There are many examples which one can use to represent and discuss the role the Security Forces l ended up playing in the conflict, which was, a sort of Semi-Third party, that was a little to close to the Unionist side. But I want to highlight one of the events, or really series of, that has fascinated me since starting this project: The Dumcree Conflict.
The first thing I learned about it was how the Army and RUC erected massive steel and concrete barricades to block off Garvaghy Road, and prevent the Orange Order March, that had been going through that and Obins Street, two streets that are predominantly catholic in the otherwise protestant area of Portadown, and how the Orange Men and other Protestant radicals rooted like hell to get through. Ever since that march has been blocked.

However that is hardly the whole story. It did happen, 1998, the year of the Good Friday agreement was the first year the Orange Order was successfully prevented from marching down those roads and they never have since. And marching on Obins Street was banned back in 1986. And in 1996 the March was also held off from Garvaghy Road. However, these stops were inspite of a lack of care commitment in all the other years before 98.

The Portadown Lodge of the Orange Order claims it’s been marching along Garvaghy and Orbins for over 100 years. However true that is it is not, the Garvaghy and Obins, which are right next to eachother, have been Catholic since not longer after the houses there went up in the early 60’s, and this Orange Order parade was one of the most infamous for it, being seen as directly rubbing Protestant Supremacy on the faces of this neighborhood. And they made multiple marches along these roads during July, going to and from the Dumcree church (which is protestant though there’s also a nearby Catholic Church).

Starting the 70’s, after the troubles began, the Catholic population started trying to get the march to stop going down their roads. Each time, even when the protest was peaceful, the RUC and British army went in and forcibly, even violently, removed them, forced people to stay in their homes, and let the Orangemen through. And not just that, but in 1985, when a catholic band did a march for St. Patrick’s day that was approved, but passed for a small part of its way, a small line of Protestant homes, the Orangemen took offense and staged a sit down. The Catholics were made to reroute. When the Catholics started a sit down for the Orangemen March that same year, they were again forced off the street. This happed again, and again, and again.

And when later in the 90’s, the march did finally get properly banned from both roads, the Orangeorder made threats, terrorized Catholics, got thousands of people come to Dumcree, and made severe threats to start murdering people, and except for in 1996, and 1998 and since, the authorities folded, barred the Catholics in their homes again, and let the Orange Order through. In the years the mad h was fully blocked, protestants across Northern Ireland went feral, and in the years where the authorities initially blocked it but folded, the Catholics did (and sometimes the Protestants still did as well).

While I would prefer to praise the Security forces for finally taking a more equal stand by blocking the March, those few times are set against a back drop of them doing the exact opposite, of being egregiously hypocritical. Either finding a way for all the parades and marches and protests and such to go through, and keep anything from getting too violent or disruptive, or prevent everyone from marching or parading, would have been a much better solution, but instead, for the majority of the conflict, they took a side, and acted extremely unfairly. Match this with every report of RUC officers standing by until after a Unionist attack has concluded to do anything, or the British Army doing much the same for assassinations, for the Unionist crimes for which people got off to easy, and the collusion becomes very hard to ignore. Not to even mention Bloody Sunday, when the 1st Para opened fire on clearly unarmed civilians (which was the second time they had done such a thing and claimed they were armed).

Collusion (The Security Forces working sectarianly, in favor of Protestants) is frankly a fact of the troubles, and that’s disillusioning in my opinion.