From 6 to 11 July 1997, there were mass protests, fierce riots, and gun battles in Irish nationalist districts of Northern Ireland. Irish nationalists/republicans, in some cases supported by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), attacked the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army. The protests and violence were sparked by the decision to allow the Orange Order to march their traditional route, passing through a Catholic/nationalist neighbourhood of Portadown. Irish nationalists were outraged by the decision and by the RUC's aggressive treatment of those protesting against the march. There had been a bitter dispute over the march for many years.
It was the last spell of widespread violence in Northern Ireland before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998. RUC and British Army patrols were attacked hundreds of times by rioters throwing stones and petrol bombs, and by IRA members with automatic rifles and hand grenades. They fired more than 2,500 plastic bullets at rioters and exchanged gunfire with the IRA. More than 100 civilians and 65 security force personnel were injured. There were many complaints of police brutality and a 13-year-old boy went into a coma after being struck on the head by a plastic bullet. Hundreds of vehicles were hijacked, set on fire and used to block roads in Belfast and other districts like Newry, Armagh and Dungannon. The RUC and the British troops had to withdraw entirely from some nationalist areas of Belfast. The Provisional IRA's involvement in the clashes was its last major action during its 27-year campaign. The paramilitary organisation declared its last ceasefire on 19 July.
Background
The Orange Order is a Protestant, unionist fraternal organisation. It insists that it should be allowed to march its traditional route to-and-from Drumcree Church each July. It had marched this route since 1807, when the area was mostly farmland. However, today most of this route is through the mainly Catholic/Irish nationalist part of Portadown. The residents sought to re-route the march away from their area, seeing it as "triumphalist" and "supremacist". They likened it to a Ku Klux Klan march through an African American neighbourhood.
The march was first banned in 1832, although the law was ignored by the Orangemen. Local magistrate William Hancock wrote in 1835: "For some time past the peaceable inhabitants of the parish of Drumcree have been insulted and outraged by large bodies of Orangemen parading the highways, playing party tunes, firing shots, and using the most opprobrious epithets they could invent... a body of Orangemen marched through the town and proceeded to Drumcree church, passing by the Catholic chapel though it was a considerable distance out of their way." The onset of the Troubles in 1969 led to the dispute intensifying and triggered a shift in the local population that further strengthened the ethnic divide. In 1987, the Orangemen were banned from marching along Obins Street, after their march caused severe rioting two years in a row. However, the Orangemen were still allowed to march along the other main road in the Catholic area, the Garvaghy Road.
In 1995, residents formed the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition (GRRC) to try and divert the march away from Garvaghy Road. The dispute escalated that July when residents blocked Garvaghy Road for two days. Orangemen and their supporters clashed with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) until the residents were persuaded to clear the road and the march went ahead.
The July 1996 march was banned from Garvaghy Road. Thousands of Orangemen and their supporters gathered at Drumcree and there was a three-day standoff with the RUC. They held large protests and attacked the police and Catholics throughout Northern Ireland. The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) shot dead a Catholic taxi driver and threatened further attacks. As a result, the ban was lifted. Police violently removed nationalist protesters from Garvaghy Road and forced the march through. This sparked days of rioting in Catholic/nationalist areas of Northern Ireland; one protester was crushed to death by a British Army armoured vehicle in Derry (see 1996 Derry riots).
July 1997 Drumcree parade
On 18 June 1997, Alistair Graham warned after the killing of two RUC officers in nearby Lurgan that the IRA was seeking to raise tensions before the march so that a compromise would be impossible.
In June 1997, Secretary of State Mo Mowlam had privately decided to let the march proceed. However, in the days leading up to the march, she insisted that no decision had been made. She met Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who stressed that any unilateral decision to allow the march would be 'a mistake'. The RUC and the Northern Ireland Office said they would announce their decision two or three days before the march. According to a document leaked from the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland in 2021, on 9 June the RUC requested heavy equipment to government agencies in order to remove roadblocks and barricades set up by potential rioters. It was also revealed that the British Army was measuring Garvaghy Road for the possible deployment of bollards.
As the parade day approached, thousands more British troops were flown into Northern Ireland, while thousands of people left the province fearing another outbreak of violence. Garvaghy Road residents set up a peace camp along the road. The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) threatened to kill Catholic civilians if the march was not allowed to proceed and the Ulster Unionist Party also threatened to withdraw from the Northern Ireland peace process negotiations. On 4 July, sixty families had to be evacuated from their homes on Garvaghy Road after a loyalist bomb threat.
On Sunday 6 July at 3:30am, 1,500 soldiers and riot police swept into the nationalist area in 100 armoured vehicles. They took control of Garvaghy Road so it would be free for the marchers. This led to clashes with about 300 protesters, who began a sit-down protest on the road. They were forcibly removed by riot police. Rosemary Nelson, the lawyer for the residents coalition, was verbally and physically abused by officers. Some officers claimed that residents taunted them about the killing of their two colleagues in Lurgan while shouting IRA slogans. From this point onward, the road was sealed off by rows of armoured vehicles and residents were hemmed into their housing estates. As residents were unable to reach the Catholic church, the local priests held an open-air mass in front of a line of soldiers and armoured personnel carriers. Ronnie Flanagan, the Chief Constable, said the march had been allowed to go ahead to avoid loyalist violence. The parade marched along Garvaghy Road at noon that day. After it passed, the security forces began withdrawing from the area and severe rioting erupted. They were attacked by hundreds of nationalists with stones, bricks and petrol bombs. About 40 plastic bullets were fired at rioters, and about 18 people had to be hospitalised.
