THE GRAND TRADITION OF HATRED IN NORNEVERLAND

“Fully prepared, they waited there, to show that Orange and Blue
Must reign supreme o’er rebel Green, and would that day should all
Rome’s rebly dogs — the mobs — attempt to face Loughgall:
mongrel mob, from moor and bog. from far and near they came;
Ragmen, cobblers, cowboys, the halt. the blind, the lame; “
Loyalism in Norneverland has apparently found itself in the doldrums this past twenty -odd years .They’ve groaned and grizzled because they say they have no political voice.They say they are “forgotten”. They imply that whether or not they can get representatives elected in fair elections they should still have a say in how the society is run. For the most part Republicans and Nationalists have prospered since they decided that weapons were not the way ahead. Loyalists held onto theirs tightly .They were not encouraged to give them up.Unionism was adamant that the IRA’s weapons would have to be de-commissioned …and seen to be de-commissioned. At the time it actually seemed to some of us onlookers that unionism would really have preferred if the IRA had actually kept going with their brute -force “war”. They possibly wanted the Loyalists to retain their arms too but that was moot and possibly hardly mattered anyway as weapons seemed to be always available either through the percolating British army and possibly through the police force, or were legally -held in any case.Guns , one way or another were always available within loyalism and unionism , it seemed.That seemed to be the “natural order of things” and was barely a consideration.
By the time the idea of decommissioning the IRA’s weapons was being floated, a whole local economy based on weaponry and “defence” had already grown up around “Security” and the “Security Forces” in any case.Many unionist household budgets possibly relied on some input from the Ministry of Defence in some manner, should that only be in the support infrastructure .They had for some twenty years or possibly more. Men and women went out to work in barracks on a daily basis .It was their employment and their economic security.
So why did the DUP not want the the ceasefires when they were mooted first and why were they so set against an agreement being made that would stop all the killing , bombing and mayhem some twenty -odd years ago in the early 1990’s? Before the ceasefires there was much private conversation behind closed doors and at public meetings about this very thing .It’s well known that Ian Paisley and the DUP vociferously opposed any talk of ceasefire as they had most other deals in the past.
Loyalist David Ervine of the loyalist PUP/UVF who appeared to have a clear-headed and almost pedantically logical view of events,stated that Ian Paisley’s DUP begged the UVF not to go on ceasefire in the early 1990’s.It would have been interesting to have been privy to those conversations. The DUP obviously thought that this wouldn’t be the best thing for them….or for unionism as a whole. Of course, the DUP and the UUP were the main mouthpieces of unionism and they held back what they considered their more unsavoury “muscle”, in the shadows . They assumed that they could always pretend to keep their hands clean and respectable while their more lethal , possibly less-educated supporters, would know their place in the scheme of things and not involve themselves in politics.. The DUP had to be dragged, kicking and struggling to the Agreement table in the end .Indeed it was a shock when Ian Paisley finally embraced the idea of Agreement .Many have not yet figured out exactly why he did that and actually seemed to become friends with the enemy in the shape of that bete noir ,Martin Mc Guinness of Sinn Fein.They are in the process of making a film about that particular relationship as I write, but I doubt there will be any further revelations forthcoming as to how it really came about.The results could be interesting.Was it all a case of keeping your friends close and your enemies even closer?
There’s a very emotive piece of film footage used in the old television series about the Troubles by Peter Taylor. In the “Loyalists” section, loyalist Gary McMichael disturbs a DUP public meeting in Lisburn’s Orange Hall ,L.O.L.Number 6 .The cameras as Paisley is flanked at the table on stage byPeter Robinson, and by Edwin Poots among others.Paisley’s son ,Ian is in the background. It is the early 1990’s and McMichael was leader of the UDP {Ulster Democratic Unionist Party…a party representing a loyalist terror group’s supposed thinking}…one of the further micro-splits in the once -unshakeable huge ,”Unionist” monolithic edifice that had ruled the roost since its inception . Any splits or further chipping away would have been viewed as a further leeching away of strength from the main core . People like McMichael and his party would have been seen as an unwanted aberration….loyalists who could think as well as maybe shooting people.”Thinking” was seemingly, a novel turn of events. Thinking should really have been left to their “betters”….a little fore-lock -tugging or cap-doffing to the Big House Unionists of privilege , would have been more in their line.
At that moment those loyalists who’d usually stood four-square behind Paisley and all his stunts throughout the Troubles’ years and the mayhem he’d engendered , were now opposed to his stance on keeping that pot boiling. They reasoned , I’d imagine , that he was sitting outside the boiling pot looking in while they did the stewing to his recipe. They were the ones ending up in the gaols after all…no matter how heroic they might have felt, they were the ones doing time without their families.It was at this point in time when loyalism had finished with Paisley and Paisley had lost his use for them.They’d become way too complicated for him by this time .
