Like me, you probably try to think of something else when the subject of public money and its use comes up. If I can cite my own experience: when people mention the £40,000 a night cost of the Twaddell Caravan Park, I try to think of bunny rabbits and warm woollen mittens. I say ‘try’. Because the thought that this is public money – mine and yours – that’s going to finance this absurdity can do bad things to the blood pressure.
However, that confronts me with an inescapable fact: these are our fellow-countrymen up there, demanding to be let march where they’re not wanted. So what should our response be, not to this particular manifestation of Orange intransigence, but generally? After all, Orange comprises one-third of the Irish national flag.
Personally, my thinking about the Orange Order has changed over time. There was a period when I felt that it was to all our shame that an anti-Catholic organisation like that not only existed but was supported and deferred to by so many unionist politicians. It now seems to me that such thinking is unnecessarily narrow.
Many and maybe most Orangemen don their regalia and march on the Twelfth because …well, because it’s a custom, a day in which to identify yourself and at the same time enjoy a bit of crack with people you know, in what otherwise might be a dull enough Summer. The average Orangeman, I believe, doesn’t pore over the history and ordinances of the Orange Order before taking down his bowler hat. All that’s somewhere in the background. All he wants is a day out, preferably in bright and warm sunshine. Unfortunately, this runs into some difficulties.
1. There are marches where Orangemen are clearly not welcome, yet insist on their right to march (cf aforementioned Twaddell).
2. There are over 4,000 marches every year by loyal Orders.
3. The Orange Order has built-in rules about no Catholics being allowed to join, no man with a Catholic wife being allowed to join, no member permitted to attend a Catholic church service, and other such restrictions.
Not that these facts are at the front of the average Orangeman’s mind each time he marches, any more than the constitution is on the mind of the average citizen when he buys a loaf of bread (assuming he’s lucky enough to live in a jurisdiction with a constitution and can afford to buy a loaf).
So here’s my suggestion. Why don’t the Orange Order sit down with republicans and nationalists and look at the anti-Catholic elements in their Book of Words, to see if they can be redacted (how I love that word). If that were possible – if the Orange Order was able to remove its anti-Catholic elements – as well as its insanely-high annual number of marches, it seems to me a whole new way of thinking and relating to them would be possible.
Discuss.
Jude,
I am speechless (a rare commodity in me) but if you could see me now… I have a huge smile on my face. Begorrah bejesus I think that is a wonderful idea.
I told you before I know NOTHING about the OO. This approach is definitely much more acceptable, when you start telling someone what they can or cannot do, the end result is stalemate.
It is truly a wonderful solution, and should be brought to the table.
And here’s the RUB this is a Belfast slang word. I think if it’s successful and I am sincere in what I am about to say…. You should be on the next years honours list.
Missed your contribution yesterday on Radio Ulster, just arrived at my destination when you came on the radio. Will try to catch it on uplayer.
Thank you, Norma. But I do think it’s unfair to threaten me with punishment if the idea is successful 🙂 …In any case, I’m afraid I’m pretty sure it won’t elicit a response. In fact, I’d bet on it. Any takers?
Get the round table ready. You are on a winner. No more nights at the table though. No time like the present for a paradigm shift.
“Areas only a few miles apart from each other can differ enormously – in religious mix, in economic circumstances, in the level of violence, in political attitudes.” (Whyte 1990:259)
Perhaps we should also examine the rationale that being Irish means belonging to a migratory culture. Most people living in the twenty-six counties tend to say they live in ‘the Republic.’ There is no mention of a Republic in the Irish Constitution. The reality is the state has been run, on behalf of the Church, banks, professions and so called, ‘entrepreneurs.’ A culture of deference and subordination was inculcated throughout the entire system of government. One form of aristocracy was replaced by another, elected representatives of the people knelt before a bishop and the bishop lived in a ‘palace’. A system that promotes servility and awe is not democratic. The Church remains a hierarchical organisation in which the decisions come from the top down. The administrations in Belfast and Dublin take orders via the Troika. The ‘fighting Irish’ on either side of the border were used as cannon fodder throughout the world. Now is the time to live and create rather than perpetuate conflict, violence and death over confused and ambivalent concepts that belong in the past.