Violent reaction in nationalist areas
Sunday 6 July
Violence erupted across Northern Ireland that evening as news from Portadown reached nationalist areas. Unionist politicians accused the IRA of starting the riots. Irish republican sources admitted that the IRA was openly involved in the unrest, unlike in 1996, when it had restrained itself from retaliation. The IRA claimed a number of actions in response to the Drumcree crisis. During the weekend alone, the IRA carried out at least nine attacks on British troops.
Belfast
In South Belfast, a lone IRA member with an AKM opened-fire on an RUC checkpoint at Lower Ormeau Road. Five rounds hit an APC parked on the Ormeau Bridge. The attack was filmed by a BBC television crew. Nearby, an IRA unit prevented a British Army riot squad from entering the Markets area after firing 20 machine gun rounds at them.
In North Belfast, several British Army patrols were harassed by gunfire and a bomb was thrown at an RUC base. An armoured vehicle was set on fire in Ardoyne, according to republican sources. Another one was burnt-out on Antrim Road. Late that evening in the Oldpark area, an RUC Land Rover became stuck in a barricade made of iron pilings and its crew had to flee when it was attacked with petrol bombs. The Continuity IRA (CIRA) claimed responsibility for a gun attack on RUC officers in the Oldpark Road-Cliftonville area, which according to the statement left one constable wounded.
In the Lenadoon area of West Belfast, the RUC shot a 14-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl with plastic bullets. The boy was struck in the head and spent three days in a coma, while the girl was struck in the face, knocking out her teeth. The RUC said there was rioting in the area at the time, but republicans denied this, claiming the RUC had arrived in Land Rovers and "opened fire on groups of young people returning home from a disco". The CIRA claimed responsibility for a gun and grenade attack on New Barnsley RUC station, and shots fired on the Stewartstown Road, Andersonstwown.
There was violence at the interface on Lanark Way, which separates the loyalist Shankill and republican Falls districts. Stones, bricks and bottles were hurled across the security fence. An Phoblacht reported that warning shots were fired from the nationalist side.
In East Belfast, the IRA claimed to have fired small arms at an armoured patrol on the Newtownards Road while petrol bombers forced the RUC to close an access road to the M3 motorway.
Another 24 people were admitted to Belfast's City Hospital and Royal Victoria Hospital.
Derry
On Sunday evening in Derry, thousands of people joined a protest march from the Bogside to the RUC base at Strand Road. Martin McGuinness addressed the crowd, calling on nationalists elsewhere to take to the streets to demand "justice and equality" and to "stand up for their rights". Although the protesters returned to the Bogside peacefully, there was violence in the city centre.
At Butcher Gate, there were running clashes between the RUC and at least 300 nationalist youths. Cars were hijacked and burnt and one was set ablaze after being driven through the gates of a bank, while petrol bombs were thrown at the Protestant Apprentice Boys fraternity headquarters by the rioters. It is claimed that the RUC fired "upwards of 1,000 plastic bullets", many of them fired "indiscriminately" and aimed "above the waist, in direct contravention of the rules governing the use of such lethal weapons". A 16-year-old boy suffered "a fractured skull, a broken jaw, and shattered facial bones amongst other injuries" after allegedly being beaten by RUC officers. He was on life support for some time afterwards. An eyewitness described seeing one man, allegedly an onlooker, being shot in the face: "The side of his face was completely torn away, and he seemed to just slump to the ground". Several others suffered serious head injuries. Nine were admitted to Altnagelvin Hospital with plastic bullet injuries. At least 30 others sought treatment at first aid houses or at Letterkenny Hospital across the border. Most of downtown Derry was sealed off by the RUC and British Army.
Newry
In Newry, 3,000 joined a protest march to the Ardmore RUC base, where a rally was held. People marched behind banners saying "Disband the RUC" and "Dismantle the Orange State". Later, masked and armed men set a Social Security office on fire.
County Tyrone
In Coalisland, the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade launched a gun attack on an RUC armoured vehicle outside the RUC base; a female officer from Portadown was badly wounded. Some sources fixed the date of the attack as 5 July. An Orange Order hall was set on fire in Dungannon, where violence erupted, and another in Moy, while nationalist residents forced their way through RUC lines to stop an Orange march in Pomeroy. In West Tyrone, Strabane witnesses the burning of 13 vehicles by republican sympathizers. About 250 petrol bombs were thrown at RUC squads, who fired plastic bullets in return.
County Armagh
In Armagh, hundreds attended a protest rally at The Shambles. Later, the RUC and British Army set up roadblocks on entrances to the town centre, and nationalist youths hijacked a number of vehicles. There were clashes between nationalists and the RUC on English Street; two youths were injured by plastic bullets. Just before midnight, there was a shootout between two IRA members and the RUC at a security roadblock. The same roadblock was later petrol-bombed as violence continued into the night.
In Lurgan, nine masked IRA members boarded a train, forced the passengers out and set it on fire, destroying five carriages.
Monday 7 July
By 7 July, there were over 100 people injured, six of them in seriously. The RUC said there had been 1,600 plastic bullets fired, 550 attacks on the security forces, and 41 people arrested. The fire service had received 500 calls and the ambulance service 150, while the damage to property was estimated at £20 million. Some districts in Belfast and elsewhere were regarded as 'no go' areas by the RUC, with roads across the region "blocked by burning cars, buses and other vehicles".