The likes of Edwin Poots didn’t just avidly hate Martin McGuinness , republicanism, republicans and Sinn Fein, as he ably demonstrated so vividly on the television “Nolan Show”, he was also very capable of spitting hatred vociferously from a public platform, even at those he perceived to also be enemies of unionism’s own cosy little war.He positively howled his vitriol from the platform at McMichael when Mc Michael asked Paisley to publicly spell out the alternative to a peace -agreement. McMichael attempted to calm a very irate crowd to allow some sense into the equation but he was met with angry condemnation from the assorted onlookers and harangued into silence……His opinion was to be stifled.
Poots , true to the dour, truculent form we now all know and take for granted , howled “Get out! ” at McMichael and then followed it, obviously backed by the wound -up crowd, with an an aggressive “Com’ on ,big fella!” , playing to the crowd , as though spoiling for some personal , physical fisticuffs. An easy thing to do, no doubt, when backed by a room full of people.It was just the usual thing unionism did when confronted with rational argument , even a question from its own….start up a fight and bury the debate.Unionism really only worked when they had something to fight about and they were really afraid of losing that focus. What if that focus was suddenly taken away?
What was McMichael’s sin ? What was the UDP’s real sin?
Well ,at that moment in time, the background talks were ongoing between some republicans, loyalists and strands of contacts in both the British and Irish governments….to hopefully bring the violence to an end and give each side of the conflict , those actually fighting with weaponry, some hope that their aspirations would each have some future validity.Something that would allow the killing to stop and politics to begin.Sinn Fein had long been ready for a more political role and loyalism had its own aspirations.They mightn’t get everything right away but at least their children might grow up to see better times. If there wasn’t to be a total immediate change of Norneverland’s status , at least the possibility would be there for it to possibly happen by political means in the future, or at least there’d be a choice, without need for violent conflict .It meant eventually actually making “real ” politics work for a change ….as opposed to the untruthful kind that had existed since the setting up of the state.
But some in loyalism and some strands of republicanism also dreamed of something different …. a glorious escalation…a sort of “Quickening” a “Rapture” or Day of Glorious Reckoning that would finally lay waste to their enemies on a grand scale.They were imagining , each in their own way, a terror that would frighten, kill and destroy , republicans , nationalists , unionists and of course the ancient enemy , “Roman Catholics” or “Protestants” and possibly drive them to the far borderlands where they might be forever contained.
On the unionist side of the equation they’d had a loose support from their very “own” personal security forces and information was shared equitably throughout their networks of supporters in the Orange Order, UDR, the RUC and the British Army. There was enough ambivalence and seepage within and between those groupings to allow that ….while at the same time drawing their wages from the ever-open UK purse and coffers. It was a scary thing to imagine a new world without that kind of security blanket. …without the whole infrastructure of “SECURITY” that had poured money by the truckload into the households of unionism for generations. A deal would mean dismantling all of it .Troops would have to be siphoned back to the UK ;army bases and all the local support and catering staffs would have to go; security services which had been sustained from the unionist community would have to be pared back to the bone ; helicoptors would cease to fly and khaki -green jeeps would be seen no more on the streets .There’d even be no more check-points for the UDR to man on an evening and earn a few handy part-time coins. There was even talk about a new police service with a more community -balanced work-force. Where would this all end?
That’s what a peace-deal would have to mean though….and how would unionism explain all that to its voters? They were , on the whole the only community affected financially by any of these coming changes. Nationalists never really tasted any of that gravy , after all.
You might say that to sustain all this Uk largesse , hatred has had to be sustained down through the years by mad , romantic , violent stories, songs and poems , learned and sung from birth.If not in the schools, then drummed out in the halls , pubs and clubs and the continuous, bumptious entitlement of marching, marching, marching, marching anywhere they damn-well liked that has become something of a tradition across loyalism . This harking to some mad, romantic glorious past is possibly true on both sides of the divide, but because of the annual,months -long , ingrained “traditional “aspect of it in unionism , hatred has long-since become the blood and bone of unionism’s thinking to possibly a greater extent than in any other community. Every summer the old fears are whipped up just as the apples begin grow on the apple trees.
Recently I was reminded of this piece that was also included in Susan McKay’s lucid study of “Northern Protestants”. I don’t think it requires any further explanation other than the verses of stirring words , but even in the already arcane language of just over one hundred years ago it certainly explains a lot and covers much ground in its every word , name and phrase ….It sounds legendary and some of it , besides the very real place-names ,might even be true. Bear in mind that Loughgall has a special place in the Orange Lore….

