Garvaghy Road residents go to court seeking to halt Orange Order parade

A court in Belfast has allowed an appeal of the decision to bar the Orange Order parading down the predominantly nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Co Armagh, on Sunday.

At 11.30pm on Saturday, at a sitting of the Court of Appeals, Chief Justice Siobhan Keegan said the Belfast High Court judge who granted an injunction against the march had “unfortunately erred in law”.

Members of the Orange Order had been banned from marching down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown after a judge granted a temporary injunction.

Residents of the largely nationalist area launched a legal challenge against the Parades Commission ruling permitting the Orange Order to walk down the street on Sunday for the first time in 30 years.

On Saturday, Judge Patricia Smyth blocked the commission decision, saying the “long-running dispute has the potential to escalate” across Northern Ireland.