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THE SCENES OF violence during a Last Saturday parade in Belfast illustrates the serious image problem that exists for organisations like the Royal Black Institution and its counterpart the Orange Order.
The marching season in Northern Ireland has always had its contentious parades – from the Garvaghy Road in Portadown to the Ardoyne Shops in North Belfast – but this year has given birth to a new flashpoint, a Catholic Church, near the city centre. The origins of this disturbance began on 12th July when a band called the Young Conway Volunteers were filmed parading in a circle outside the church resulting in the Parades Commission placing restrictions on the march that took place on Saturday.
The open defiance of the marchers and the resulting attacks on members of the PSNI begs me to ask what do organisations such as the ones mentioned above want to stand for in 2012.
For a long time I have watched people on both sides of the parades debate play the blame game over whose fault it was when the inevitable trouble kicked off over a parade passing through a contentious area or a protestor who threw the first stone. I am not in this column trying to determine blame or point a finger at a certain organisation but watching the stream of police Land Rovers leaving Antrim Road police station on Saturday I got to thinking that surely Loyalist marchers would want better images than this to come to people’s minds when they hold a parade.
“Provocative songs played primarily to antagonise?”
Surely as we enter this decade of commemorations that include important events such as the signing of the Ulster Covenant and the Battle of the Somme, these marchers would rather not have front page images of police officers on the ground injured and people cheering as provocative songs are played primarily to antagonise the neighbouring community?
Since the creation of the Parades Commission in 1998, Loyalist marchers have continuously felt that their attempts to celebrate important cultural events have been curtailed. Yet their frustration at this slight has seen not their ultimate figure of opposition the Commission in the firing line but the police who for years Loyalists lauded and continuously swore ultimate loyalty too.
This illustrates the necessity for organisations such as the Orange Order to adopt a new narrative in 2012 but how can they do this?
This coming month is the centenary of the signing of the Ulster Covenant. The iconic picture of Unionist leader Edward Carson signing the pledge to fight the introduction of home rule in Ireland will no doubt be displayed on banners in marches by the very same people who took part on the parades this past Saturday.
Yet while they are celebrating this historic event they could do well to think about where they want their own organisations and Unionism to be in a hundred years. The leaders of Unionism then give the Unionists of today an important lesson and that is important of adapting and changing with the times. Recent surveys conducted from the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey to the Belfast Telegraph all indicate that attitudes religious attitudes particularly among Catholics to staying within the United Kingdom have been on the rise over the past decade.
“The desire to see the incorporation of Catholics into Unionism”
While the advocation of Protestant values in a new Northern Ireland state within the United Kingdom might have worked to mobilise the population in 1912, recent demographic shifts show the futility of such a strategy in 2012. If the Unionism today is determined to build a political coalition that can carry them over the next century then part and parcel of that must be the desire to see the incorporation of Catholics into the heart of Unionism.
The provocative scenes displayed on the streets of Belfast this Saturday and the silence of Unionist politicians to condemn such actions will certainly do nothing to help bring more Catholics into supporting the Unionist parties. Are some Unionist organisations ready to make big changes to incorporate the changes that have taken place since 1912? I do not know. But more than ninety years after the partition of the country it would appear that little strategic thinking about the future has taken place as to how Unionism can extend its reach beyond the Protestant community.
While the celebrations of the centenary of the signing of the covenant take place, the marchers who took gleeful pleasure on the actions that took place should pay heed to the words of Carson when he spoke to the Unionist Council in 1921 about necessity of incorporating Catholics into the Northern Ireland state.
If Unionism ever wants build the ‘strong house’ on the island of Ireland that David Trimble spoke of in 1998, then it must be prepared to throw open its doors to any and all that comprise the North of Ireland in 2012.
David McCann is a PhD researcher in Irish politics at the University of Ulster.
