A cautionary tale for the day that’s in it

I’ve told this before but it bears repeating.  I was raised on a farm  over a mile outside Omagh. Just across the fence from us, on slightly higher ground, the council built a prefab estate of public housing which was 100% Protestant. My sisters used to play with some of the girls from the estate, who’d come over and compare dolls, play house, etc. I too  had a friend, a blond-haired lad my own age. We’d roam the fields looking for rabbits to kill, he’d marvel at how the milk came out of cows, how the hay was stacked in the shed. It was good.

Then July each year would come round and visits would taper off, until by the 10 July there’d be no sign of visitors. On the Twelfth we’d watch from behind trees as the bands went thundering up the road to Omagh;  then my mother would get dinner ready and there’d be jelly and ice cream in honour of my birthday. In the mid-afternoon the thuds would start.

It was the noise of stones hitting the roof of our hayshed. We’d rush out and there would be the young people of the prefab park, including our erstwhile friends, lobbing stones at the hayshed and then at us. “You fenian bastards!” they’d shout. “This is Sandy Row where the fenians never go!”  For years I thought Sandy Row was the sandy bit of elevated ground they stood on to fire missiles. We responded with vigour, pegging stones back and telling them what we thought of the queen. My blond-haired friend would be there too, calling insults but in a slightly less aggressive way, throwing stones but somehow a little …shame-faced. Then after about an hour we’d all get tired shouting and throwing, and go home for our tea.

It’d be anything up to two weeks before the girls crossed over again to start, one by one, playing with my sisters again; and eventually my friend would slip over and we’d gradually stop feeling awkward, never mention what had happened, and go back to our old friendship.

I think that tale catches much  of what the Twelfth celebrations do for this place. Year after year, people who might be neighbours, get along, are divided. One side or the other. Sometimes a violent sundering that went on for weeks after,everybody ending up feeling a little bit grubbier after it was over, and wounds, emotional or literal, that needed a bit of time to heal.

So here’s my question. In a divided society, divided since ever I can remember, why do we have this annual hand-grenade tossed into community relations? Why does marching matter so much that it has to happen, even if it turns friends against each other, neighbours caught up in contempt and insult?  We’ve inflicted enough damage on each other – isn’t it nearly time we took this annual divider and committed it to a museum somewhere – sashes, bowler hats, white gloves, photos of swaggering kick-the-pope band and red-faced burghers – the lot. Even for a period of, say, five years. And see if we can manage to live without triumphalism.

Especially since, year after year, it buggers up my birthday.