THE ORANGE Order wants to parade from Drumcree parish church along the mainly Catholic Garvaghy Road again this year, a meeting in Dublin was told last night.
Four members of the Orange Order visited Dublin to speak about the order and discuss the reasons for, last year's "siege of Drumcree".
Mr Graham Montgomery, one of the delegation which addressed the Irish Association meeting, said the order did not seek to intimidate or be triumphalist, adding that the blocking of the traditional march last year at Drumcree had been orchestrated by Sinn Fein.
Mr Montgomery pointed out that Portadown Orangemen had marched from Drumcree church to the town centre for the past 188 years.
It was, he said, a traditional route and the most direct from Drumcree parish church in Portadown to the town centre.
He said the "rather insidious problem" over the route last year had been the work of Sinn Fein. "This was inspired by Sinn Fein. They [the Orangemen] were not asked to negotiate with local residents but with a group that was led by, or advised by, Sinn Fein councillors.
"That creates difficulties for people in a town which, two years ago, was devastated by an IRA bomb, and who experienced many of their young people being murdered by the IRA."
During the Orange "church" parade, Mr Montgomery said, the two bands accompanying the Orange demonstrators had stopped playing as they passed the Catholic church at Corcrain where Mass was being said.
When the Orangemen reached Drumcree church for the traditional service they learned that their route back to Portadown was blocked, and the RUC then banned the parade under the Public Order Act.
The Orangemen, he said, were "determined that such behaviour would not triumph. It explains why they stood all day, all night, all the next day and the next night".
"It explained why, if it has to be done again, it will be. We do not want to intimidate and we do not want to offend. We simply ask for the same things that have taken place for 188 years."
The convenor of the order's education committee, the Rev Brian Kennaway, who studied at Trinity College Dublin, said the recent criticism of the order by the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, on RTE radio had been wrong.
Mr Adams had said all the unionist MPs were members of "secret, oath bound organisation, the Orange Order". Mr Kennaway said five of the unionist MPs were not members of the order.