OK – the positives first. The Orange Order is an annual day out, when Orangement can meet and have bottle of stout or a can of lager. It also gives room for a bit of colour and pageant, breaking up what could otherwise be the silly and teadious season. The Order has existed for near two-and- a- half centuries, and the music, the speeches, the banners all add a warmth and an affirmation of who the Protestant/Unionist people are.
Alas, there are many negatives. The Order came into being in a pub in 1795, after a sectarian clash that left thirty Catholics dead. It forbids any Catholics from joining the Order, and all women.Traditionally, it has marched with thudding drum and shrieking flute wherever it felt like marching, especially if that involved marching through largely Catholic areas, knowing that this upset Catholics. Many of the tunes played were of an anti-Catholic nature, and urinating against the church walls was not uusual.
So in its ordinances, its history and its more recent record at Drumcree, with a number of Catholics killed, including three little boys in a deliberatte house fire, the Orange Order does not have a good look. For many decades, the Prime Minister of N-EI was an Orangeman. ( As a side issue, when in a live radio discussion I pointed out to unionist politician David McNarry that the Orange Order was anti-Catholic, he flew into a rage, called me ‘a rebel’ (among other things) and stormed from the studio.)
Presidential candidate Heather Humphreys is in some bother, with the revelation that as a child, she attended Orange Order Twelfth celebrations. When asked by journalists if her husband was a member of the Order she adopted an evasive stance, saying they’d have to ask the man himself that. Investigation reveals he certainly was a member but may not be now. You’d think his wife would know, wouldn’t you?
Claims that the Order is now a simple religious-cultural organisation don’t seem to have reached the Humphreys household, otherwise why would Heather prove evasive about her or her husband’s relation to it? Fine Gael, which views Heather as its presidential candidate, has probably played a part with Heather in trying to turn a disaster into an advantage. She will, she vows, if elected as President, be able to show how a Protestant like herslf and her husband can live as Irish republicans in the South and be in favour of a united Ireland.
Those in the South who criticise northern nationalists and republicans for their negative attitude to the Order would do well to remember 2006, when an Orange contigent in Dublin was met with stones, metal railings, fireworks, bricks, petrol bombs and other missiles. No wonder Heather did a bit of writhing when asked about her relationship with the religious/cultural/political organisation that is firmly anti-Catholic. That’s because Heather knows the Orange Order is, in its origins, ordinances and history, full-throttle anti-Catholic.
Spot on. Not surprising though fir a country that had aMI5 operative in charge of their police force.
Heather is indeed in a bit of a pickle with this. She openly admitted attending the annual 12th festivities as a child. Probably advised to get that out in the open and done with before someone published it in the middle of the campaign. she wisely added that she will vote for a united Ireland and as part of that process would invite the unionists, including the orange order to visit the big house in the park, if elected. The problem however, as you eluded to it Jude, if Heather was to openly state in public what we all know about the said Loyal Order, they would continue with their hundred year old boycott of this state and our President for all, even she wanted to greet them wearing her own orange sash.