A controversial loyalist bands parade in Rasharkin, Co Antrim, passed off without major incident last night.
There was a heavy policy presence for the parade of 40 bands and the protest by about 200 nationalists in the village.
There was little incident during the night, although a number of golf balls and plastic bottles were thrown from the nationalist group on a couple of occasions. There were no injuries or arrests reported.
Some of the nationalists complained that a number of the bands were directly linked to paramilitary groups such as the UVF and the UDA.
It took two hours for the bands to parade through the town and back again. The nationalist group assembled beside a large Tricolour flying from a makeshift flagpole.
Local Sinn Féin Assembly member Dáithí McKay, who joined the protesters, today blamed the Parades Commission for allowing a situation to develop in Rasharkin which could have led to massive public disorder and criticised the DUP for supporting the right of loyalist paramilitaries to march through Catholic areas.
"This is a sectarian coat-trailing parade and has caused trouble and conflict in this village for many years now. If the Parades Commission cannot see the problems it created here by allowing hundreds of loyalists to come into a nationalist village then they need their heads examined," he said.
"This parade has served only to heighten tensions in the area even further. The fact that the DUP continues to defend the right of loyalist paramilitaries to march through Catholic areas just goes to show that they have yet to sever all their links with these paramilitary organisations."
Local SDLP MLA Declan O'Loan last night complained that a small number of the bands through their websites had supported loyalist paramilitary organisations. "Such bands should be banned from all parades in Northern Ireland," he said.
He called for dialogue between loyalists and local nationalists to try to resolve future problems over the annual parade.
Earlier, former first minister and DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley met the British security minister Paul Goggins to demand that there be “adequate policing” at the event. He said there have been over 40 attacks on Protestants in Rasharkin since July 2008.
“The Protestant people of Rasharkin are suffering systematic intimidation and the controversy over the parade is another manifestation of that bitter hatred of all things Protestant.”
