// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Protesters disperse after blocking contentious Orange Order parade
Watch: Hundreds block Orange Order march in Portadown
Hundreds of protesters blocked a road in Portadown, County Armagh on Sunday, preventing a contentious Orange Order march from taking place.
The Drumcree parade, which in the 1990s sparked some of the most serious disorder in Northern Ireland's history, was due to go ahead for the first time in 30 years following a series of late legal challenges.
Northern Ireland's First Minister Michelle O'Neill joined the protesters, while members of the Orange Order and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politicians gathered about a mile away, waiting for the road to clear.
Most of the protesters have since dispersed, but some members of the Order remain and still intend to try and march.
Since 1998, the Order had been banned from completing its Dumcree march - and until this year had been repeatedly refused permission to finish the route by the Parades Commission, which was set up to adjudicate disputes.
The Orange Order is a Protestant pro-British organisation, while the area where it wants to walk - specifically along the Garvaghy Road - is largely Catholic and predominantly inhabited by pro-Irish nationalists.
Many Catholics see the marches as sectarian and object to them passing through, or close to, Catholic or nationalist areas.
Orange Order march row goes to heart of ongoing divisions in Northern Ireland
Late on Sunday night, the Order's local deputy district master said he was "disappointed and frustrated" by what he called a lack of a "proper policing plan" to allow the march to go ahead.