The Drumcree dispute has hung over the Order specifically and the wider Protestant Unionist Loyalist (PUL) community like a political open wound for decades.
The High Court ruling quashing a Parades Commission decision to bar Orangemen from part of the flashpoint Portadown route provides the perfect opportunity for Orangeism to finally lance that troublesome boil.
The last time the Order got to march home from its Somme commemoration service in Drumcree Parish Church via the Garvaghy Road was 1997. The dispute had begun two years earlier in 1995 and saw thousands of loyalists from across the Province converge on the road beside the Church of Ireland building.
Perhaps the real low point in the campaign came in 1998, ironically the year of the Good Friday Agreement and the supposed commencement of the peace process.
At that time, my late dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, was a North Antrim Ulster Unionist Assembly Member and firmly in the UUP’s Yes camp on the Agreement and a supporter of party leader David, later Lord, Trimble.
However, that Twelfth Drumcree protest was vastly overshadowed by the killings of the three Catholic Quinn brothers in an arson attack in Ballymoney in the heart of dad’s constituency.
Interviewed at that time about the murder of the three Catholic brothers, dad said:
We are burning our children on the altar of our hatred. This is the harvest of inflammatory speeches and intransigence on both sides.
When dad and two other senior Loyal Order chaplains called on the Orange Order to leave Drumcree hill as a mark of respect to the dead brothers, they received death threats from a breakaway loyalist death squad, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).
That 1998 Twelfth, dad was to preach the religious sermon at one of the main demonstrations in Co Fermanagh at Irvinestown. Such was the concern for dad’s safety following the LVF death threat, that the police met us at the Ballygawley roundabout and gave us an escort into Irvinestown.
But the splits within Unionism over the April Agreement were already rife by the Twelfth. As well as dad, the other platform speaker that day was his fellow UUP MLA and Trimble supporter Sam Foster from the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency.
The Drumcree dispute had also spawned a militant pressure group within Orangeism, the Spirit of Drumcree. As soon as Assemblyman Foster stood up to speak, he was hit with a constant barrage of heckling from Spirit of Drumcree supporters. Dad and I feared the worst for his sermon.
But it was like the Old Testament Biblical character Daniel in the lions den. The Spirit of Drumcree supporters did not utter a sound and dad was able to preach his Gospel message unhindered.
In spite of the high tension circumstances of that specific Twelfth demonstration, there was an amusing incident just before dad delivered his sermon.
Dad had handed me his chunky mobile phone as he could not fit it in his pocket and did not want to preach with a bulging pocket. He told me to phone mum and inform her that as soon as the platform proceedings had finished, we would be heading back home to north Antrim.
In the late 1990s, mobile phone reception in Irvinestown was not the best! I was standing at the side of the platform trying to get a signal to ring mum. I made several attempts without success. Sam Foster was bravely trying to deliver his speech amid the intense heckling.
Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find a very senior local Orangeman, who said: “Can we deal with this situation before you bring in your people!” My immediate reaction was: “People, what people?”
The Orangeman responded: “You’re a police officer. Give us a chance to calm this down before you order in your riot squad!” Now I’m only five foot, four inches, bald, specky-four-eyed and was then quite skinny built. So in spite of the tension, I was rather chuffed that this senior Orangeman should think I was a potential riot cop supervisor!
But after the 1998 Twelfth rioting, and especially the deaths of the three Quinn children, many middle class Unionists literally walked away from the Drumcree protest. During my time as Northern Political Correspondent for the Irish Daily Star, I once wrote that Drumcree had become Unionism’s Vietnam.
The bitter medicine which the PUL community has had to swallow is that the Orange Order has been steadily losing its influence within Unionism - until the High Court ruling.
Orangeism has been handed a gift horse on a silver plate - so don’t blow it! For generations, the Order was the cement which held the various elements of the Unionist community together.
The Right-wing Presbyterian Unionist businessman could sit in the Orange lodge room with the working class, socialist-leaning Church of Ireland loyalist and both could call themselves ‘brother’. All classes and creeds within Protestantism were equal in the lodge room.
The Order was also a communication vehicle whereby the ruling Unionist elite could pass their views to the pro-Union grassroots. This vehicle now needs a strong political MOT.
With allegations that there is a political disconnect between the Unionist parties and the loyalist working class, and especially with voter apathy among the pro-Union community, there is a real opportunity for Orangeism to mobilise pro-Union voters ahead of next year’s elections.
Unionism has come a poor runner-up to nationalism in past elections. That situation can be reversed if the Order would embark on a voter registration campaign in the pro-Union community as well as ensuring Unionist voters actually come out to the polling booths on election day and transfer among pro-Union candidates.
For the first time since that horrendous summer of 1998, Orangeism now has a golden opportunity to get off the back foot and show constructive leadership to the pro-Union electorate. It is an opportunity which must be seized and not missed.
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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. |
will commemorate IRA Chief of Staff Maurice Moss Twomey in Cork next weekend.
