The Orange Order has made an application for 60 members to walk along the Garvaghy Road in Portadown in a “silent”, limited parade later this month, it has announced.On what was one of the most contentious parade routes in Northern Ireland, the Protestant organisation said it would hold a “dignified and non-triumphalist” procession without bands.It is proposed to take place on Sunday, September 27th.If successful, it would be the first time Orangemen have marched along the mainly nationalist section of the Garvaghy Road in 28 years.At a press conference in the Co Armagh town on Thursday, the Orange Order said members of the Parades Commission had “no credibility” to adjudicate on their application and should resign.The commission, which adjudicates on contentious parades in Northern Ireland, was heavily criticised by unionist politicians and the Orange Order after a legal ruling last month that quashed its most recent determination over the Drumcree parade in Portadown.The application is expected to be fiercely opposed by Garvaghy Road residents.Portadown district master Nigel Dawson confirmed the proposal, saying it had lodged a notification with the commission on Thursday morning.The submission outlines the district’s intention to complete its “return church parade ... which we have been unlawfully and unjustly denied since 1998, and to bring our bannerette home to Carleton Street Orange Hall for the first time in just under 30 years”.Dawson said there was no threat of violence or disruption from “any section of our community” regardless of the outcome of the application.The notification was accompanied by “a detailed legal submission” that set out “our clear and unequivocal position” that the commissioners who took part in the “unlawful, both procedurally and substantively, termination” of last July’s parade were “infected by public-law bias and predetermination and, accordingly, they cannot play any role in considering this notification”.Dawson added: “That this commission remains in office, particularly the chair, is an affront to good public administration and undermines the authority of the Secretary of State, who has shown himself impotent in the face of [the] belligerent and arrogant commission.“Let us be very clear: they have no credibility, they have no legitimacy and they have no lawful right to play any role in this determination.”Deputy district master Alistair Power said their application was for a “limited parade” which is “proportionate, inoffensive and wholly reasonable”.Instead of 400 members and two bands, the parade will be scaled back to “60 persons wearing collarettes and no other regalia”.“There will be no accompanying bands. The parade will be silent,” Power said.The procession along this part of the route is anticipated to take no more than 15 minutes “from start to finish”, according to the application.“The timing of the procession will ensure there is no disruption to any worship or those coming to or from the local Catholic church. It will be held at a relatively quiet time on the afternoon of Sunday, September 27th,” Power added.Unionist politicians welcomed the move, with DUP MP Carla Lockhart describing it as a “significant day” that was about “righting a wrong inflicted upon the Portadown district for the past 28 years”.“I see no reason as to why 60 members…cannot walk down a road that has been walked from 1807,” she said.Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill was scathing of the application and called for the Garvaghy Road community to be “left in peace”. “The days of unwanted marches being imposed on the Garvaghy Road community are over,” she said.“The people of this small community should be left to live in peace, free from fear and intimidation.”Deputy leader of the Alliance Party Eoin Tennyson said he had met residents across Portadown over the past week and branded the Orange Order application as “short-sighted and self-defeating”.“The Drumcree dispute was an utterly grim period in our history and I think most people this morning will feel pretty depressed that we are seeking to reopen old battles and pick at very deep wounds right across our community related to this dispute,” he added.Tennyson, an Upper Bann MLA, singled out the murder of three brothers at the height of the Drumcree stand-off in July 1998.Richard Quinn (11) and his brothers Mark (9) and Jason (8) were killed when their Ballymoney home in Co Antrim was petrol-bombed by the UVF on July 12th, 1998. The atrocity made headlines around their world. One man was later convicted over their deaths. Police believed the attack was motivated by sectarianism, as the boys were part of a Catholic family living in a predominantly Protestant estate.“People think of the Quinn children, they remember the trauma, sectarianism and tribalism that surrounded the dispute 28 years ago. I think it is unwise in the extreme to seek to reopen and relitigate. I think it is a strategy of division,” Tennyson added.