Garvaghy Road

I’ve been thinking a great deal about Drumcree and Garvaghy Road, partly because I’m Irish, and because for many years I chaired the Community Advisory Board advising the Mayor of London’s team on the St Patrick’s Parade.

That experience taught me that parades/marches are more complex than they appear from the outside. They are not simply processions. They are expressions of identity moving through shared public space, and with that come responsibilities as well as rights.

The route matters because communities change, demographics shift, memories accumulate and the political temperature around a place can change with them.

Parade management is therefore not just about whether a route can be used. It is about understanding the impact of a parade on the society through which it moves.

What does it communicate to the people who live there? Does it build confidence and belonging, or create unease and division? Does it contribute something positive to the civic space it occupies, or does the route itself become the dominant political message?

I believe the Orange tradition has the right to be observed. But the right to parade/march is not necessarily the same thing as a right to preserve a historic route indefinitely. Equally, a local demographic majority does not mean that public space belongs exclusively to one community. The challenge is how to hold both principles together.

One thing we understood very clearly around the St Patrick’s Parade in London was that the cultural purpose of the parade had to remain greater than its political purpose. Once a parade becomes mainly about proving a political point, asserting a right over a particular space, or showing who has yielded to whom, its nature changes. It becomes less about culture and more about power.

A successful parade should be able to honour its past while still functioning meaningfully in the society around it. That means asking what is essential to the tradition, and what can evolve without weakening it.

Drumcree has changed, and so has the meaning attached to Garvaghy Road. Good cultural stewardship means recognising that. Those who inherit a tradition do not simply inherit the right to repeat it. They inherit the responsibility of deciding how it should be carried forward and how it grows and evolves. Progress must sit at the heart of carrying tradition forward.