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Nearly 14 years after 3000Orange Men paraded through Ballymoney and stopped and played the Sash outside the Quinn home, just days after their 3 children had burnt to death in a fire, lit by an Orange man, targeting random Catholics and only people ask is this the image that the Loyal Orders want to portray. You can be right it is, if raw sectarian hatred, homophobia and Racism were not part of their image, then they would not be constants in every facet of Marches and the Orders.
If the Loyal Orders are reduced to just celebrating Scotch Irish culture and not allowed go to Nationalist areas and celebrate killing RC’s or Loyalist Supremacy, then they will quickly wither as that is all they are about.
The Orange Order is as bad as the KKK and has as much blood on its hands.
As a Scotsman, I can tell you that they don’t represent Scots culture. Yes, there are a tiny minority of sectarian morons in Glasgow but they are universally hated by the majority. I know they refer to their own culture as “Scots-Irish” but it’s not Scottish or Irish.
These people are Sectarian thugs who seek to incite violence and provoke others.They have shown no willingness to negotiate and discuss contentious issues with local residents and people who may be offended by their misguided displays of triumphalism. They do not seek peace they seek to wind up people who disagree with them
Personally I would never support any Unionist Party ever manly because of their backward, right wing fundamentalist political thinking.
Yet you fawn over the Queen who props them up both politically and morally…
It’s called Loyalism for a reason like.
No Queen = nothing to be loyal to
No British in Ireland = no arrogant Orangeism
when will the liberals learn how reactionary politics are bred and fostered?
They could be loyal to the state or to a president.
*no British state in Ireland
before anyone starts bleating about expulsions
Its a shame that our traditional sectarianism is dying out. Generation after generation of young catholic and protestant men grew up hating each other. To see this die out is a great blight of our generation. We have lived through the horrors of the Good Friday Agreement circa 1998 and nauseating cooperation that is stormount. Now our great nemesis Glasgow Rangers de jurno ceases to exist. What legacy do we leave our children? One of peaceful cooperation rather that the historic greatness that were the troubles.
What inspirational charcters like Mad Dog Johnny Adire or Bobby Sands or the young Martin McGuiness will our children have to look up to??
A vile people that blot the relationship between Britain and Ireland.
Blots the relationship between ourselves and Britain.
Maybe, but lets not cover up over the fact that these people have had support and a friendly ear from most British PM’s and politicians for the last 200 years.
“Playing the Orange Card” as Randolph Churchill put it.
@ Kingston .. Excellent comment..
What are they marching for? It isn’t peace. It isn’t for the betterment of NI. It is for ego. If they cared about their homeland then they would stop the stupid marching. All it does is cause bad feeling.
Well said, we have to step away from the origins of Loyalism/Unionism and realise that these people are here for their own egocentric needs. The majority of the people that are involved in these parades work side by side with Catholics 11 months a year but mob mentality, fear, expectation and other B-S rational are at play during the season.
Orangemen march not just to celebrate their culture but to also lord over their neighbours, and this is what is wrong. When children are born into this fo of hatred their is indeed little hope for the human race
Bigots and Notting more … There marching to incite hatred and stir up
Trouble ….and that’s all
These “people” are nothing but largely 3rd generation unemployed (read unemployable) freeloading skangers who cloak their beliefs in a flag. Ironically for their opinions the rest of Britain considers them to be Irish. Oh the irony of it all.
No they are not, the Orange Order has a quiet well to do membership, it represents Unionist Society from top to bottom, always has.
and the most virulent bigots, the first to call for blood were/are more often than not the well to do. Any Orange man arrested and charged over this will have no shortage of Order men who are Queen’s Council’s to represent them for free in court. It’s always been the way.
If we can only find a cure for diarrhea in large horses, we would remove the source of the orangmens inspiration/beliefs.
I thought it was pure quality, a fantastic comment John.
Image? These guys were there for one reason only – to give two fingers to the Parades Commission and the local residents: and they succeeded.
Most of them looked as if they would be hard pressed to spell the word!
The moment she realised that she had left home without her copy of ‘Fifty shades of grey’.
She is a police officer who was injured in the line of duty while trying to keep the peace, have some respect.
