Tralee priest helps defuse North crisis

July 1995

THE Tralee priest who played a central role in brokering a settlement with Orangemen intent on marching through the Garvaghy Road in Portadown told The Kerryman that he feared for his life and that of his neighbours at the height of the impasse.

Tralee born Jesuit Priest, Eamon Stack, a community worker in what he describes at the Catholic ghetto on the Garvaghy Road in the predominantly Protestant Armagh town of Portadown said:

“We thought we were going to be killed at one stage on Monday night. There were 15,000 loyalists banging on their lambeg drums - war drums - at the end of our road late on Monday night.”

“We could hear the war cries and it was pretty terrifying. Many people recalled the attacks on the Bogside in 1969 and I though at one stage that we were going to be killed if the Orangemen broke through the lines of RUC officers,” said Fr Stack whose mother Peggy lives at Carrigeendaniel in Tralee.

Fr Stack who has lived in Portadown for the last two years said that he and other members of the Garvaghy Road Residents Group spent several months endeavouring to broker a settlement with the Orange Order. A Jesuit Deacon, Dave O’Sullivan, from Ballylongford is also working in the area.

He said the Orangemen refused to meet them and that they decided to stage a peaceful protest on Sunday on the Catholic Garvaghy Road on the route of the proposed Orange march. However, the RUC later banned the Orange march and the objectors felt the matter was over on Sunday evening.

“On Monday morning our people went to work but the Orangemen were still at Drumcree Church and we offered to negotiate. We kept coming up with ideas to solve the problem,” he said.

On Monday evening a riot situation broke out at Drumcree as Orangemen endeavoured to get through the RUC lines and march through the Garvaghy Road.

“At about 10 o’clock we heard that they had broken through and we feared the very worst. We knew that there was a lot at stake and that the peace process itself could end if they got through,” he said.

“There were lines and, lines of RUC men and they held — we were very relieved,” he said.

Finally on ‘Tuesday a deal was made whereby the Orange parade passed through the road in silence as the protesters lined the side of the road As the final contingent of Orangemen passed, the Garvaghy residents cheered.

“It was not a, cheer mocking the Orangemen it was a cheer for ourselves and all we had achieved, after all we had suffered incredible intimidation,” said Fr Stack.