Indeed, it was on Monday 12th October 1998 - exactly 28 years ago today - that the then Ulster Society chairman, the recently deceased Gordon Lucy, informed me that following a complaint from the Independent Orange Order’s Grand Master George Dawson - now also dead - that The Orange Card was being pulled.
The full title of the book was The Orange Card: Orangeism’s links with Unionism and Loyalism 1968-1998. It was to be my first solo book as I’d previously co-authored a book on the media with publisher Longman in 1996.
The project was based on my Master of Philosophy (MPhil) thesis by research on Orangeism, which I had completed a few months earlier at Queen’s University’s School of Politics. My internal examiner for the thesis, Professor Paul Bew, now Lord Bew, had agreed to write the foreword for the book.
In 1998, I was living in Maghaberry village, so I simply approached the nearest geographical publisher at that time, The Ulster Society, which was then based in Lurgan’s Brownlow House.
My thesis, running to some 50,000 words, was to be the basis of the book so much of it would have to be rewritten as a commercial book, not an academic thesis.
Naturally, any book on Orangeism would not only look at the main Orange Order, but also consider the role of the much smaller Independent Orange Order, which in 1998 at the time of writing ‘The Orange Card’ had a membership of around 1,000 with about two dozen lodges.
I decided to interview Dawson about the role of the Independent Institution, which he kindly did. However, my journalistic sources within the Independents told me the real ‘mover and shaker’ of influence within that Order was a Pentecostal cleric, David McConaghie, then Pastor of Maghaberry Elim Tabernacle in my then home village!
I faced a dilemma. Should I approach McConaghie for a face to face interview for my book given that he was to the fore in opposing the Evangelical Prayer Breakfast Movement, of which my late dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, was co-chairman?
To my surprise, McConaghie gave me an interview. Such was the quality and quantity of the information he provided, I was able to write a separate chapter on the Independents rather than simply ‘tag on’ references to the Order at the end of a chapter on Rev Ian Paisley’s influence on Orangeism.
During that summer of 1998, Dawson and McConaghie made mention of a new pressure group which was being formed, to be known as The Caleb Foundation, and to be formally launched that October.
Dawson specifically outlined the role of the Independent Institution in the background to bring together a number of Protestant denominations and organisations to campaign for the historic evangelical Protestant faith.
As far as I was concerned, it was my conclusion that The Caleb Foundation - named after the Biblical Old Testament spy - was simply a recruiting agent for the Independent Institution.
Initially, I could not have asked for better support and professionalism from the Ulster Society and especially from Gordon Lucy and Dr Steven King, the latter later becoming one of UUP First Minister David Trimble’s speech writers.
The attitude of the Ulster Society as an organisation towards me cooled following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 when it emerged I would be supporting the Yes campaign and that editorially, The Orange Card, would be very positive in favour of the Belfast Agreement.
The book was scheduled to be launched in early October. The first of the pre-launch publicity was published in the Sunday World on October 11th 1998 by my journalistic colleague, the late Martin O’Hagan, who was murdered in 2001 by a loyalist terror group.
Martin focused on the establishment of The Caleb Foundation under the headline: ‘Hardline Anti-Catholic Pressure Group Set Up.’ His article mentioned that I had interviewed both Dawson and McConaghie for The Orange Card.
Within hours of the article appearing, a very angry Dawson was on the phone to me. He was furious that the article - and hence my book - was drawing a link between the soon to be formally unveiled Caleb Foundation and the Independent Institution. He also took exception to the phrase ‘Anti-Catholic’ in the headline.
That formal launch of the Caleb Foundation was scheduled for Friday 16th October in Belfast’s Park Avenue Hotel. Was Dawson really angry that my book would upstage the launch of Caleb? An advert highlighting the Caleb launch named the members of the Foundation’s ruling Council of Reference - all were Protestants! Not a Catholic cleric in sight!
During the tetchy phone call with Dawson, I said he could have access to the manuscript before it was published and he could read my evaluation of the link between Caleb and the Independent Institution in full. His response was to put the phone down on me. I was never to speak to Dawson again before he died in 2007.
Within hours, Dawson had contacted the Ulster Society, and Lucy then informed me that as a result of Dawson’s complaint, the entire book was being cancelled. I offered to rewrite the sections relating at Caleb, even give more space in the book to Dawson’s views, but the decision was final - The Orange Card was dead in the water!
But was there a political motivation behind the cancelling of The Orange Card? Why axe an entire 18-chapter book over references to one fringe fundamentalist pressure group?
Yes, The Orange Card was broadly pro-Agreement in direction, but it did contain interviews with anti-Agreement Unionists and Loyalists, such as Dawson, McConaghie, Jeffrey Donaldson, Bob McCartney and Joel Patton of Spirit of Drumcree.
Getting The Orange Card cancelled provided Dawson with some kudos within the Unionist No camp. Claims that the book was cancelled for political reasons were investigated by the late journalist and author Henry McDonald, prompting Lucy to issue a letter to the Belfast News Letter denying that the Ulster Society had a political stance on the Agreement.
My dad had got elected as a UUP MLA for North Antrim in 1998. I asked him if he could set up a meeting with Dawson to see if there could be a way forward for The Orange Card.
What I assumed was Dawson’s response came in July 2000 when in his role as Independent Grand Master, he named dad in a press release along with seven other UUP MLAs stating:
These men should be hounded and harried out of the ranks on parade next Wednesday 12th July. They should be removed from platforms and consigned to the wilderness of infamy.
I just had to face the bitter medicine as an author that The Orange Card project was a no-go. So I simply co-wrote another book with another publisher and The Orange Card manuscript sat in a box for decades.
But this October 2026 is a different scenario. Dawson and Lucy are dead. McConaghie, who for a time was the very public media face of The Caleb Foundation, was convicted by a court of filming a colleague for sexual gratification and jailed in 2015.
The Ulster Society no longer exists and The Caleb Foundation has a much lower profile since the McConaghie conviction. And after 28 years, Drumcree is back on the news agenda in a very significant manner.
Whilst the manuscript is a snap shot of Orangeism, Unionism and Loyalism during a 30-year period from 1968 to 1998, perhaps the time is now right for me to play The Orange Card once again?
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News. |
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