Police blocked a fresh attempt by Orange Order marchers to parade down a nationalist-majority street in Northern Ireland early this morning after protesters blocked their route yesterday.

Footage captured this morning in Portadown, Co. Armagh, showed the orange-sashed members of the hardline Protestant unionist order attempting to begin the parade in silence from Drumcree Church around 4am.

But they were stopped by armoured police Land Rovers and it is understood the group of around 30 Orangemen remained at the starting point this morning more than 24 hours after the parade’s scheduled start.

Banned in 1998 after some of the most serious disorder in the province’s history, the Drumcree march – which includes the nationalist-majority Garvaghy Road in its route – was controversially approved this year despite its turbulent history.

After nationalist protesters congregated on the Garvaghy Road to disrupt the march, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) came under fire from all sides for its handling of the chaos.

Gavin Robinson, the DUP leader, said the police response was a ‘facilitation of mob rule’ and there had been ‘no danger of public disorder’.

Meanwhile Sinn Féin, whose leadership joined protesters in the Catholic enclave of the mostly Protestant town, said officers had ‘failed’ the community on the Garvaghy Road, who had been through ‘trauma’ and ‘want to be left in peace’.

This morning a nationalist neighbourhood leader was set to meet the Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant and the PSNI’s chief constable Jon Boutcher for talks.

Protesters blocked the Garvaghy Road yesterday after a late-night High Court ruling upheld the decision by the Parades Commission to permit the Orange Order’s Drumcree parade for the first time in 28 years

Breandán Mac Cionnaith, head of the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition, will meet with the Northern Ireland Secretary and the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s chief constable today

Northern Ireland’s Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill and the party’s president Mary Lou McDonald called for the march to be banned as they joined protesters yesterday

Demonstrators, some masked, gathered to block the Garvaghy Road, which was the scene for some of Northern Ireland’s worst public disorder in the 1990s before the parade’s ban 

Protesters linked arms to block the march in the largely Catholic enclave of the majority-Protestant town in Co. Armagh 

Veteran activist Breandán Mac Cionnaith of the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition will meet the pair after claiming ‘victory’ for his community last night as marchers were stopped from parading down the road.

A hardline republican, Mr Mac Cionnaith has led the residents’ coalition since the 1990s and was previously described by former prime minister Tony Blair as taking ‘unreasonableness to an art form’ during talks around the time of the march’s ban.

Sir Tony added in his 2010 memoir: ‘He conceded nothing, and I mean nothing.’

Yesterday Mr Mac Cionnaith said he had asked for 20 to 30 volunteers to remain on the Garvaghy Road overnight and ensure the promises he received were not broken after protesters were asked to disperse at midnight.

‘I still have a job for some of you,’ he said. ‘We’ll need some people out on the street tonight, because although we’ve got commitments about nobody coming down this road tonight, we’ve seen those commitments broke in the past.’

He said of today’s planned talks that ‘we’re not going in to do deals with them, or to take half measures with them’ and ‘we’re not going back, we’re not turning the clock back’.

Mr Mac Cionnaith and the Garvaghy Road protesters were joined yesterday by Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill, who the DUP and Mr Robinson condemned for having ‘debased herself and debased her office’ in attending.

Mrs O’Neill was accompanied by former party leader Gerry Adams and its current president Mary Lou McDonald as she told reporters the parade should be cancelled to ‘restore calm’.

Referring to the body which adjudicates disputes on Northern Irish marches, she said: ‘Why after 28 years of determination to block a march down this road had the Parades Commission thought this was the right idea today? To bring this mess back on to this community.’

The First Minister added the Drumcree dispute brought into question ‘how this whole peace process works’ as some in the Garvaghy Road crowd were heard shouting ‘bring Stormont down’, referring to the seat of the province’s devolved executive. 

Armoured police vans blocked the road in Portadown as a message blared telling protesters they risked arrest for partaking in an unlawful protest

She said: ‘The progress of the last 28 years has been brought into question by the actions of the Orange Order and those within political unionism that want to drag us backwards.

‘You heard it about the people’s view of Stormont. You heard it about the terms of politics working for them, and you hear it here time and time again and we’ve certainly heard it over the last 24 hours.

‘But I can tell you what we’re about. We’re about the future. We’re about building on our peace and progress. We’re about not allowing people to bring us back.’

Mr Robinson previously accused Mrs O’Neill of ‘breaking the law’ by appearing at the protest, adding: ‘She’s the head of an Executive and she is prepared to wilfully disregard the ruling of our courts, the determination by the statutory body charged with determining parades in Northern Ireland.’

But Sinn Féin’s president Mrs McDonald told reporters it was ‘madness’ for the parade to go ahead.

‘We have spent all night here, all night talking to people, listening to people, seeking to reassure people that actually this can be resolved, and it must be,’ she said, calling for Sir Chris and the PSNI’s chief constable to intervene.

She said the treatment of Drumcree’s nationalists had been ‘primitive’ and ‘intolerable’.

‘This is a dignified and united community and they are absolutely determined that they and we will not be drawn back into the past.’

Protesters held signs referencing the war in Gaza, calling for resistance against ‘occupation’ and ‘fascism’

Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams joined protesters on the Garvaghy Road yesterday

A lone Orangeman stood outside Drumcree Parochial Hall in Portadown as members of the order retreated to Drumcree Church after being left unable to continue on the parade

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant appealed for calm, saying he did not think ‘any elected politician should be supporting an unlawful protest’ as he came under Sinn Féin pressure to ban the parade.

He can only do so if asked by the PSNI on the basis that it poses a serious risk to public order and has received no such request.

After flying to Belfast from the Labour Party conference in Liverpool yesterday, Sir Chris said: ‘It is only compromise that is going to get us through these difficult moments.’

He added: ‘The resilience of the political system in Northern Ireland is really important; we’ve made so many strides, I feel so frustrated. All I would say is that everybody should be co-operating with the police at the moment.’

Sir Chris also met with Portadown Orange Order bosses today after they called for the province’s chief constable and his assistant to resign. at least two schools in the town told pupils not to come in because of the disorder.

Yesterday Prime Minister Andy Burnham appealed from the Labour Party conference in Liverpool for ‘calm on all sides’, saying there had been ‘big gains’ in the province and ‘we don’t want to see things go backwards’.

The Northern Ireland Parades Commission’s decision to allow the march in Portadown was upheld in an ‘unprecedented’ nighttime sitting of the High Court in Belfast early on Sunday.

After a hearing which began at 12.20am and ended at 2.15am – hours before the scheduled 8am start of the parade – Mr Justice Michael Humphreys said his court ‘cannot substitute its own view or anyone’s view for that of the commission’.

The ruling came after Justice Patricia Smyth blocked the commission decision on Saturday afternoon, saying the ‘long-running dispute has the potential to escalate’ across the region.

After Justice Smyth’s ruling the Orange Order lodged an appeal, which was upheld, before the case was heard again at the High Court.

Marchers gathered at Drumcree Church, the parade’s starting point, yesterday morning but only proceeded a short distance before turning back.

Today at least two schools in Portadown told pupils not to attend following the disorder.