Take it easy there John, puerile remark.
John Ryan, I cannot help but notice all your previous comments on these articles have been heated statements of little consequence. If you have nothing productive or interesting to say, keep your trap shut.
Please explain about these comments I have made? I think you’re making things up.
Hmm…a meme? That’s mature.
Well, whenever a political article crops up you bash anyone who airs any views remotely liberal as “dim atheist lefties”. You’re just an angry young man.
I normally do that after I read some morally righteous crap they just spewed and let’s be honest most of the commenters here are that way and love to make similar comments about people on the right. So what’s good for goose and all that.
I thought it was funny. Don’t mind the PC brigade John
;)
I though it was funny! (And I grew up there)
The self-righteousness of some commenters here is more like really bad comedy……….
And before you say anything- just don’t.
Ok I know we are all friends now and everything but you can be 100 per cent sure if Nationalists marched through loyalist areas chanting and taunting people in their homes and rubbishing the unionist culture there would be outright condemnation not only from unionist politicians but also from the British Government – so why are these so called parades greeted with silence by our politicians ?
They people we have elected for decades don’t even give a toss about their voters, why would they start to care about people in the North.
The politicians here have always been closer to the Loyal Orders than the Nationalist populace, all they wanted to maintain the status quo, no matter the cost.
Look at the reaction to the Dublin/Monaghan bombings.
A bunch of bigots pure and simple. These people are so far removed from the modern world its reasonable to assume that they will never learn. For the first time in my life I witnessed people here in the republic openly supporting team GB at the Olympics something the UK have been doing for Ireland for some time now. Why those thugs keep trying to ruin what should now be a great relationship is beyond me. Surely when they step back they can see it serves no purpose at all. It just causes friction and had people living in fear…oh wait that’s what they want!
I stopped reading after you inferred that the Ulster Covenant and the Battle of the Somme were somehow things that had cultural value worth commemorating
When you celebrate the signing of a religiously fundamentalist, sectarian, sexist and reactionary document how else can you expect some elements within your community to function? will they function as people who want to get on with their neighbours or as bigots who want to wind them up?
When you celebrate the Imperial butchery, futility and “our boys” BS of the Somme how else can you expect people to think? will they think as progressive individuals or as people conditioned to go over the top for no reason?
the fact that the liberal media in Ireland on the one hand condemns this sort of behaviour yet on the other trumpets the celebration of the mentality that breeds it is hypocritical in the extreme!
Kerron. Several thousand Irishmen from all across Ireland fought and died in the Battle of the Somme and the in the First World War. Every man had his own reason for fighting but its important to remember how they died so they will not be forgotten. The Ulster Covenant is also an Important moment in Irish history, you may or may not agree with these historical events but it is important that we learn from them and so we don’t repeat the mistakes of our forefathers
Tens of thousands died. For what? So that the jingoism that fuelled it all can be repeated today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya!
I hear calls for Republicans to “learn” about mistakes constantly. When will the British government learn from (and indeed apologise for) any of its mistakes? It is in the same Imperial mode as it ever was. It’s just not head honcho any more
If you think these commemorations are going to be about reflecting on the folly of Empire you are seriously deluded. They will be about reinforcing the “Our Boys” mentality and giving it historical context, playing into contemporary recruitment and reaffirming the ties of Loyalism to British Imperialism
Connor.
The Irish had the highest loss per capita of any nation fighting in WW1.
The sad truth that the Orange men never copped on to is that London just saw Green and Orange as nothing but Paddies. Like the Scotch (the 2nd biggest per capita loss) and the Indians nothing more than a way of keeping the home counties onside by making sure their kids got back safe.
The Scots still play that role today, look at how many of the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan come from their.
Unfortunately despite the obvious intolerance and sectarianism of Orangeism the good citizens of Lisburn council are currently seeking to award the Orange Order the honour of the freedom of the city. Hard to believe given recent events. It would appear that despite the progress of the peace process there are still those in NI who thrive on division and would seek to trap us in the past. They must be challenged at every opportunity and exposed as the bigots they are.
