THERE may be one or two people observing the events of the past fornight-plus who still believe that the object of the latest attempt to get Orange feet down the Garvaghy Road was the defence of tradition and cultural rights.
If so, we refer them to the inflammatory and intemperate words of the Portadown District’s legal adviser Jamie Bryson on the court steps on Monday when he launched a quite extraordinary and unguarded exposé of what actually lies at the heart of this dangerous and cynical strategy.
Pointing his finger with all the blustering confidence of a street corner demagogue from the 1960s, he said of any prospect of opposition to future parades (including a November march along the Lower Ormeau): “Go ahead, go ahead. Open them all up.
Because you see after the Court of Appeal decision today, we’re going to be walking all of those traditional routes again. So see everthing you thought you had gained over the past 28 years, everything you thought you had achieved in doing away with these traditional parades, go and read the Court of Appeal judgement today. Everything has changed.”
Let’s leave aside the simple truth that the Court of Appeal had ruled that the Parades Commission had the right to make its judgement, and that the court made no comment on the validity of that judgement, and look at what the North Down paralegal is saying.
After his failure to get a march down the Garvaghy Road, he is embarked upon a course which will see the fragile consensus formed around the parading issues shattered into a million pieces. And let no-one think that this telling outburst was an angry and ill-advised response to defeat. Mr Bryson has written in his most recent self-published book that he sees the parading issue – and Drumcree in particular – as a key tool in his campaign to dismantle the Good Friday Agreement.
That Mr Bryson – who turned to the law after a series of colourful outings in the fields of taxiing, journalism and pub door staffing – has got overexcited about the Drumcree case is no surprise. What is surprising is that the rather more sober and contained gentlemen of Portadown District retained him as their legal adviser when his status is such that he has to take a rather distant back seat as soon as the real lawyers enter the court. From the minute and hour the Drumcree Orangemen made the North Down paralegal the face of their campaign, the matter became so toxic and explosive that the already small possibility of their walking the Garvaghy Road disappeared.
As for the future, no doubt m’learned friends will be interested in Mr Bryson’s passionate but almost certainly ill-advised outbursts – made this time, let it be said, without the Portadown Orange leaders by his side. And no doubt the people of the Lower Ormeau and anywhere else that Mr Bryson brings his dog and pony show will be ready for the fray, boosted by the victory of the Garvaghy residents and the power of their cool common sense.
