Belfast Grand Master, William Mawhinney, congratulated the locals on their organisational skills and thanked them for having provided what he said had been "an excellent day which we have thoroughly enjoyed".

Other distinguished guests included the Grand Master of Scotland, William Hick and the Grand Master of England, Albert Hindley. They, too, had warm words of praise for Portadown District Chapter No. 5.

The hosts' District Master, Robert Wallace, expressed satisfaction at how the day had gone, though he acknoweldged that a late changing of the route had caused inconvenience to the public.

"Unfortunately a decision by the City of Belfast Grand Black Chapter to change their route from that originally proposed was not forwarded to us. The result of this unfortunate breakdown in communications was that we, through the Portadown Times, informed the public of the original rather than the amended route," he said.

"This meant some people waited on the Armagh Road for a parade which never came and we are profoundly sorry about that. We can only apologise for what was a mistake for which no-one really was to blame. Even so, it had a negative impact on those who waited in vain as a result of having been misinformed."

Speaking on behalf of Armagh and Brownstown Road residents, Anne McCullough described the re-routing of the parade as a 'shambes'.

She said, "I witnessed a lot of people sitting on chairs waiting for the parade to come up the Armagh Road and Brownstown Road to disperse at the business centre. A lot were senior citizens who had brought visitors to their home for that occasion.

"It has been 22 years since the last Belfast Black Saturday. Surely more effort could have been put into getting this right?"

Portadown's District Master was otherwise delighted with the occasion.

"The weather held and the mood in the town was totally relaxed and enjoyable," he said. "There were big crowds watching and, like ourselves, the members of the Belfast preceptories were very pleased about that.