Tensions are mounting in north Belfast ahead of Thursday’s contentious Orange Order parade past the Ardoyne shops, the scene of serious republican rioting in recent years.
Loyalists were this evening staging a protest close to the shops to express their opposition to a Parades Commission ruling that the return feeder parade involving one band and three Orange lodges must happen by 4pm on Thursday.
In previous years the controversial return parade happened between 7pm to 8.15pm. Senior Orange Order figures and members of the North and West Belfast Parades Forum, which represents Orange and loyalist interests in the area, contend that it will be "impossible" for the return parade to meet the 4pm deadline set by the Parades Commission.
They complained that the return element of the main parade would only be taking place around that time. They said that the 4pm deadline would prevent the north Belfast Orangemen fully engaging in the speeches and religious ceremony at Barnett Demesne in south Belfast where Orangemen and supporters gather at the completion of the outward element of the main parade.
"In addition to the normal denials of rights and freedoms that the Parades Commission regularly impose, this impossible demand would deny these brethren the opportunity to attend the platform proceedings, including the religious service at Barnett Demesne," said a spokesman for the County Grand Orange Lodge of Belfast.
A judicial review is expected to be lodged by the North and West Belfast Parades Forum at Belfast High Court tomorrow to try to compel the commission to change its 4pm ruling and allow the return feeder parade take place at a later time.
There are also concerns around a decision by the commission to allow the nationalist Greater Ardoyne Resident Collective (GARC), viewed as sympathetic to dissident republicans, stage a parade at Ardoyne shops at 5.30pm on Thursday evening.
The commission was meeting this evening to review the latest developments. The PSNI in recent years has been forced to stage major security operations to try to deal with the serious rioting that has erupted in the nationalist Ardoyne area in the wake of the return feeder parade.
There is also growing concern around a return Orange parade in Crumlin, Co Antrim.
Peter Osborne, chairman of the Parades Commission, has appealed for calm ahead of the Twelfth of July marches.
