Although a major policing operation hemmed in nationalists away from the parade, three children who turned up to observe the event on Monday evening were knifed by a loyalist. The boys were all aged between 14 and 15. One received a stab wound to the head and was treated at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital.

“It’s only really started to hit me as to how lucky the boys have been,” their east Belfast mother said. “If any of those injuries were any deeper or an inch away, we could’ve been planning a funeral or sitting up in an intensive care unit.”

DUP MP Gavin Robinson said the incident was “at complete odds with the ethos of a commemorative memorial event”.

Hundreds of sectarian, coat-trailing and triumphalist parades take place across the Six Counties at this time of the year. While most are now ignored, many still have the potential for major conflagration, particularly the annual Portadown event in north Armagh, which has been rerouted since 1998.

In its latest determination, the Parades Commission, which adjudicates on contentious parades, has again banned the Drumcree parade in Portadown from passing down the nationalist Garvaghy Road. Orange Order leaders are holding talks with the British government in another attempt to force the parade through the nationalist area.

Sinn Féin representative in East Belfast Mairéad O’Donnell criticised the PSNI for a number of failings in their policing operation on Monday.

Ms. O’Donnell said her party had worked hard to limit the impact of the barricade which is erected every year to protect the parade and prevent sectarian clashes. However, she said that there had been “numerous, prolonged stops” to the parade itself near St Matthew’s Catholic church.