Himself Alone: David Trimble and the Ordeal Of Unionism. Dean Godson

1977, he was awarded a Queen’s Gallantry Medal. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, the two men proved to be ill-matched for each other during these tensest of circumstances and Trimble began to criticise Hall’s conduct of the crisis. ‘Mr Hall, one of your problems is that you do not listen,’ snapped the local MP.²³ Hall did not, however, respond to Trimble’s accusations and held his peace. But little came out of these tense exchanges. At 5:30 p.m., they met again, this time in an RUC vehicle. Trimble reiterated his compromise of allowing a ‘substantial’ number of Orangemen down the road. Yet Trimble felt more optimistic than before. Far from melting away, ever greater numbers of Orangemen were assembling; with loyalist womenfolk bringing copious quantities of food, they were better provisioned than the RUC. By now, Larne was blocked and protests were erupting everywhere, and in the Fountain estate in Londonderry, the last Protestant enclave on the west bank of the River Foyle, residents had erected barricades. Then came the news that the Garvaghy Road Residents would begin direct talks at 7 p.m., rather than demand unilateral re-routing of the parade. The Orangemen felt that this was not possible because of Mac Cionnaith’s conviction for terrorism and, in any case, Trimble and others would be attending or speaking at the mass rally scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Nonetheless, some kind of progress was being made. At the suggestion of the RUC – and with the agreement of the residents and of Jeffrey Donaldson – the Mediation Network had already begun to explore the possibilities for an agreement. The Mediation Network, now Mediation Northern Ireland, had originally been established in 1987 and stated that its mission was to be an ‘impartial “outsider” in situations of conflict assisting people to resolve or manage difference in ways which promote human dignity and mutual respect’. As Terry Houston recalls, the RUC knew that they had no ‘in’ with the Garvaghy residents. It was agreed that Mediation Network would shuttle back and forth between the parties.²⁴

      The rally by Drumcree church attracted 25,000 to 30,000 loyalists from all of the Province’s counties, as well as Orangemen from Cavan and Monaghan in the Republic and representatives of Scottish lodges. Trimble was forced to leave the platform during Paisley’s speech after he was told that there was trouble brewing down by the police lines. Trimble mounted one of the RUC Hotspurs and sought to quieten the crowd, but instead he was booed. Gracey and Trimble then sought to obtain a passage through RUC lines to speak to senior officers. Trimble indicated his desire for a parting of the solid police line so that he could make his way through; this was obtained and just after Trimble secured entry a T-shirted young loyalist sought to rush after him further to breach the cordon, as it were. The RUC ranks closed promptly and a mêlée ensued. Stones began to fly from the Orange side and police reinforcements charged forward, leaving Trimble exposed behind RUC lines with stones flying from behind and riot squads charging straight at him: with his face down, one of the policemen almost did not recognise him and he narrowly escaped injury. He was then invited to take shelter in an RUC Land-Rover. Harold Gracey, who frequently had strong disagreements with Trimble thereafter, still had no doubts as to his physical courage. ‘There was no fear in him, nor did I ever hear him swear once,’ recalled Gracey. ‘Although his hands did move and wave about like a Frenchman!’²⁵

      Trimble returned to Drumcree church hall for fresh negotiations with the Mediation Network. The Mediation Network reported that they had discussed a range of issues with Mac Cionnaith. These discusssions were then interrupted by news of further disturbances, as Orangemen sought to envelop the police lines and more plastic baton rounds were fired. Trimble and Donaldson arrived and agreed with the RUC to conduct further talks at Edward Street station in Portadown centre. The RUC now seemed to the Orangemen to be closer to accepting Trimble’s compromise about ‘substantial’ numbers going down the road, if not the traditional full complement – in other words, Portadown District and nobody else from outside the area. The Orangemen then offered to go down six rather than two abreast to allow the parade to pass off more swiftly and without a band. Hall, though, did not give a 100 per cent guarantee. Both sides present were worried, each for their own reasons, about raising expectations – a point which Trimble emphasised by raising and lowering his hand off the table. But from the Orange perspective, this represented further progress: the focus of the conversations now became ‘how’, rather than ‘whether’.²⁶ The RUC were also more optimistic after this: Trimble now appeared to accept their contention that 200 loyalists could not commence a surprise march down the road at 4 a.m., which would trigger major disorder, and that there would have to be some kind of prior tacit arrangement with the residents. (The point about the Garvaghy residents’ likely reaction had been forcibly made by Brendan McAllister of the Mediation Network at the meeting.)²⁷ Trimble went back to the Orangemen, partly to segregate the Portadown from the non-Portadown Districts in the hope that some such compromise might come off. But privately he was becoming ever more anxious. The closer that they came to 11th night, with great Province-wide bonfires on the eve of the 12th July, the greater the likelihood of massive disturbances in support of the thwarted Portadown brethren. Portadown District Lodge proclaimed that unless the affair was resolved by 7 a.m. on the morning of 11 July, they would march at a time of their choosing.

      Portadown rose the next morning to what Brendan McAllister of the Mediation Network, surveying the scene from the hill at Drumcree, describes as ‘the orange glow of the dawn, with the sun rising to sounds of lambeg drums’.²⁸ Slowly, the police Land-Rovers began to move down the hill, away from the Orangemen, and to point towards the nationalist residents. By this time, they feared that the march might go ahead; growing numbers were already sitting down on the Garvaghy Road. The Land-Rovers reversed course back towards the Orangemen. Trimble was worried that some Orangemen had gone home believing that there was an agreement to march; things could go nasty if it turned out that the decision was then reversed.²⁹ The local MP duly went to the Drumcree Rectory and telephoned RUC headquarters at Knock, where he spoke to the other Deputy Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan, the senior duty officer. He warned Flanagan of the gravity of the situation, and then rang Molyneaux to ask that he use his influence with the Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, to secure a speedy resolution to the affair and to overturn the ban: Molyneaux had greater standing with the RUC as the long-time leader of the Province’s largest party. At around 8 a.m. Houston shifted position and stated that he would seek to take the Orangemen down the road as quickly as possible. The final ruling was delayed until Blair Wallace and Flanagan arrived from Belfast to oversee the new decision. A compromise of sorts seemed to be emerging. It appears to have been understood that Portadown District only would go down, with no bands, and minimal police presence. This meant that Trimble could not walk since he was only there in an ex officio capacity, nor could Paisley. Trimble was not very happy with this, but accepted for the sake of the march in the years to come. Instead, he would meet the marchers by Shillington’s Bridge, once they were safely past the controversial part of the route and were well on their way to returning to Carleton Street Orange Hall. But the events which surrounded the closing of the deal remain controversial. The nationalists believed that there was no question of parades going down that route next year without the consent of the local community – a point which the Mediation Network organiser relayed to Brendan Mac Cionnaith and which persuaded many nationalist residents to voluntarily remove themselves from the road. The Orangemen claim that they would not have been party to any oral agreement that denied their right to march.³⁰ According to Flanagan, the agreement was that there would be no march on the next day – 12 July itself – and subsequently the Orangemen made no serious attempt to walk the route on that occasion. Whatever was actually agreed, the episode had the effect of enhancing the nationalist sense of grievance when the main march went down the road in 1996.³¹

      Meanwhile, the Orangemen would have to fall back to facilitate disengagement of the two sides. Jim Blair then walked the length of the RUC line. As he went along, he tapped each Hotspur with his 30-inch blackthorn swagger stick (a prerogative of senior policemen since