Drumcree: Hundreds take part in the annual parade

Sunday's parade comes 25 years since marchers were prevented from completing the return route

Hundreds of Orange Order members and supporters have taken part in the annual Drumcree parade 25 years since it was prevented from completing its usual return route.

In 1998, the Parades Commission refused permission for the march to go down Portadown's Garvaghy Road

The commission again this year refused an application for the return leg along the mainly-nationalist road.

Marchers held a short protest at police lines.

Hundreds of Orange Order members and supporters took part in the annual Drumcree parade

This came after the parade, accompanied by four bands, left Carleton Orange Hall in Portadown to Drumcree Church for a service.

Supporters clapped as a spokesman for the Orange Order confirmed a protest would continue to be held every Sunday until, he said, the route was restored.

Speaking to BBC Northern Ireland's Sunday Politics programme, DUP MP Carla Lockhart said: "I think that it is a very sad day that 25 years on… we are in the same situation where Orange feet are not welcome on a particular stretch of road."

She said she stood with the Orange Order and had tabled a motion in the House of Commons regarding the matter.

• The Drumcree dispute 25 years on

However SDLP MP Claire Hanna said: "I think you might as well ask to refight the Battle of the Boyne, that is a fight that is in the past.

"That dispute, as anyone who was around at the time will know, was profoundly damaging to community relations."

Four bands, left Carleton Orange Hall in Portadown to Drumcree Church for a service

In 1998, the Parades Commission ruled the Orange Order should not march down the Garvaghy Road after a number of years of disorder around the contentious route, with protests from residents living along the road.

The Orange Order has continued to apply to parade on the route, and protest against the Parades Commission's decision, every year since.