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Showing posts with label Orange Order. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orange Order. Show all posts
2 Irelands Together ★ Written by Andy Pollak.

The Mail on Sunday (Irish edition) is not everybody’s idea of a truth-telling newspaper (that’s an understatement). They had a front-page ‘exclusive’ earlier this month entitled ‘Humphreys Husband’s Secret Orange Order Past’ about the Fine Gael presidential candidate Heather Humphreys’ husband Eric’s’s alleged membership of the order some 50 years ago. It claimed the candidate, who is a Presbyterian, tried to “evade” questions about when precisely her husband may have been in the order, and “admitted” that she had attended Orange parades in Monaghan as a child. This was the moment “the wheels came off” her media appearance in her home county, it added.

In a follow-up opinion piece in the Irish Times, UCD historian Edward Burke, who has written a well-reviewed book about the unionists of Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal during the War of Independence and afterwards, told the story of Heather Humpheys’ grandfather, a Ulster Volunteer Force section leader, shooting an IRA volunteer in the face during a raid on his house in Aghabog, near Humphreys’ home village of Drum, in 1920.

The Orange Order Is Part Of Ireland And Will Be Part Of A United Ireland 🪶 We Need To Build Bridges To It, Not Demonise it

Dr John Coulter✍ The time has surely come in this supposed era of the peace process for Catholics to embrace the Twelfth celebrations and recognise the significance of William’s campaign in Ireland in 1690.

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.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Time For Catholics To Embrace Their Boyne Heritage

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig ✍It is difficult to tell whether certain sections of society in the twenty six counties are naïve, disingenuous or deliberately intent on deceiving the public in relation to the nature and purpose of the Orange Order.


 Patrick Costello TD, a Green Party member of the Good Friday Agreement Oireachtas Committee, has called on the government to legislate for the 12th of July to become a public holiday in the Free State. While here in Dún na nGall, the Orange parade is welcomed uncritically, apparently because it proceeds peacefully rather than due to any amending of its toxic core ideology. 

The Orange Order may claim to be a defender of the Reformation, interested only in protecting religious freedom. In reality the evidence points towards something entirely different. Something that is deeply intolerant, profoundly offensive and at base, advocates Protestant supremacy. 

Think for a start of the proliferation of bonfires festooned with photographs of political parties and politicians, Irish tricolour flags and other sectarian bric-a-brac. Reflect then on the repertoire of nasty and offensive music and songs. The most recent addition to the collection being a scurrilous song sneering at the murder of a young Catholic woman on her honeymoon. Consider finally the renewed attempt to march down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown. In a town that is predominantly Unionist, demanding to parade through the only nationalist street in the borough sends an ominous message to the residents of the beleaguered area. A message that reeks of a desire to reassert supremacy and domination. 

No, the Orange Order is not at heart a benevolent institution, notwithstanding the fact that many of its members are decent, hard-working and inoffensive. The fact that the Order tolerates, facilitates and accommodates the objectionable and obnoxious behaviour and beliefs of many within its ranks renders it as an institution, a pariah. Refusing to identify this reality or to pretend that the Orange Order is merely a fun loving and benevolent institution risks turning a blind eye or worse, to tolerate something profoundly undemocratic. Doing so would create a benchmark for reactionaries that could only endanger our entire society. 

Let’s call a spade a spade and spare us all from such a bleak scenario.

 ðŸ–¼ Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig is an independent councillor on Donegal County Council.

Don't Call A Spade A Shovel

Dr John Coulter ✍ As a mainstream Presbyterian minister’s son, I’ve always been known for my dark sense of humour to cope with the stresses and strains of being a preacher’s kid.

Indeed, I’ve carried this dark humour into my career in journalism as a mental health coping mechanism.

However, it was to be this dark sense which landed me in some hot water with my line management at the News Letter in the mid 1980s when I was dispatched to the picturesque County Down village of Scarva for the traditional 13th July Sham Fight hosted by the Loyal Order’s senior movement, the Royal Black Institution.

In fact, my late dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, a Past Assistant Sovereign Grand Master and Deputy Imperial Grand Chaplain in the Black Institution, was one of the preachers that day during the platform proceedings.

The Sham Fight’s day of activities includes a reenactment of the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 when the Protestant Orange champion, King William III, defeated his Catholic father-in-law, King James II, to militarily seal victory for the Glorious Revolution.

Having written my story of the day’s events, known then as a colour piece, I rang the copy taker at the News Letter to phone through my story. My headline read: ‘Shock win for James!’ The news desk certainly did not appreciate my humour!

But that memory from the mid 1980s aptly summarises the dilemma which the Loyal Orders, and especially the Orange with the Twelfth only a couple of days away, face in terms of their influence in the pro-Union community.

