The Orange Order, although it is an exclusively Protestant organisation by denomination, has made tremendous strides in recent years to make the 12 July demonstrations and parades a truly family occasion which folk from any religious tradition - Christian and non-Christian - can enjoy.
Part of the problem is the perception that Orangeism has weaponised the Twelfth in the same way that Sinn Fein has weaponised the Irish language.
Sinn Fein politicians and activists seem rather quiet when it comes to promoting an excellent historical work by the author Roger Blaney, who penned an absorbing account entitled ‘Presbyterians and the Irish Language.’
My personal reading of Blaney’s work is that it was us Presbyterians who saved the Irish language from extinction, so the pro-Union community in Northern Ireland should not let militant republicanism portray the language as only being part of the nationalist tradition.
In political terms, too, I don’t think the republican movement will be keen to promote another excellent work by John Biggs-Davison and George Chowdharay-Best entitled ‘The Cross of St Patrick: The Catholic Unionist Tradition in Ireland.’
When the events of the actual Battle of the Boyne in 1690 are analysed in terms of historical context, one conclusion is clear - Catholicism in Ireland needs to embrace its Boyne heritage. The real problem is how to go about it!
The real issue is that there is a false perception that all of William’s army was Protestant, and all of James’ army was Catholic. It would be the height of folly to dismiss the outcome of the Boyne battle as ‘one-nil to the Prods’.
It must be remembered that William was married to James’ daughter Mary and that after the Boyne victory, William deliberately delayed his move even deeper into what is Southern Ireland to ensure his father-in-law escaped to France.
In this sense, the Boyne was part of a much larger political picture in what is now the British Isles. The late 17th century conflict is sometimes referred to as the War of English Succession. William’s military victory laid the foundation stones for modern parliamentary democracy.
On a wider European front, the Boyne battle was a key milestone in the War of the League of Augsburg in which William was a key military commander in the Grand Alliance - which included the Papacy - against the dictator of the day, Louis of France.
It seems to have been conveniently airbrushed out of history that the Pope of the day in 1690, Alexander the Eighth, held a special Te Deum on hearing of William’s victory.
James was essentially Louis’s wee puppet king and had the former won the Boyne showdown, Ireland would have become a key strategic landing point for Louis to invade England.
While the lyrics of The Sash point to other strategic battles in the Williamite campaign, such as the Siege of Londonderry, and the battles of Enniskillen and Aughrim, it was the military bloody nose which William ultimately delivered to Louis’s invasion plans which turned the tide of the war in both the British Isles and mainland Europe.
Louis, like the 20th century despots such as Kaiser Bill and Adolf Hitler in Germany, wanted to expand the French empire as much as possible. But to do so, Louis had to comprehensively defeat the Grand Alliance.
Had James won the Boyne, that would have laid the foundation stones, not for modern democracy, but for a French dictatorship which would have made Emperor Napoleon’s campaign in the 19th century seem like a Sunday school picnic.
Likewise, in military terms, William’s elite forces were known as the Dutch Royal Blues, who were predominantly Catholic by faith.
Indeed, had it not been for the ability of the Dutch Royal Blues to cross the River Boyne itself, the military outcome of the battle could have been radically different, given that William was himself wounded in a Jacobite cannon ambush whilst having breakfast before the actual battle itself.
In spite of these historical facts, the issue still remains for both Catholicism and Orangeism - how to make the Twelfth more inclusive?
The Orange Order has also made strides to eradicate the perception that St Patrick’s Day is only part of the republican heritage. It must never be forgotten that St Patrick brought the Christian faith to Ireland, not militant Irish nationalism.
Given Alexander the Eighth’s Te Deum, is there any movement between the Loyal Order leaderships and the leadership of the Irish Catholic Church to make the Boyne celebrations more inclusive without such a move being branded by fundamentalists as bowing the knee to the ecumenical movement?
The more worrying point would be that there may be folk on both sides of the religious divide that it suits their respective agendas to portray the Twelfth as a ‘Prods only’ celebration.
Just as Irish Freemasonry embraces people of all religions, could a day ever come whereby Catholics could parade on the Twelfth in a lodge or organisation dedicated to the heroic deeds of the Dutch Royal Blues - or is that a step too far?
The Twelfth, like St Patrick’s Day, the Somme commemoration, Catholics who served gallantly with the British Armed Forces, and even the Presbyterians who fought in the United Irishmen’s rebellion of 1798, have unfortunately all been the subject of historical revisionism.
For political agendas, it is still too convenient to airbrush facts under the carpet of history.
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. |
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