Talk:Drumcree conflict

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The subject of this article[edit]

This article is entitled the “Drumcree conflict” which indicates that it is about the conflict surrounding the parade from Drumcree Church to Portadown via the Garvaghy Road.

The lede, however, states that the conflict is “an ongoing dispute over parading in the town of Portadown”, which implies that “Drumcree” is not merely about the Drumcree parade, but about other parades in Portadown.

I therefore amended the text to say “The Drumcree conflict is an ongoing dispute over a parade in the town of Portadown” (although it might actually be better to say “an Orange parade”).

The amendment was reverted with the comment “this is also about Obins Street - every year the Orange Order apply for permission to march along that road also”.

I dispute, however, that the “Drumcree conflict” is also about Obins Street. There may have been conflict in relation to Obins Street in the past, but the recent/current issue of “Drumcree” relates only to the July parade to Drumcree Church along Garvaghy Road. Is there a source to say that the “Drumcree conflict” is about Drumcree AND Obins Street?

The Obins Street issue is rightly dealt with in the article, by way of history/background, but that does not mean that the lede should imply that the Drumcree conflict is about parades generally in Portadown. Mooretwin (talk) 12:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why would you want to separate this particular instance of parade disputes in Portadown from the long history of parade disputes in Portadown? The only justification I could think of is if you want to push the falsehood that parade disputes are a recent phenomenon, but maybe you have a better reason. --Eamonnca1 (talk) 17:38, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about the dispute over the "Drumcree parade" – the Orangemen's march to-and-from Drumcree Church that takes place once-yearly. The "traditional route" includes Obins Street, Dungannon Road, Drumcree Road and Garvaghy Road. They apply for this route every year and protest when it's refused.
To say that the dispute over Obins Street and Garvaghy Road are two different disputes is just splitting hairs and is akin to recentism (if you ask me). It's a single dispute over a single parade. Until 1995 the outward leg was the most contentious part and since 1995 the return leg has been the most contentious part.
Let's not forget that there's a slew of Orange parades in Portadown each year. This article focuses on one of those and mentions a couple of others that were directly related to the dispute (for example the 17 March 1985 incident).
~Asarlaí 19:18, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Eamonn - "Why would you want to separate this particular instance of parade disputes in Portadown from the long history of parade disputes in Portadown" - I've already said that the article rightly refers to other disputes as background/history, but the article is about the Drumcree conflict, which is about the Drumcree parade going down or not going down Garvaghy Road. The article is not about "Parading in Portadown". Mooretwin (talk) 22:44, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Asarlai - if you agree with me that the conflict relates to "a single dispute over a single parade", why object to the lede saying this? Mooretwin (talk) 22:44, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not against the introduction saying "a dispute over a parade", though I'd prefer "a dispute over parading" as the parade takes place every year. What I'm against is the part "The Orange Order insists that it should be allowed to march along the town's Garvaghy Road". I explained my reasons for this in the last post. To put it very plainly... that wording implies that the dispute is (and has always been) only about one road, which is not the case. ~Asarlaí 00:32, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good. So can we edit the article to state that the confict surrounds a parade, rather than parading generally? Maybe "annual parade" would meet your concern? I do disagree, though, when you say the dispute is not only about one road. The conflict (which is the subject of the article) is about the Garvaghy Road and no other part of the parade. There may be a token complaint about Obins Street, but that is not what the conflict is about. The stand-off took place at Garvaghy Road, the sit-down protest was on Garvaghy Road, etc. Mooretwin (talk) 09:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The dispute did not begin in 1995, it intensified and became front-page news in 1995. I've covered this already.
I suggest you read my posts and the article more thoroughly. ~Asarlaí 14:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The article is about the Drumcree conflict. The conflict was/is about the Garvaghy Road and began in 1995. Many parades are disputed without leading to conflict. Obins Street may technically/tokenistically be disputed but the Drumcree conflict has not involved any conflict in relation to Obins Street. Mooretwin (talk) 14:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This parade has been disputed since the nineteenth century and that dispute has led to conflict many times since then – 1873, 1883, 1885, 1886, 1892, 1903, 1905, 1909, 1917, 1931, 1950, 1972, 1985, 1986, 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998 are years when major violence was recorded. To say that the dispute/conflict only began in 1995 is plain wrong. ~Asarlaí 14:54, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The sources don't support that. There may have been violence during those years, but that's not the same as the parade being disputed. Mooretwin (talk) 20:34, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What was the violence about then? --Eamonnca1 (talk) 21:03, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I don't know. It doesn't say. Do you? Probably sectarian clashes. Mooretwin (talk) 23:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A march “through” the town’s mainly Catholic and nationalist area?[edit]

The lede says that the Orange Order insists that it should be allowed to march through the town's mainly Catholic and nationalist area on its traditional route to and from Drumcree Church.

I thought it would be more neutral to say that the Order insists that it should be allowed to march along the town's Garvaghy Road, which is bounded on either side by the town's mainly Catholic and nationalist areas, on its traditional route to and from Drumcree Church.

This change, however, was reverted.