Orangeism is in danger of facing a ‘Shock win for James’ outcome if it fails to give the pro-Union community a constructive and workable way out of the current Stormont impasse.

For me, as someone who has lived most of my life in an Ulster Unionist Party, Loyal Orders, and mainstream Irish Presbyterian upbringing, the Orange Order was the cement which kept the pro-Union community together. The aristocratic businessman could sit with the working class labourer in the lodge room and call each other ‘brother’ as equals.

During the many decades of Northern Ireland’s existence, when the Unionist Party dominated the Stormont Parliament before 1972, the Orange lodge room was how the ruling upper and middle class dominated Unionist Party could communicate with the Loyalist working class.

But just as the Unionist parties in 2023 clearly seem disconnected from the Loyalist working class, so too, is the Orange Order in danger of becoming disconnected in terms of influence from the pro-Union community.

With the Covid pandemic restrictions well and truly lifted, we can expect tens of thousands to attend the various Twelfth demonstrations across Northern Ireland on Wednesday, followed by tens of thousands more folk to pack into Scarva on the 13th for the Sham Fight.

But what messages of hope and positive leadership for the pro-Union community in the midst of a cost of living crisis will be heard from the various demonstration field platforms? Given that financial crisis, coupled with the ongoing Stormont impasse, the pro-Union community really needs a religious and political constructive boost.

This uplift is especially required after May’s council elections when the Provisional IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, copied its Stormont achievement of last year and became the largest party in terms of seats across Northern Ireland’s 11 councils.

Many Unionists and Loyalists have the current fear that if the DUP cannot secure a deal over the Windsor Framework, Stormont will be permanently mothballed as in 1972 to be replaced with some form of Joint Authority for Northern Ireland in which Dublin has an even greater say in the running of this part of the UK than it enjoyed under the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Basically, Orangeism needs to send out a three-fold message to the pro-Union community. Firstly, the Order can act as a catalyst to mobilise the pro-Union vote and combat the scourge of voter apathy in the pro-Union community. Put bluntly, how many Unionist Assembly and council seats were lost to Unionists not coming out to vote?

Secondly, many Orange platform proceedings will involve a religious service. The Order must face up to its spiritual obligation to encourage people to re-engage or develop their Christian faith. The Order must issue a challenge to the Christian Churches - especially the various Protestant denominations - to join this pro-Union voter mobilisation.

Thirdly, the Order can act as a forum to develop Unionist political unity. Again the question can be posed - how many Unionist seats were lost at the Assembly poll in 2022 and the council election in May because Unionist voters did not transfer to other pro-Union parties and candidates?

I have made no secret of my aspiration under my ideology of Revolutionary Unionism for a single unionist movement, simply called The Unionist Party, with a series of pressures groups to represent the various strands of pro-Union thinking in the same way as the Labour and Conservative parties in Great Britain contain a series of pressure groups to represent various views.

As a first step to achieving this single Unionist Party, the Orange Order must use its influence to re-launch the so-called United Ulster Unionist Council, or Unionist Coalition, (affectionately known as the Treble-UC) which existed in the 1970s to represent the various Unionist parties.

This need for the Orange Order to push this three-fold message is something which I have stressed in a previous column.

Likewise, having attended the annual Rossnowlagh demonstration in County Donegal, which normally takes place on the Saturday prior to the Twelfth and is hosted mainly by the Southern Ireland border county lodges - along with an increasingly large contingent from Northern Ireland, I am very much in favour of my Revolutionary Unionist movement having a more overt political influence in the 26 counties.

Again, this was a move I supported in an opinion piece in the Belfast News Letter where I was education and religious affairs correspondent in the 1980s.

Put bluntly again, Unionism needs to radically play the Orange Card as I outlined in this article.

Journalistic colleagues have written articles and produced documentaries on the threat posed by dissident republicans. I push the urgency of the Loyal Orders not to dilly-dally on the need to emphasise a purely democratic route for the pro-Union community.

At the back of my mind, I harbour a fear that if the various pro-Union parties and the Loyal Orders cannot get a workable solution to the Stormont impasse, that there are those who are the mirror image of dissident republicans lurking in the Loyalist community who will take the view - you Unionist politicians, Orange lodges and Protestant churches have had you chance; now it is our turn! The gun and bomb must never ever be allowed to return to pro-Union thinking and action. Democracy and the ballot box must always remain supreme.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Where Now For Orangeism In 2023?

Dr John Coulter ✍ The Orange Order has a brilliant opportunity to use its traditional Twelfth demonstration platforms to build both Unionist political co-operation as well as kickstart the Stormont Executive.

For generations, the Loyal Orders - and especially the Orange - have played a pivotal role in influencing Unionism politically.

But with Northern Ireland facing crumbling health and education sectors as well as a cost of living crisis, the time has come for the Orange to really step up to the mark and provide a constructive example to the Unionist family’s political leaderships.

