IN the early 1960s, I stood with my mother at the bottom of Shipquay Street in Derry, watching members of the Apprentice Boys pass through Shipquay Gate into Guildhall Square.

It was, I believe, their annual August parade commemorating the relief of the Siege of Derry in 1689. I remember the black bowler hats, the orange and purple sashes and, above all, the white-gloved hands holding gleaming silver swords.

The Orange Order and the Apprentice Boys have been part of my life ever since.

They are separate organisations, with overlapping membership. For my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, the annual calendar included the Orange celebrations in July, the Apprentice Boys’ parade in August and the burning of an effigy of Governor Lundy in December on the Derry salls.

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For Catholics in Derry, these formed part of a public culture in which the city’s Protestant identity was asserted while our own belonging remained conditional.

Those memories returned as I read the recent letter signed by Susan Sarandon, Noel Gallagher, Siobhán McSweeney and other artists supporting the Garvaghy Road residents and calling for an independent international mediator. Nearly 30 years after the last procession along that road, Drumcree has again become a confrontation over whose wishes prevail.

On October 9, Secretary of State Chris Bryant prohibited the procession following police advice about the risks of serious injury and wider disorder. The Orange Order is challenging that decision. The intervention has provided breathing space, but no agreed settlement.

Many of us thought those scenes belonged to the past. The dispute had not achieved an agreed settlement, but residents had recovered a measure of peace. Children have grown up without personal memories of the fear we witnessed during the Troubles. They should not........

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