger aroused by the Northern Irish “marching season.” The Protestant tradition of the Orange Order Parading through the summer months has long been a source of contention, but the last five years have seen an unprecedented bitterness and fallout, most of which can be traced directly to the annual Drumcree parade in Portadown (the most staunchly Loyalist town in Northern Ireland).

In 1995, following a long period of relatively peaceful marching seasons, the Nationalist (Catholic) residents of Garvaghy Road (through which the parade passes) announced that they would no longer accept what they considered to be a Protestant supremacist organization passing through their area. The RUC (police) and the British Army blocked the process of the parade announcing they could not guarantee peaceful passage through the area. Eventually, an agreement was reached that the parade could pass in silence down the road. The Orange men however, unable to contain their sense of victory, marched in a boisterous and triumphant manner. The incensed Catholic residents vowed that “Orange feet” would never again be allowed down their road. In 1996 and 1997 the Garvaghy residents occupied the road but were brutally removed by the security forces to allow the march through. In response to this and random sectarian attacks on Catholics by Protestant paramilitaries, rioting swept through Nationalist areas throughout Northern Ireland. In 1998, the security forces banned the parade, standing  firm against the Orange men and their supporters. Loyalists throughout Northern Ireland were furious and reaction was swift. There were widespread attacks on Catholic churches and homes, culminating in the fire-bombing and murder of three Catholic children living with their mother on a predominantly Protestant estate in the small town of Ballymoney. The killing of the children and the date of the attack, July 12th (the most important date in the Orange calendar marking the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne), left even many Orange Order members deeply shocked and caused serious rifts within the leadership of the movement. As I write, in late August 1999, the Portadown Orangemen are still campaigning to be allowed down the Garvaghy Road. There are, however, few signs that this will be allowed without an agreement being reached with the Nationalist residents.

The events surrounding Drumcree and similar events have given the world’s media a skewed impression. Rather than signaling that things are spiraling out of control, the traumatic events are, I believe, a reaction to real change. Protestants are adjusting to the reality that they no longer live in “a Protestant State for a Protestant people,” and Catholics are assuming and asserting a growing sense of equality. In an era when large areas of the Balkans are moving into situations not unlike that of Northern Ireland 30 years ago, I feel this is an important time to focus on a conflict with a real opportunity for resolution.