I outlined the importance of the Orange as a catalyst for Unionist co-operation in an article published in 2016.

Although the Orange has openly voiced its opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Windsor Framework, the summer marching season could be the platform to create a mood within Unionism which could see the DUP re-enter a Stormont Executive come the autumn.

Okay, folk may point to North Antrim MP Ian Paisley Junior’s hard-hitting ‘ice age’ interview on the BBC Nolan Show as an indicator of a hardening of the DUP’s attitude towards the British Government and Westminster political establishment in general.

Then again, as someone who grew up with Paisleyism in North Antrim, and call me cynical, but I strongly suspect that the ‘ice age’ utterance has more to do with who runs the DUP than a clear statement of policy.

Ironically, just as the DUP found itself as a Westminster power broker when the then Tory Prime Minister Theresa May needed DUP MPs as part of a ‘confidence and supply arrangement’ to prop up her Conservative Government, the DUP could find itself back on the front row of British politics if after the next UK General Election, there seems to be a hung parliament and Labour needs DUP votes to prop up Sir Keir Starmer’s administration.

However, the DUP cannot afford to let the people of Northern Ireland hang about politically to await the outcome of any UK General Election, especially if a similar election in the Republic throws up a Sinn Fein-led, or even majority rule, republican movement government in Leinster House.

While the Loyal Orders can maintain their dogmatic stance against the Protocol and Framework, they could also use the platform speeches over the Twelfth - as well as the Royal Black Institution’s August Black Saturday demonstrations - to gently persuade the DUP of the necessity of having Stormont back, even in shadow form.

The Loyal Orders, especially the Orange, were once the cement which held the many strands of Protestantism, Unionism and Loyalism together. The upper class businessman and the working class labourer could both sit side by side in the lodge room and call each other ‘brother’.

While some may try to dismiss the Orange Order as a movement now for middle aged folk and pensioners, it should not be forgotten that almost every Orange lodge on parade on 12 July will be accompanied by a musical band.

Indeed, while membership of the Loyal Orders may have dipped over the past generation, there is a thriving marching band scene, especially among the flute band fraternity. Herein lies the influence of the Orange Order. It can be a forum for influence amongst that fraternity with many of these bands based in loyalist working class areas.

The real danger is that the DUP digs its political heels in so much over the traditional marching season that time runs out for devolution to return and some form of joint authority with Dublin, dressed up as 21st century Direct Rule, is foisted on Northern Ireland.

The Dublin government got its toe inside Northern Ireland’s door in 1985 with the then Anglo-Irish Agreement, which saw the Maryfield Secretariat established near Belfast.

Sinn Fein is pushing hard for the British Irish Ministerial Council to be given more powers in the running of Northern Ireland because of the devolution logjam.

Although the DUP held its council representation during last month’s local government poll, if the cost of living crisis bites even harder this year, at some point could the DUP be punished at a future Westminster General Election?

Perhaps the solution is for the Stormont Executive to be reformed by the DUP, but with limited powers until new legislation can be brought forward at Westminster to safeguard the Union for another generation?

This may be viewed as a sticking plaster solution for a major cost of living crisis, but at least the devolution engine would be ticking over. Come the 12 July, the Orange Order has a wonderful opportunity to turn the key in the devolution ignition.

With tens of thousands of people listening to demonstration speeches that day, the Order cannot afford to waste this golden opportunity to be the power broker of Unionist politics.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Orange Order Must Use Twelfth Demos To Kickstart Stormont

Lesley Stock ✒ In all the time of the troubles we, as a community, were all hit by the inhumanity of our fellow man. We witnessed atrocities, murders and destruction based on someone’s firmly held beliefs. (The wrongs or rights of those for another time).

We all remember the horror of hearing in 2011 the heart-breaking story of a talented, beautiful young teacher having been brutally murdered in Mauritius whilst on her honeymoon. That young woman was Michaela McAreavey, daughter of Micky Harte. The fact that she was a Catholic never entered our heads. She was one of us and that was enough to grieve for her and her family. That was, until a few days ago, when details of a band at Dundonald Orange Lodge broke its foul stench onto the internet.

The first I was made aware of ‘that’ video, was by chance on Twitter, and unfortunately I was stupid enough to watch it. I sat for some time in the kitchen, wondering had I actually misheard the words of the song drunken louts were singing in a hall. Then, details of the words were published and I sat and cried, not only for the Harte/McAreavey families, but for the disgust I felt for being born a Protestant, for I knew that some would ‘cash in’ (not literally) on the premise that ‘all prods were sectarian bastards and of course, this kind of rabble are indicative of the PUL community.' And then, there it was, including the trolls who have nothing better to do all day other than abuse anything Protestant or British.