Any views? I think the current lede gives a rather misleading impression (i.e. that the parade actually goes into the Catholic estates, rather than down a main road alongside the estates, whereas the suggested lede is accurate and avoids giving such an impression. Mooretwin (talk) 12:27, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Through" the catholic area is correct. Trying to partition the road from the houses on that road is an orange propaganda tactic that has convinced few people outside of their own organisation. Please try not to confuse the Orange POV with NPOV. --Eamonnca1 (talk) 17:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Through" a Catholic area is nationalist POV - the houses in the estates don't even face on to the road (or at least very few do). The text I proposed is accurate and neutral. The article is biased enough, why resist even this modest modification? Do you deny that the parade goes along the Garvaghy Road, or that the Garvaghy Road is bounded on either side by nationalist areas? Mooretwin (talk) 22:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reality has a well known nationalist POV. Walk along the Garvaghy Rd in a Rangers top and if you make it without incident then you can claim that it's not a nationalist area. --Eamonnca1 (talk) 22:50, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll ignore that rather disturbing comment, and ask again: do you deny that the parade goes along the Garvaghy Road? Do you deny that the Garvaghy Road is bounded on either side by nationalist areas? Mooretwin (talk) 23:19, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Its a clever little spin you're trying to put on things, but the Garvaghy Rd is a nationalist area. Fact. That a few houses happen to be set back from the road or happen to have no windows overlooking the road does not change this fact. The idea that the road is somehow separate from the surrounding houses and is therefore "neutral territory", as you are trying to imply, is preposterous. --Eamonnca1 (talk) 23:25, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trying to imply that the Garvaghy Road isn't "nationalist". I'm merely trying to avoid giving a wrong impression that the parade actually goes (or would go) into a residential estate. The suggested text is accurate, and makes clear that the road passes alongside nationalist housing, without over-egging it. We're trying to be neutral here. Try to rise above your personal perspective and think about providing clarity without implying too much. Mooretwin (talk) 23:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but if anyone around here needs to rise above their personal perspective, it's not me. You cannot possibly be seriously implying that the position of the windows on a few houses and their distance from the road means that the Garvaghy Rd is not a nationalist area. That's the way housing estates were built in those days. You could go through Ballybeen and find areas where the houses are set back from the road and don't necessarily face it, but that does not mean that it's just a road that is bounded by a loyalist area. Ditto for many areas in Northern Ireland that were developed in the 60s and 70s. Take a look at Poleglass or Twinbrook. The distance of the houses from the road or position of the windows does not make the adjacent road neutral territory. --Eamonnca1 (talk) 00:04, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mooretwin, I understand where you're coming from, but I really don't see how "marching through" implies "marching right into the housing estates".
Anyway, I think the new wording gets the facts across without even having to mention "marching through"...

The Orange Order (a Protestant organisation with strong links to unionism) insists that it should be allowed to march its traditional route to-and-from Drumcree Church. It has marched this route since 1807, when the area was sparsely populated. However, today most of this route falls within the town's mainly-Catholic and nationalist quarter, which is densely populated. The residents have sought to re-reoute the parade away from this area, seeing it as "triumphalist" and "supremacist".

I can add citations for any of that if you think it's needed.
~Asarlaí 00:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Asarlai, the new wording is better, although is it not the case that it is only the route from Drumcree Church that is in dispute (i.e. the Garvaghy Road). Do the residents not request that the parade returns to Portadown via the same route that it used to get to Drumcree? Also there is no need for hyphens in "to and from". Mooretwin (talk) 09:11, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recent changes[edit]

Much to discuss Asarlaí. Let's start with the term, "nationalist". I do not believe it shows a neutral POV to use this term with regards to housing areas. In my view they are areas which are populated almost 100% by Catholics, which makes them Catholic areas. Some of those people are nationalists. Some are republican. Not all of them are. The reason for this is simple. Close to the area is St John's Roman Catholic Church, re-sited to the junction of Garvaghy Road in the 1970's from its former site 400 yards away on the Dungannon Road. Note it's not a nationalist church, it's a Roman Catholic church.

I also note you changed "enclaves" to "enclave". There are two Catholic enclaves in Portadown. One at Garvaghy Road, including the Churchill Park estate and one in the Tunnel district, (Obins Street). These are at least 1/2 mile apart. You repeat this error when referring to "the Catholic area" instead of "Catholic areas".

In my considered opinion this is an area where many editors go wrong. They assert nationalist or loyalist ownership of housing estates. These areas are largely populated by Protestants or Catholics. They are ruled by gangs of thugs who call themselves loyalist or nationalist who are very much in the minority but who organise street bunting, painting kerb stones, triumphal arches (orange), protests, riots or whatever. The ordinary populace are afraid to speak out against them for fear of being targeted. Now I have manifold sources for those assertions. Do you want me to correct the POV by putting them in? Or do we simply agree amongst ourselves that the estates are Protestant and Catholic?

Voting unionist doesn't make a person unionist either. In the odd world of Northern Ireland politics Protestants vote unionist because they don't have a choice. It's vote unionist or nationalist because those are the only serious parties for the working man. So Portadown isn't a unionist town, it's 70% Protestant.

