UK bans Protestant march from Catholic area in Northern Ireland

DUBLIN — The U.K. government has reversed a decision to permit a parade by Protestant hard-liners through a Catholic district in Northern Ireland, a U-turn that overjoyed Irish republicans and infuriated the region’s British unionists. After a nearly two-week standoff in the predominantly Protestant town of Portadown, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant announced late Friday that the Orange Order would not be allowed to parade through the town’s main Catholic district for the first time in 28 years. The Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal group reviled by many Catholics, had been barred from the route since 1998 following years of widespread violence triggered by the annual sectarian showdown.