These idiots in the video, thankfully, have been now put under investigation for what I can only describe as one of the worst cases of vile, sectarian behaviour I’ve had the misfortune to witness. But, apart from wondering how the heck a human can sit down and make up such grossly offensive words to a song about another beautiful human purely based on her religion, it then struck me as the condemnation poured in from the Orange Order and others, that this has been going on in band halls and Orange Halls for years. This, hopefully would be the time whereby the Orange Order had a prime opportunity to get their house in order.

With the unprecedented revulsion from every community now being on the world's stage, I’m hoping that the Orange Order can put robust measures in place to eradicate this type of sectarianism within its ranks. Some have been calling for it for decades, and with every song, every drunken action by either bandsmen or members of the OO, it has been (quite rightly) fueling the gap between the two communities.

For the loyalists who cry ‘our culture has to be acknowledged and protected’ I say – you’ve just lost your battle if nothing changes.

The only way that you can have any credence in that argument is if both members of bands and OO members are now held to account by strict sanctions if found to be in breach of a code of conduct. And nothing short of booting out will suffice!

It came as no surprise to me that I learned that the vermin in the video hadn’t even marched! This show of drunken loutish behaviour occurred even before what was to be a celebration of the Platinum Jubilee. A family day of celebration I might add. Then again, some would say the 12th celebrations are that as well. Perhaps in the rural areas, but never in the city.

The Orange Order should now dump any band who is drunk prior to a march – even should it be one member. When bands are prohibited from marching they’ll soon get the message. However, the leaders of the Orange Order have to implement and enforce these rigidly, otherwise - like spoilt kids of parents who always back down and give them their way - the sectarianism will just carry on. Now is the time for a turn in PUL actions which give CRN communities the ammunition to call for their demise. But even whilst typing this, I reflect that some within the PUL haven’t really had their heads screwed on for years!!

If you want your culture to be respected, start having respect for yourselves! You can’t complain about eradication of culture, when that culture breeds the kind of vile sectarianism we as a nation witnessed last week. Get the act sorted:

  • have events people of all ages, classes and religion can attend without the trappings of drunks, foul imbeciles
  • have a zero alcohol tolerance for participants and ‘hangers on’, and by all means get snattered at the end of the parade/event if that’s your thing.

The organisers now have a chance to turn the tables. I only hope they take it.
 
 Lesley Stock is a former PSNI and RUC Officer
currently involved in community work. 

Maybe This Could Be The Start Of ‘Respect’

Padraic Mac Coitir ➤ This is a short piece written about unionist gangs and their allies in the Orange Order. 

Things may have 'slightly' changed nowadays but those bigots still beat their drums as they parade through areas spouting their sectarianism. Just yesterday the unionist gangs threatened John Finucane as he thought he could safely go in and sort out a local dispute over a rat-infested rubbish dump. In recent years we've seen those same gangsters being feted by members of the same party John Finucane belongs to.

On Saturday 8th July 1972, serious confrontations broke out in Portadown as unionist gangs attempted to attack local nationalist homes in the Obins Street area with stones, bottles and petrol bombs. As the confrontations increased in severity, shots were exchanged between unionists and local republicans.

Earlier, that same day, local Cumann na mBan Óglach Julie Dougan had died as a result of a car accident while on active service in the Obins Street area.

RUC and British Army units (which included the Paras) attempted to quell the nationalist crowds in Obins Street using rubber bullets, water cannon and CS gas. There were several further exchanges of gunfire between Brit forces and republicans.

The trouble continued well into the early hours of Sunday morning and only subsided when large numbers of RUC and British troops flooded into the area. With the area virtually under curfew-like conditions, RUC and Brit forces carried out raids on around 20 homes and refused to allow anyone to leave the area for any reason.

The Brits removed the barricades, and with the entire totally locked-down, the way was open for the Orange Order to parade through Obins Street on Sunday 9th July on their way to Drumcree.

However, just before the Orange march took place, the RUC and Brits then permitted 150 masked and uniformed members of the UDA to parade into Obins Street and line up along both sides of the street to form a "guard of honour" for the Orangemen. After the Orangemen passed by, the UDA continent then formed up behind the Orangemen and marched with them to Drumcree. They also later accompanied the Orange Order as they paraded along the Garvaghy Road.

In the book Freedom Struggle, it was acknowledged by the IRA that actions by the RUC/British army and loyalists had effectively broken the 1972 ceasefire which would totally disintegrate completely a few hours later in the Lenadoon area of Belfast.

Padraic Mac Coitir is a former republican
prisoner and current political activist.

Unionist Gangs & The Orange Order

Controversial Political Commentator, Dr John Coulter, uses his Fearless Flying Column today to map the way forward for the Loyal Orders in the aftermath of the historic visit by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to the Orange Museum.

Moving The Orange Forward

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