UPDATE 2:

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has issued interview letters to nationalist politicians who joined Catholic residents in blocking the unionist Orange Order parade, which was legally permitted. The residents have asked the Court of Appeals to reconsider that permission. For now, the disput has moved off the streets and into legal and political venues. That’s progress.

UPDATE 1:

Both sides of the sectarian standoff in Portadown are set to hold counter demonstrations this weekend (Oct. 3-4) as the impasse enters its second week. Thousands have already gathered on behalf of the Catholic residents.

“The political and social consequences of the revived dispute for the North will reveal themselves over time,” writes Irish Times columnist Pat Leahy. “For the prospect of a united Ireland, however, they are already discernible and damaging – among both northern and southern voters.”

ORIGINAL POST:

A decision to allow the Protestant Orange Order to march through a predominantly Catholic neighborhood has renewed sectarian tension in Northern Ireland. The standoff in Portadown, County Armagh, about 25 miles southwest of Belfast, flared during the last weekend of September. At risk is a return to Troubles-era bloodshed and collapse of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Drumcree  conflict has its own Wikipedia page, which provides the necessary background. “Orangemen” have been prohibited from marching through the Catholic Garvaghy Road since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. In August, however, a court ruled the Northern Ireland Parades Commission had made procedural errors in reaching its decision. The Commission subsequently approved a scaled-down march of the Protestant group, but local Catholics turned out to block their path.

Talks between the Portadown Orange Order, the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition (GRRC), and Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant appeared far from resolving the disput as of late October 1. This is a developing story; the post will be updated as necessary.

This 1998 Boston Globe story reads as if it could be from this week’s news coverage from Portadown, Northern Ireland. So far the latest iteration of the conflict has avoided violence.