A good chunk of these bigots aren’t even from the north. They are sectarian scots over to cause trouble. These dopes normally don’t cross my mind but a guy in work with me went to a concert in Belfast over the weekend and recorded some of their conversations. He showed it to me and I was shocked, and that usually takes a lot. This kind of racism should be banned or let them march around a field out of earshot of their religious bigotry.
True.
I’ve come to be perplexed by the undercurrent of Irish resentment towards the English over historical grievances while we remain utterly oblivious to the sheer level of absolute hatred towards us in Scotland in the present day.
Celt brothers my ar*e,if Irish people knew the truth they would absolutely loathe them.
Average John smith over in London, liverpool, leeds or Birmingham is like average paddy Murphy in Dublin, cork, limerick or Galway……couldn’t give a toss about petty religious differences up north.
Religion, the root of all evil
Anyone who believes the Northern conflict is actually about Religious differences hasnt been paying enough attention.
I am basing that entirely on the conversation that I heard in the recording I was played. These are religious bigots who were over for nothing more than to instigate a hateful religious and racist riot
Saying the North is about Religion is like saying that Martin Luther King was looking for equal rights for baptists. Missing the picture entirely.
The Orange Order don’t care how they are perceived by the rest of the world. They have no forward thinking or planning. They just react, badly, to situations they no longer have any control over.
Growing up in the North I’ve watched Paisley and Trimble walk hand in hand after the Orange Order forced their way down a road they had no place walking. This is the example the Unionist leaders set.
The Unionist people are lost. Violent Republicanism has denied them their Irish heritage and the British don’t want them. If it wasn’t so tragic I’d feel sorry for them.
“Violent Republicanism has denied them their Irish heritage”
did you ever hear such sh*t
how do you come to that conclusion? It is they and their desire to maintain a sectarian moral economy and superiority over the Taigs that denies them their Irish heritage
their Irish radical and dissenting heritage was squeezed out by Orangeism and Imperialism during the 19th century
Although militant repubicanism played a part in alienating moderate Unionists from any remaining Irish identity they may have had, this process began much earlier. Unfortunately the assertions of Carson and Craig that Home Rule would be Rome Rule proved to be the case from the very first day of independence, with the church dominating social policy for much of the following decades. That and that fact that for most of the 20th century, the deValeran ideal that being truly Irish meant being catholic (see Dev’s Constitution) was propagated.
This was enough to turn away most moderate Unionists from unification and Irish identity. Their little Protestant failed statelet didn’t fare much better either though.
Nonsense. Motivated by fear and paranoia over local celebration of the anniversary of the Easter Rising, the loyalists killed the first victims of the troubles in the 60s while the IRA lied dormant. It took state-sponsored violence during the civil rights protests, spearheaded by loyalists of course, to rouse the IRA. The Orange’s rejection of the Irish identity stretches back further than living memory: modern day republicans have nothing to do with it.
Republican-minded, northern protestants largely left Ireland after 1798 and the Orange filled the vacuum. With rhetoric akin to that of Dr. Paisley, they vehemently discouraged protestants from reading the writings of thinkers like Thomas Payne whose ideas threatened the dominion of Britain. If you can stomach the due dilligence, go read some of the order’s collected rites, songs, poems from the time. See how little they’ve changed since then, then tell us how much pity you have for the poor misunderstood triumphalists.
Anybody reading this column should not need a history lesson as they would probably have their own take on things. Last Saturday’s march was a direct challenge to the authority of the Parades Commission in their ‘determinations’ of controversial parades. March organisers should be held accountable for the illegal actions of those bands that defied the ‘determination’ because this was not a solo run by the bands, they had the backing of the Leader of Unionism, Peter Robinson and many more elected representatives in a public letter criticising the Parades Commission. With the backing of so many senior DUP politicians, the future of the Parades Commission could be unclear. Questions must also be asked of the operational policy of the PSNI as their decision making in regards to the breaches of legally binding ‘determinations’ is highly questionable. If the march organisers were Republicans would so many bands have been permitted to openly defy a ‘determination’ ? I think not!
time to put an end to all these parades. they serve little purpose. leave it in the past where all this sectarian shit belongs
Asking catholics to join loyalism is like asking blacks to join the KKK. Join our group, we hate you Btw.
