Related stories Parading season disorder costs PSNI almost £7m Orange Parades passes through Belfast City centre on the Twelfth. Picture Colm Lenaghan

THE former head of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has urged talks well in advance of the marching season.

Dr Norman Hamilton, who has been a parades mediator in north Belfast, said marching was in people's DNA.

Dr Hamilton was Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland from June 2010 to June 2011.

He previously worked alongside former Stormont Speaker Lord Alderdice and Fr Gary Donegan to explore the scope for a peaceful solution around an Orange feeder parade past Ardoyne shops.

Parades cost the police £6.7 million last year. Disorder in Belfast over a three-day period in July resulted in the injury of 25 police officers.

"With the added anniversaries of the Somme and the Easter Rising, there'll be lots more high profile parades, and those will get underway in March," Dr Hamilton said.

"It is also fair to say that parading is virtually in the DNA of many people and communities and that is going to be expressed in the coming months.

"It is important that we figure out how we are going to handle all of the marches, parades, that are so important to so many people."

In their new year message, Church leaders in Ireland said the centenaries of the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme would have an impact on people and culture north and south.

Archbishop Eamon Martin said the Rising and Somme commemorations would provide opportunities "for us to deepen our understanding of who we are as a people and to affirm our hope for lasting peace and justice".