A CONTROVERSIAL loyalist bands parade in Rasharkin, Co Antrim, passed off without major incident last night.
There was a heavy policy presence for the parade of 40 bands and the protest by about 200 nationalists in the village.
When the parade started shortly after 8pm, the majority of nationalist protesters started blowing whistles.
For much of last night, the centre of Rasharkin was a noisy cacophony of screeching whistles and some blaring klaxons competing with the sounds of loyalist drums, flutes and accordions.
There was little incident during the night, although a number of golf balls and plastic bottles were thrown from the nationalist group on a couple of occasions during the night.
Some of the nationalists complained that a number of the bands were directly linked to paramilitary groups such as the UVF and the UDA.
It took an hour for the bands to parade through the town on their outward journey and an hour on their way back. The nationalist group assembled beside a large Tricolour flying from a makeshift flagpole.
Local Sinn Féin Assembly member Dáithí McKay, who joined the protesters, complained that some of the bands had been in an exercise in flaunting their paramilitarism.
Local SDLP MLA Declan O’Loan also complained that a small number of the bands through their websites had supported loyalist paramilitary organisations.
“Such bands should be banned from all parades in Northern Ireland,” he said.
He called for dialogue between the loyalists and local nationalists to try to resolve future problems over the annual parade.
Earlier, former first minister and DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley met the British security minister Paul Goggins to demand that there be “adequate policing” last night.
Dr Paisley said: “Since July 2008, there have been well over 40 attacks against members of the protestant community” in Rasharkin.
“The Protestant people of Rasharkin are suffering systematic intimidation and the controversy over the parade is another manifestation of that bitter hatred of all things Protestant.”