We can’t change the past but we can create the future for our children and generations to come. To simply live in peace and acknowledge each others traditions and differences.
Think, Believe, Create !
I hope she is ok..Question:- “why is there so much hate in the world?”.. ????
The Orange Order and all other sectarian organisations which promote a hate filled bigoted agenda should be banned, unless they agree to evolve and develop an inclusive agenda. We should feel sympathy for this policewoman trying to do her duty, but we shouldn’t forget that the ideology that fostered this sectarianism was often shared by this police force in the past. It shouldn’t be difficult for us to say it out loud folks, not should we jump down the throat of others on this comment thread that rightly point that out.
However, the past is the past and if the PSNI want to do their job in the new Northern Ireland they will need to continue protecting nationalists from the sectarian bile often directed at them, and they will need to take steps to ban the organisations that repeatedly offend. It is the only way for peace to succeed, in the long run. The people of Northern Ireland need to work together to eliminate this mindset. It’s the only solution, other than malaise and eventual decline.
This image is the truth .Loyalist marchers are bigots that promote and impose ways of a foreign country(Britain) .They should not be allowed ANYWHERE on Irish soil.
My understanding of the whole loyalist thing is that they presume to be loyal to the crown. Then why do they celebrate the defeat of king James as he was their true monarch. They are not loyal to the crown in that case at all.
They are only loyal to the sectarian crown. James was the last Catholic Pretender I think?
After that all Monarchs had to be Protestant, which is true up to this day.
Most people dont know that the peace process is an ongoing process. It did not solve all the problems when the chuckle brothers got together. However if you ever went to the North when there was no peace you would understand the advances we have made. These marches are in my own opinion wrong but when they came to Dublin with no intention of provoking anyone on any contentious march they were attacked violently. The problem we have is engagement. Neither side engages fully. I am a republican & I see the need for all of us including the loyalists to fix this. Before somone says we cant. I would say to them the peace process is far from over. If we cant engage positively with these marchers maybe we will need to prepare for engageing with their children. To ban these parades is like banning Sinn Fein from the political process, it simply wont work.
They were violently attacked because there are very, very few ways to get a message through their thick skulls. They have horrible intentions as people, they want to provoke violence to claim it as an attack on their culture. I agree we should engage their children in the hopes of a more peaceful future, but they cannot be allowed to march outside catholic churches/areas.
Catholic or Protestant????Wake up people.It is purely political.
I can never understand how a supposedly christian organisation can go about celebrating war
Anybody for “Love Ulster 2″ in 2013???
Mary McAleese’s statement about ‘em was spot on, pity she retracted it!
I googled this on the brief subject upon how many Irish died during Ww1 ”
The number of Irish deaths in the British Army recorded by the registrar general was 27,405, a casualty rate of 14%, roughly in line with the rest of the British forces.[45] By contrast, the National War Memorial at Islandbridge, Dublin is dedicated “to the memory of the 49,400 Irish soldiers who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-1918″.[61] This figure is often questioned. Recent estimates for Northern Ireland are given at up to 20,000 casualties, and between 30,000 to 35,000 for the whole of Ireland. It has been suggested that the often-cited death toll of 40-50,000 refers to all the fatalities in the Irish Divisions. In fact, only 71% of the casualties in these Divisions were natives of Ireland.[22]”
It seems to me that humanity clings to the way of being against ideals of another. And thus continues in a day of where people who are suppose to be “civilised” hatred runs rampant.
Maybe there is a need to determine blame and, therefore responsibility, for those actions that serve only to incite hatred and violence?
yeah i get the whole religious issue but he was the true king. choosy loyalists they should be called
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