The Fenians’ Defeat at Loughgall
On the 15th August 1873
{Sung to the air “Colonel Verne”….No I don’t know either !}.
On the fifteenth day of August , in the year of Seventythree,
The Fenians all, about Loughgall exuberant with glee,
Resolved that they, upon that day, whater might them befall,
rebel flag, triumphantly. Would through Loughgall:
Accordingly, at break of day. these Rebels blew their horn:
A hideous hum. of fife and drum, broke on the silent morn;
fish that in the Callan swim, made off into the “Tall”
To enjoy the sight of the Fenian flight from the village of Loughgall:
Drummily you may suppose, put on a joyous mood;
They seemed to say, -We, crow’s, today, will have a change of food”;
So off they went. with one consent. to watch the Fenians fall.
If they should come, with fife and drum, to march into Loughgall:
Village boys. Soon heard the noise, but not a word did Say,
Their thoughts Were on brave Derry’s Sons, Who kept King James at bay;
Their spirits rose – their course they chose. to fight. and fighting fall,
E’er a Fenian crew should march into the village of Loughgall:
Accordingly, without delay, a few good men and true,
Went Off Straightway, for to Survey, When the Fenians came into View.
About one hundred. dressed in green. -ten men could chide them all
Marched past the -Rocks”, like turkey cocks, afraid to face Loughgall;
The “Bummers’ Core” from Annaghmore„ met them at “Friendship Hoggs”,
Where. by command. a Single man call’ d water, Wine, or grog:
they saved their “tin” for “Ardress Inn” intending there to call,
When coming home victorious from the conquest of Loughgall;
E’en with the Chapel nigh at hand, they did not stop to pray,
Lest Well’s True Blues should hear the news, they ran most Of the way
With green flagg dropped, and Whistles mute, their footsteps light did fall,
For they believed, that unperceived, they’d get into Loughgall:
A motley throng some hundreds strong, now marched o’er Lonsdale’s brae,
But when they came to “Laurel” how great was their d’smay;
Fear and despair from front to rear, seized them both great and small;
For now they seen, the rebel green, dare not face on Loughgal
For her brave sons had reached -ores turn”. in number twenty-two.
Fully prepared, they waited there, to show that Orange and Blue
Must reign supreme o’er rebel Green, and would that day should all
Rome’s rebly dogs — the mobs — attempt to face Loughgall:
mongrel mob, from moor and bog. from far and near they came;
Ragmen, cobblers, cowboys, the halt. the blind, the lame;
From Annahue and Ballytrue, they Came both great and
With the “Brummers’ Core”. from to the conquest Of
From rebly Slash, they cut a dash, and Blundell’s Grange as well,
From Annahagh, and Black-water, they looked like fiends from hell:
Knockaconny, and Al-dress, besides the
Sent all the hands they could command to the Conquest Of
Likewise from the “Duck Island”. where lives Sir Drake O’Neill,
An errant fool, whose creed’s Home Rule, vile Popery and Repeal;
Also from Balbwilly – for must record them all –
Who Came to aid the raid that upon Loughgall:
they yelled and swore that Annaghmore that day Loughgall would quelL
Should they be killed, or Loughgall filled with devils out of hell
But in while you’d wink clink after clink, the fists began to fall,
Which short work made of the Fenian raid, on the village of Loughgall:
Bold Jackson jumped into the front, and thus to them did say —
“The sooner you are out of this ’twill tell another day:
For not a man ofyour vile clan -now mark you one and all!
But will repent, if you attempt to march into Loughgall”
‘Twas splendid fun to See them run, and Jackson take his Stand
Quick new their heels, across the fields. like hunted Sheep they ran!
“The Devil take the hindmost”. was their shout. and “run, boys, run!”
Whilst they could hear the Loughgall cheers behind them at the “Turn”:
All honour to those twenty -two, who made the Fenians run,
said die, or make them Without pistol, sword, or gun,
‘Twas to chastise, not take their lives, and warn them once foe an,
That a Fenian crew should ne’er march through the village of Loughgall.
Subdued. they beat a quick retreat. most of them to Ardress:
Where at the “Inn” they spent their “tin”, to soothe their dire distress,
Whilst many more did cool their sores in the Waters of the “Tall”,
their ribs and heads will long time dread the heroes of Loughgall:
Ardress boys may cease their noise, and so may Annaghmore,
Likewise the fools who shout ‘Home Rule”, they may as well give o’er
fifteenth day Of August may a Warning be to all;
For Orange. Blue, and Purple too, must conquer round Loughgall:
Henceforth. let all true Protestants in and around Loughgall:
those twentytwo good men and true, in lasting song extol:
Be not beguiled by Fenian smiles; be this the cry of all;
“NO SURRENDER, • NO ROME RULE – long life to old Loughgall”.