Dervock Young Defenders have issued a response, after it was revealed on Thursday that they had submitted an application to the Parades Community to parade the village on July 13th.
A spokesperson for the band issued the following statement, addressing several issues that had been raised after the news was released.
“Firstly 12th of July is the biggest day in the Orange calendar year and with that in mind and the twelfth celebrations cancelled we decided to submit an 11/1 as no one knows what the next two months hold.
“The band will be marching in ranks of 3 adhering to social distancing and will be parading every avenue in the village so as to not encourage people to crowd to the centre of the village but remain in their own gardens
“We have had talks with the parades commission and they are more than satisfied with our regulations and procedures.”
Providing assurances should isolation regulation be enforced full again, the band said:
“We have also noted that should a full lockdown return we will not be going ahead with the parade but again no one knows what these next two months hold for us all.”
Concluding:
“For clarification this is only Dervock band marching the village this is not a parade of outsiders and is Dervock band giving something back to the people of our great village a unionist village that has been enthralled with flutes bands for decades.
“24 participants means 24 band members not 24 visiting bands some local news outlets could do with clarifying these points but these media outlets are just copy and paste artists and seem purposeful on shining a negative light on the band & unionism yet all correct channels have been taken and no law is or will be broken.”
