Orange Order Needs to Talk

By AM Monday, March 17, 2014

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John Coulter with a piece that initially featured in Tribune magazine. It was published on 10 March 2014.

Will the real Protestant Orange Order please stand up as the IRA’s political wing wants to know which branch of the so-called Loyal Orders to talk to? The failure of the talks hosted by leading American diplomat Richard Haass on parading in Northern Ireland may have been because the Protestant Marching Orders are deeply divided on which direction to take.

This year did not begin well for the Orange Order, the largest Protestants-only institution spawned in the 18th century from the violent terror gang of that era, the Peep O’Day Boys, so known for their dawn raids on Catholics.

Even the dogs in the street know the solution to the parades controversies lies in direct face to face talks between Loyal Order officers and representatives of nationalist residents’ groups.

While the Orange Order views itself as a Christian organisation, to many Catholics – and a growing section of the liberal Protestant community – the Order has gained the reputation of being the Irish equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan.

Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein president and Member of the Dail for Louth in the Irish Republic, used his party’s recent annual conference in Wexford to again hold out the hand of friendship to the Orange Order. While a substantial section of loyalism could dismiss this gesture as well-choreographed spin, the Sinn Fein leadership has a real problem over which faction of the Order to meet. There is a difference between more liberal Unionist Orangemen in rural areas, compared to the more militant urban leadership.

During one recent parade protest, a senior Belfast Orangeman publicly appealed in his speech for Protestants not to learn the Irish language. His statement was made all the more daft because the Belfast County Orange organisation once boasted an individual branch – known as a lodge – which was called Ireland’s Heritage and had its name emblazoned on its banner in Irish.

While Sinn Fein has “laid claim” to the Irish language as part of republican heritage and culture, it was actually one of Ireland’s largest Protestant denominations, Presbyterianism, which kept the language alive in the 18th century when English-speaking colonial forces were trying to have it stamped out. Indeed, it was radical Presbyterians who were the driving force behind the doomed 1798 rebellion in Ireland by the United Irishmen movement.

The Orange Order’s Belfast leadership seems to forget that the organisation’s ruling body is called the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The movement has thriving lodges in the southern Irish border counties of Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and Leitrim.

Ironically for the Order is that one of its most successful parades takes place in the Irish Republic. Traditionally, on the Saturday before the main July 12 demonstrations in Northern Ireland, the southern lodges hold their annual Boyne commemoration in the Donegal coastal village of Rossnowlagh.

Since the Drumcree standoff crisis erupted in the Northern Irish town of Portadown in 1995, the Rossnowlagh parade has increased in popularity, prompting suggestions that the Order should hold more parades in the Republic in isolated villages. Those within the Loyal Orders who favour direct talks with nationalist residents groups also faced the dilemma of what factions genuinely speak for the republican community. The dissident republican terror threat has not been mirrored with an increase in political support for dissident parties.

On some contentious parade routes, especially in north Belfast, the Loyal Orders have to contend with two nationalist residents groups – one backing Sinn Fein, the other supporting dissidents. The urban and rural split within the Orange Order is also reflective of the wider rift in the Unionist community with the growth of a dissident loyalist movement opposed to First Minister Peter Robinson’s Democratic Unionists being in power at Stormont with Sinn Fein.

Perhaps one way Adams could kick-start significant talks with the Loyal Orders would be to concentrate on talking to the leadership of the more senior of the Orders – the Royal Black Institution. Also formed in the late 18th century, the Royal Black is more overtly religious, holds fewer and less contentious parades and is generally viewed as “a poor man’s version of Irish Freemasonry”.