You also assert there was a gun battle between the UDA, RUC and IRA. This is untrue. An IRA gunman fired several shots one of which wounded a loyalist rioter. A lone policeman returned fire by emptying the magazine of his SMG into the Tunnel flats at a range far beyond the weapon's accuracy. That was the extent of the so called "gun battle". It was over in 30 seconds. The UDA did not participate. So while you have a source, it is inaccurate. Fine for the moment as it meets WP:Verifiability but needs another source to reflect the true circumstances of the event.

"Army" doesn't need to be capitalised, unless it is at the start of a sentence.

We've got to move away from the partisan terms Asarlaí. SonofSetanta (talk) 10:36, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing this to the talkpage SoS.
On the use of "Irish nationalist" and "unionist":
If (for example) there's a group of people or residential area that's mainly Catholic and consistently votes overwhelmingly for Irish nationalist parties, I don't see how it's biased to call them and their area "mainly Catholic and Irish nationalist". Almost all of the sources do so. Using "Catholic" alone implies that everyone involved is a practicing Catholic and that the dispute is about religion. It ignores those who are Irish nationalists but aren't practicing Catholics. It also ignores the political dimension (for example the fact that members of political groups are involved). All of this applies to Protestants and unionists too.
The article says "enclave" rather than "enclaves" because Garvaghy Road and Obins Street are part of the one enclave and most of the sources refer to it as such. They're not cut off from one-another by a Protestant area.
As for the gun battle, I'm not asserting that there was one, I'm just reporting what the source says. If other sources say otherwise then we should of course re-word that bit.
Lastly, "Army" is capitalized because it's part of the organization's name: British Army. It's the same as calling the Royal Ulster Constabulary "the Constabulary" or the Orange Order "the Order". ~Asarlaí 23:04, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The talkpage is the place for it on every occasion Asarlaí. As Irishmen we know all too well what happens when you don't discuss things.
Re: nationalism/unionism. We don't stigmatise people on the wiki because of how they vote. Most people in NI vote on partisan lines but that doesn't make them nationalist or unionist and its wrong to try and tag them as such. WP:MOS makes it clear that we should soften the language used in these articles, so lets get rid of the party political broadcasts and remove the nationalist or unionist tags except where it's really necessary. All you're doing is giving credence to the gangs who try to dominate people in Housing Executive estates. People in Portadown are 70% Protestant and Obins Street/Garvaghy Road are Catholic areas.
Obins Street and Garvaghy Road are indeed cut off from each other. Fields, acres of them, are between both of them for a start, as is part of Corcrain, including an Orange Hall. Craigwell Avenue and Ballyoran Hill also separate them by road and they are mixed areas. Churchill Park is bounded on one side by the Protestant Woodside Estate. There's a map here [1]. So it's two enclaves mate, not one, no matter what any author says.
The gun battle happened as I said it did. The fellow standing next to me was shot in the upper arm. He was the only casualty. So we know the quote about it is untrue. I suggest we either remove that quote or find an accurate source. The IRA shots came from the flats in Obins Drive. A loyalist mob was trying to invade through a gap in the wall which an beside the old railway marshaling yards (no I wasn't part of the loyalist mob lol).
"Army". Basic English mate, we do not capitalise nouns unless they are part of a name. The word "army" on its own isn't a name. Take a look at the Army article and you'll see what I mean. Unless it's at the start of a sentence army is always lower case, as is police.
If we can't agree these points we'll have to have a vote or an RfC. SonofSetanta (talk) 08:49, 20 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Irish nationalism/unionism. My last post explained this. "Mainly Catholic and Irish nationalist" is more inclusive than "Catholic" alone; it includes Irish nationalists who aren't practising Catholics and it includes members of political parties/groups (for example we wouldn't call the SDLP a "Catholic party"), who played a key role in the dispute. Almost all of the sources (which includes, for example, the BBC and government reports) use the terms "mainly Catholic and Irish nationalist" or "mainly Protestant and unionist". In fact, many a time they avoid the religious tags altogether and just say "mainly nationalist" or "mainly unionist". If we say "Catholic" alone or "Protestant" alone we're not only being misleading but misrepresenting the sources. Your arguments are based on your assumption that people only vote for the same parties each election because they're forced to, and that calling an area "mainly unionist" or "mainly Irish nationalist" is helping "gangs of thugs".
I don't mean to be rude, but I'm afraid your description of Portadown is wrong. Craigwell Avenue, Ballyoran Hill and Woodside are almost 100% Catholic and have been since the '70s. The area around Corcrain Orange Hall is almost 100% Catholic too. The estates off Garvaghy Road and Obins Street aren't separated by fields but by a stream, which flows thru a narrow strip of wasteland and a park. You could walk straight from one to the other without going thru a Protestant area. Here's some maps: [2] [3] [4] [5].
My last post also explained why "Army" is capitalized, but as it only appears once I'll not make a big deal out of it. ~Asarlaí 00:56, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
All I can see happening here is you giving your opinion and me giving mine with neither of us yielding to the other. Your maps aren't very good btw. What we need now are other opinions so I might make an RfC on this. SonofSetanta (talk) 07:45, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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