There are 2 sides to this problem, the OO marching where it isn’t wanted and the people who don’t want them. Bigotry on both sides. I don’t see why OO should be obliged to drop its anti-Catholic beliefs any more than anti Orange protesters should shed their anti-Orange beliefs.
The Rossnowlagh Twelfth, in Co Donegal, is a perfect example of what happens when people live and let live. The Orangemen are left in peace to parade through a mile of countryside. A local Catholic allows his field to be used for the service. All the local businesses, Catholic and Protestant enjoy a great day’s business. The local Church of I boosts its renovation fund by providing teas for sober marchers who don’t want to go to the pub.
Families of marchers enjoy a great day by the sea and they’re usually blessed with good weather.
Everybody wins.
Mary Jo – if I say that I agree with everything you say, will you put that ‘Booing the bishop’ comment up on Amazon?….
done.
Go raibh cead maith agat, Mary Jo – thanks v much.
Jude, you miss the whole point of the marching. It’s not about meeting your friends or having a picnic in the ‘Field’ or even a few drinks. It’s about domination – pure and simple. What’s the point of having your ‘own wee country’ if you can’t march where you like. In the old days, the taigs were too timid to object and if they did there was the RUC etc to force a march through. Now the Brits have stabbed them in the back. They can’t walk without talk, there is a Parades Commission and even the RUC have (almost) gone. Their empire has tumbled in flames and small rural towns in the heart of mid Ulster no longer have to tolerate the town centres being closed from 6pm to midnight. No more diversions into UDR roadtraps, no more flags and bunting everywhere. Almost normal! And don’t try to make excuses for them, Jude. We all know what they are. Trips to Catholic schools and Lottery grants to build ‘interpretative centres’ and ‘Orangefest’ might fool some but the leopard doesn’t change his spots. I don’t think too many of the British are fooled either.
‘no more flags and bunting everywhere’? Ahh, if only…
Where I live the town gets covered in flags and bunting from mid-June until the end of August. All for a parade on the Twelfth and perhaps one other. I don’t really have that much of a problem with the parading itself where I live. Decking the entire town out like a Unionist Nuremburg Rally for the whole of the Summer on the other hand…
Hi Jude,
I like your thinking but the problem lies in your proposed solution:-
“Why don’t the Orange Order sit down with republicans and nationalists and look at the anti-Catholic elements in their Book of Words, to see if they can be redacted (how I love that word). If that were possible – if the Orange Order was able to remove its anti-Catholic elements”
The Orange Order disputes all arise from the fact that the Order members refuse to “sit down” with republicans and nationalists. If they sat down there probably wouldn’t be any disputes!
The Orange Order is an anti-Catholic institution set up by bigots, for bigots, to oppose the influence of the “Church of Rome”. Historical Fact!
Bigot – Definition – noun – a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.
Show me one instance of sectarian discord in this jurisdiction over the last hundred and fifty years that the Order has not featured strongly.
There may very well be people in the Order who are there out of tradition and not because of the Anti-Catholic ethos of the Order but there are also those in the Order who are dyed in the wool, nasty, hate filled, bigots.
I recently watched with amusement the interview of George Patton by Ali-G where Mr Patton as Head of the OO in Belfast stated his faith would not allow him to marry a Catholic.
If anyone was to set up an organisation in Britain opposed to the Jewish religion where members could be expelled for marrying a Jewish person, or for attending any Jewish ceremony I think there would be outright public revulsion and papers and politicians would quite rightly be calling on members of the organisation who held public positions to be punished or dismissed.
Real bigots can be distinguished from mere partisans or zealots by the fact that they refuse to learn alternatives even when the march of time and/or technology is threatening to obsolete their “cause”. It is truly said “You can tell a bigot, but you can’t tell him much.”
Booyakasha
Jude has somebody fraped you?
If not good work I could live with your ideas.
No, neill (although I’m not quite sure what ‘fraped’ is, it sounds painful) it’s just me trying to be honest about what I think. It doesn’t always garnish my reputation but I can live with that.
No I find it encouraging that your trying to find out about the real orange order and what motivates them your fourth paragraph neatly demonstrates what a rural Orangeman believes
Well …Jude . You are feeling mellow.It’s probably part of the process involved in digesting all that Christmas grub and maybe getting in a little detoxing. You know me by now, i’m all for fresh thinking …new ideas …getting ahead of the curve …pulling the odd cliche out of the box at the end of the day{!!!!!} …anything that will kick a bit of sense into a moribund population locked in a state of stasis as Joxer might have said if he’d been given enough rope….
