WELSH First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth has addressed a rally during the March for Independence in Aberystwyth as supporters gathered from across Wales. Saturday’s march, organised by YesCymru and AUOBCymru, was the first held in Aberystwyth and the first in mid Wales. Mr ap Iorwerth said: “Quite simply, we believe in our potential as an…
Page A3From§Eachthe noon edition — 27 September 2026
Court revives Orange march banned since 1998, same weekend Wales marches for the exit
As it ran on the front
Garvaghy Road, the route through a nationalist stretch of Portadown that was a flashpoint of lethal violence in the 1990s, had not carried an Orange Order march since before the Good Friday Agreement. Twenty-eight years, then a late-night sitting, then a green light. Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for calm on Sunday. That is the whole of what he is on record saying.
Thirteen days earlier, in a room the court's ruling did not touch, three first ministers signed a document. The memorandum they produced carried, in the Washington Examiner's own words, "bellicose language but few concrete promises for withdrawal." A warning that the United Kingdom is coming apart, with the paperwork for coming apart left for later.…
…(cont) Compare what each sitting produced. The court's late-night sitting produced a dated ruling: a road, a route, a green light. The first ministers' sitting, thirteen days before it, produced a memorandum and a headline. One gave an actual answer. The other gave a warning without the promises to back it.
Then Saturday, while Belfast's court order was still being read out, Rhun ap Iorwerth — the same first minister who signed that memorandum — stood in Aberystwyth in front of the first march for independence that town has ever hosted, organized by YesCymru and AUOBCymru, and said there is no turning back, and that the next step is equality with Scotland "as a minimum."
Run the two facts side by side. In 2022, Sinn Féin won the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the first time a unionist party had not finished first since the state was founded in 1921. Four years later, the road that was the flashpoint of the old order gets its march back the same weekend the new order marches for the exit. Nobody signed anything ordering these two things to land on the same weekend. They just did. That is the part of this that should worry you more than either story alone: a court restoring the old arrangement and three governments rehearsing its replacement, on the same calendar, without a single document connecting the two.
“You get it now? The court hands back a road that used to mean people got hurt walking down it, and the same weekend the guy who just signed a paper saying the country might not hold together is out in Aberystwyth telling a crowd there's no turning back. Nobody planned that collision. That's what should scare you — nobody has to plan it anymore, it just keeps landing that way. Nobody at the top has a map for after "the end," and the road being reopened doesn't come with one either.”
“Look, a court order is a court order — the judge looked at the law, not at the calendar, and the timing with Wales is a coincidence nobody in Belfast controls. And the memorandum? That's just three first ministers talking, it's not binding on anybody, so calling it a crisis is — well, it does say the UK is "coming to an end," I guess I did read that part. That's not what I meant to lead with.”
The receipts
‘Reviving the Garvaghy Road route for an Orange Order parade after 28 years, when it was a focal point of lethal violence back in the 1990s, looks like a bid to take us backwards too’
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for calm in Northern Ireland on Sunday after the Orange Order was given the go-ahead by the High Court in Belfast in a late-night sitting.
· Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland warn UK is ‘coming to an end,’ but joint agreements lack clear path from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
· Northern Irish, Scottish, and Welsh leaders to sign pact pushing UK dissolution from the morgue, 13 Sep 2026
· Irish republican party Sinn Féin win the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly with 29% of the first-preference vote, marking the first time that a unionist party did not win the most seats sinc from the morgue, 7 May 2022
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.