By Cathal McNaughton
PORTADOWN, Northern Ireland, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Around 2,000 protesters blocked a route into the Catholic area in a Northern Irish town that a contentious Protestant parade was due to walk down on Sunday morning, a march that has historically been a flashpoint of sectarian disputes.
Northern Ireland's Parades Commission on Friday permitted the Protestant Orange Order group to march along the Garvaghy Road, a Catholic enclave in the largely Protestant town of Portadown, overturning an almost 30-year ban on the route.
Crowds including Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill of Irish nationalists Sinn Fein and the party's leader, Mary Lou McDonald, gathered on the road overnight after Belfast's High Court dismissed an application by residents to stop the parade early on Sunday morning.
"This is madness," McDonald told reporters shortly after 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) when the march was due to begin. "This, in fact, is primitive treatment of any community in the year 2026. It is intolerable, and it will not be tolerated.
"This is a dignified and united community, and they are absolutely determined that they and we will not be drawn back into the past."
SMALLER PARADE THAN USUAL
McDonald and O'Neill called on the British government and police to intervene to put a stop to the parade. O'Neill said she had spoken to Britain's minister for the region and the Irish government.
Police vans parked nearby had earlier played out a warning that anyone taking part in the protest was committing a criminal offence.
A small group of Orange Order members wearing traditional silk orange sashes and black bowler hats gathered at another part of the town, a picture posted on X by Democratic Unionist Party lawmaker Carla Lockhart, showed.
The Parades Commission's determination on Friday stipulated that a smaller-than-usual 35 people could take part in the march, that it should begin by 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and finish by 9:30 a.m. and that no supporters or bands would be allowed.
(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson; Writing by Graham Fahy and Padraic Halpin; Editing by William Mallard and David Holmes)