It might be the only way to get those poor blighters out that caravan at Twaddell but I can’t see anyone queuing up to talk rationally. Most people really don’t mind{ I nearly said “care” there } if they camp out at Twaddell forever if that’s what they want. I’m not sure why it costs so much to police a handful of campers but then again we waste money on lots of other daft things every day …so why not?
I personally know little about the Orange Order either …other than what I see or have read…there may be lots more to know.. The idea of having it at all is a complete mystery to me , but then I waste my time reading books, writing and the like… and have no desire to dress up like a turn of the century Morris Dancer and march where i’m not wanted or even where I’m wanted . As you know I set out several solutions to all this in a few previous posts . Those revelations were handed to me on large stone tablets by a goat herder when I came out of my hillside cave after a forty day fast.I thought the world was ready for them …but perhaps not….
Perfectly valid ..was my thought at the time . It makes perfect sense .Build a Stadium and they will come .Turn it all into a carnival fun day for everyone and everyone wins and even makes some money out of it…….nope ? ..No takers. They’ve since wasted all the money at Twaddell roundabout….
Anyway let’s take out all the nasty bits about catholics and the like …or talk about taking them out . That’s a fair start in a rational debate.Would the OO have any reason to exist then? I’m not sure that something like this organisation would have much foothold down through another few generations without having something to kick against. Of course, I could be wrong..It’s a kind of a fundamentalist mindset that needs something to abhor.
There’s the aversion to gays and various other religions such as the Jews or maybe the Muslims that would doubtless fill the void if catholics were let off the hook.. There is also a quaint unthinking attachment and loyalty to monarchies.
This isn’t a grouping that are natural republican thinkers or dreamers. They are used to a particular static conservatism that disallows creative thought.
The whole thing could probably be solved if social changes were actually factored in . In future times marching on public roads mightn’t be welcomed what with society obsessed with shopping and roads congesting with cars….although more people are shopping on the internet now …maybe they’ll cease to go outside at all eventually and the streets will be almost empty. There’ll be nobody to annoy then. You see , things change…..
It’s not the 17th, 18th, 19th, or even the 20th century anymore .We’re not talking about a few horses and carts on the roads anymore. People don’t want all that hassle all summer either . Maybe a few less parades and only if they’re wanted and well-behaved…Let’s talk about it .Maybe it’ll all fade away and the campers at Twaddell can live in peace and the cops can all go home….
For the OO to sit down at one side of the table and those what BOO them as they pass where they’re not welcome, on the other is a topper of an idea.
But to do so, Esteemed Blogmeister, without nominating a Chairperson to sit at the top would be like holding a banquet without Banquo. Soon the opposing teams would be at, erm, daggers drawn.
Thankfully, we on the south side of the Black Pig’s Dyke (give or take a Malin Head) are in a position to propose the very person; a man of sagacity and sophistication who would cut through the orange tape and eliminate the greenfly in jig time.
At the drop of a bowler hat, one who would have the Oos and the Boos rhyming with the other as one side would be outdoing its counterpart in the Woo department.
A man who has recently proved his worth on Laganside , a man whose mixed heritage from both sides of the political divide gives him an unique insight into the crux of the problem, and enables him to throw much needed lux on dark corners with his now trademark ‘ah,shucks’ shrug of those reconciliatory shoulders.
Step forward he who has done more than any other to kickstart the Cultic Tiger, none other than the one, the only, Charlie ‘Charles’ Flanagan, Foreign Minister of the Free Southern Stateen.
Already his negotiating skills, oops, skill sets have been acknowledged on a global scale. Witness his constant to-ing and fro-ing, tither- and anon-ing through time zones and the lines of longitude, the lines of latitude.
He is in constant demand to mend fences here and to bury other folks’ hatchets there. Right now the radar-tracking station on the roof of Iveagh House in Dublin can pinpoint with unerring accuracy his whereabouts at any given mo. Right now he is roughly half way betwen Katmandhu and Kalamazoo, cruising at 37,000 feet through the ether.
But that should give cause for no concern: he can return at the turn of a switch; his CV is replete with CV’s.(i.e. Cutting Visits Short). He can be back at HQ on St. Stephen’s Green as soon as cross border duties demand.
