Paul Mc Daid

Garvaghy Road is not a misunderstanding. It is a street that was sealed by troops, petrol-bombed, and stained by murder so a parade could claim it. Lockhart calls a line of bowler hats “nothing to fear.” In the 1990s that road was a war zone. Over 2,000 soldiers and police around 4,500 residents. In ten days in July 1998: 2,500+ public-order incidents, 615 attacks on the security forces, 632 petrol bombs. People died in that dispute. Michael McGoldrick, shot by the UVF in 1996 as a warning. Adrian Lamph, a Garvaghy Road worker, murdered in 1998. Robert Hamill, kicked to death in Portadown. Rosemary Nelson, the residents’ solicitor, blown up in her car. Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn — 11, 9 and 8 — burned in their beds on 12 July 1998. Even Drumcree’s chaplain said no road is worth three little boys. That is the history she wants reduced to “Republicans whipping people bussed in.” Rule of law is not a one-way slogan. Today’s walk only exists because it was capped at 35 men, no bands, no supporters. Those limits exist because the old version wrecked the peace. An MP who stood with masked men at Scarva does not get to lecture anyone about dignity. This is dinosaur politics. Younger people are already leaving it behind. They will not spend the next 30 years re-fighting a road that already cost children their lives.