While his Gaelic heritage is as green as the location of his Department the little known orange strain in his DNA needs more emphasis. This has led him to proclaim that the wearing of the Easter Lily not only rubs him nose up the wrong way but indeed, it never fails to knock it out of joint.
That is why this native of The King’s County (subversively known as Laois or Laois and Water, as in Leix) has taken to adopting the look and the manners of a King Charles’ Spaniel. He is much given to the tail wag and the tongue loll, especially when in the company of his betters, not least those named Betty of a red,white and blue hue.
So, where does the orange thread raise its head?
Look no further than his da, the legendary Oliver J, whose seat, peat and beetroot colour (Flann in Flanagan means ‘red’ or ‘ruddy’) he inherits. Though not his tweets. Those are Charlie Charles’s own and for one of which he had to apologise of late. Even Homer nods.
Which reminds one that Oliver J. has been called the Homer Simpson of his time. Not least for his most enduring quote: ‘There was no sex in Ireland before the Late, Late Show in 1961’. (Charlie Charles was born in 1956).
Not even Flann O’Brien could top that one, never mind, Homer Simpson. D’oh !
No, the orange link lies with another gas character name of Simpson: O.J.
O.J. as in Orange Juice Flanagan.
OJ was a lifelong pioneer.
Mine’s a wee Mi Wadi.
agree with pointis and fiosrach. But besides the bigotry, intolerance and intransigence displayed by the Loyal orders there are several other pernicious aspects to this rather sinister organization
– the question of the sheer number of marches as Jude mentioned. they have increased as numbers in the orange orders fall. What normal organization holds 4,000 marches/walks or parades a year?they’re obsessing about something and their obsessions are driving society and government in NI
– orange order marches are pseudo-military .They are not, and cannot be seen or interpreted as, normal civic parades such as homecoming for a winning sports team or a parade to celebrate excellent work done by firemen, ambulance workers, the lifeboat association or other similar organizations. Do these people even get 1 parade a year?
– politically there’s a giant conflict of interest
members of the Loyal orders are in all unionist parties and are often in top positions. Voters don’t know if they are voting for “Unionism” or “Orangeism”.
i suggest they are two different issues and one of the major problems in Ni is that they are still entwined – 50 years after the demise of the orange State, with 25 -odd being dedicated to a peace process
Some good points there Ben…
Jude,
Once upon a time I had an idea how to settle this problem. It was back in the Drumcree days. 96 goodness it will soon by twenty years ago.
The residents on the Garvaghy Rd be given a weeks holidays fully inclusive, and a hefty discount on their rates bill for (inconvenience) nudge nudge wink wink.
It would have been a lot cheaper than the wages to the police. And if the OO did not agree they could always re-route.
Fiosrach, is as my auld granny would have said, “a skittery goat” the sooner this breed becomes extinct the better for the future generations.
All the best Norma
norma I realize you mean well by this statement
“The residents on the Garvaghy Rd be given a weeks holidays fully inclusive”,
but do you understand you are still advocating that people get put out of their homes to facilitate an orange march?
Can you see why that suggestion is totally unacceptable?
Norma, I’ll have you know that I kept goats in my youth and a more intelligent animal you could not find.
Can Britain show Orangemen the way and remove their Anti-Catholic laws ?
The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 repealed a lot of the anti-catholic legislation of the Act of Settlement The monarch still cannot be a catholic but is free to marry a catholic
Indeed. A Catholic can’t become monarch. Something about being regarded as naturally dead in terms of the relevant legislation.
It should be repealed -Britain needs to take a leadership role in helping to end the sectarianism she planted in Ireland.
Possibly, Cal, you have forgotten that Britain has a law that forbids the accession of a Catholic to the English throne.
Its okay if you’re Jewish, Moslem, Hindu or whatever religion in the world, or no religion, there is no law preventing your accession to the throne – just Catholics.
And you think they can show anyone anything! I don’t think so.
i think the parades commission has been tryin your idea out forever and a day but the OO will not sit down with “terrorists” tho they’ll share a stage and march with bands supportin loyalist terrorists and worse,these dinosaurs are not for talkin
Yes Michael .They are happy enough as long a s the terrorists are their own.Just another of our little twisted Christian hypocrisies…