Irish Republican's lack of self-awareness

Postcard showing the 'Ulster Cow'. A priest and John Redmond portrayed trying to tax an Ulster farmer. The cow, labelled ‘Ulster,‘ belches 'defiance' - 'Now All of you try and milk her, dairymaid Redmond Don't Funk. We have been beaten, not hands down, but horns up, Carson's a Holy terror.'

Alex Kane wrote an article in the Irish Times pointing out that unionists and republicans in Northern Ireland both suffer from having a blind spot in their view of the world.

The lost Orange of Ireland

Royal Black Preceptory Parade, Cootehill, Cavan, 1920

In a previous post I noted that Martin McGuinness said in March 2015 that "The orange part of the flag is as important as the green", and Gerry Adams said at his party’s Ard Fheis that same year that "We need reminded again and again that our flag is Orange."

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Rev Brian Kennaway

The Reverend Brian Kennaway was brought up in North Belfast. After a time in industry he attended Magee University College Londonderry where he was President of the Students’ Representative Council (1969-1970). He then attended Trinity College Dublin where he graduated in 1972.  

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Chris Thackaberry

Chris Thackaberry is a protestant born and bred in Dublin. He is an Orangeman and sits on the Central Committee of the Grand Orange Lodge. He works in Belfast but is regularly in the city of Carson. Thackaberry is on the Central Committee of the Grand Orange Lodge.

Orange and Green, we're all Paddies

The Simpsons portrays Saint Patrick's day and the division in Ireland between Orange and Green 

Many Protestants born in Ireland strenuously and stridently object to being Irish.

To the outsider there's not a shade of difference between the Orangemen and the Green Gael, the planter and the native. The English, American and Europeans and the world see us all as Irish equally.

James Connolly describes the 12th July

Born in Edinburgh of Irish Parents, James Connolly was a one-time British soldier turned Irish revolutionary leader who headed the Easter Rising of 1916. Connolly wrote 'July the 12th', published in Forward on July 12 1913, where he described his visit to a 12th July march:

"As this Saturday is the 12th of July, and as I am supposed to be writing about the North of Ireland in particular, it becomes imperative that I say something about this great and glorious festival. 

Grayson Perry - If loyalists want to remain loyal to Britain they’ve got to move on too

A banner by Grayson Perry, in the mould of an Orange Lodge standard, following a visit to British loyalists in Belfast 

The cross-dressing potter and artist Grayson Perry said during a 2014 trip to Northern Ireland:

"[Loyalism is] rooted in a vision of Britain that perhaps doesn’t completely gel with the modern 21st century idea of Britain we have nowadays."

And continued:

"If they want to remain loyal to it they’ve got to move on too and it’s all about embracing what Britain stands for today as much as what Britain stood for in the 1950s."

My previous posts on loyalism can be read here. Previous Tumblr notes on loyalism here. 

Colin Bateman (@ColinBateman) - The Two Williams, King Billy and a "washed-up drunk"

My cartoon scribble of Colin Bateman

Colin Bateman wrote in 2006:

"I’ve come up with a story called The Two Williams, which features King Billy (that’s King William to you) on the eve of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 accidentally changing places with his modern equivalent — a washed-up drunk whose only job in life is to lead the Orange parade every 12th of July."

When are we going to have a sensible debate about the conduct of parades? Ctd

"The real danger isnt Chua's ideas,the danger is that we might be too timid to discuss them" #triplepackage http://t.co/NzupDM7D7l
— Bloomsbury Australia (@BloomsburySyd) February 9, 2014

Loyalism's exemption from the rough and tumble of public discourse and from serious and sustained criticism is not because its claims are stronger, but because its radical fringe is more violent. Against a history of menace, threats and intimidation, who or what agency would stand alone?

As I have explored in my series, 'Political correctness is the worst kind of censorship,' I have attempted to show that we are incapable of confronting even the most chronic and grievous problems, lest we unsettle and cause offence. For as Jenni Russell (@Jennirsl) said in The Sunday Times:

"Because it challenges a liberal tenet: that exploring the cultural differences between groups amounts to racism."

When are we going to have an honest conversation about the conduct of PUL parades?

In response to the failure of the Haass talks, Alliance Leader David Ford said: "The real issue with parades was never about structures - the problem was behavior." This is interesting since the Belfast City Centre Management report here on the 12th July parades delivered a stinging indictment against the bands and Orange lodges that march through the capital city. It found tourists who complained of an "intimidatory atmosphere", "louts roaming around drunk" and an untidy public realm.

In my earlier post here I cited a 1925 essay by the Ulster MP W.D. Allen on an Orange demonstration in Tyrone.

"Silently, humorously, doggedly, they mass around a dripping platform, a remarkable feudal, patriarchal, tribal, historical anachronism in these days of moderation, toleration – whine, don’t fight – enlightenment."

I also looked at John Hewitt's 1970 poem, 'Conversations in Hungary' here:

"Our friends in Budapest
days later also, puzzled, queried why,
when the time's vibrant with technology,
Such violence should still be manifest.

Between two factions, in religion's name.
It is 300 years since, they declared,
divergent sects put claim and
counterclaim to arbitration of the torch
and sword."

Conor Cruise O'Brien said in 1996:

"I have, in an Orange context at an Orange House, urged them to see that marching through areas that don't want them is not good policy for the Orange Order itself or for the unionist community."

The first "Orange riot" on record was in 1824, in Abingdon, New York. The 'Orange Riots' of 1870 and 1871 in New York here were infamous. After this, the Congregationalist minister Merrill Richardson from the pulpit of his Madison Avenue church said that the time had come to take back New York City, for if "the higher classes will not govern, the lower classes will."

Northern Ireland - A forever Groundhog Day

 

 

John Hewitt wrote of Northern Ireland in his 1970 poem, 'Conversations in Hungary':  

"Our friends in Budapest  

days later also, puzzled, queried why,  

when the time's vibrant with technology,  

Such violence should still be manifest.  

 

Between two factions, in religion's name.  

It is 300 years since, they declared,  

divergent sects put claim and 

counterclaim to arbitration of the torch  

and sword."

We can go back even further. A timeless observartion on the state of the Orange Order was made in 1925 by W.D. Allen MP, who wrote in an essay here:

"A remarkable feudal, patriarchal, tribal, historical anachronism in these days of moderation, toleration – whine, don't fight – enlightenment."

As James Joyce said, no longer is Ireland an "outcast from life's feast." When will the mindless swamp of backwardness end? Your country needs you - stop whining, fight back.

 

W. D. Allen MP's 1925 critique of the Orange Order

An 1925 essay penned by the Ulster MP W.D. Allen on an Orange demonstration in Tyrone paints an eerily contemporary portrait:

"Under the streamers in the long and wet and narrow cobbled streets, in the early afternoon they are forming columns. They are marching in ragged line – that great nuisance of today – the Protestants of Ulster. Where are they marching along the muddy road, solemnly and ponderously, and fixedly . . . ? You may laugh, you overeducated, you supercilious, you townbred froth of things. The signpost says ‘to the asylum’ – their muddy hobnailed boots go splashing into a wet and peaty meadow bordered with rich, green, swaying trees, cut by a savage wind, needled with driving rain, grey cloud looming over. Cheerfully, quickly, methodically, they roll the banners, for they are expensive banners . . . bought with the weekly threepences and sixpences of working men. Four men . . . noticeable for their gaunt and bitter aspect, maimed and bemedalled, roll out a banner, bordered in black crêpe, Thiepval 1916 it reads. So comfortably remote, remoter even than the ‘relief of Derry’ [in 1689] they are celebrating. Silently, humorously, doggedly, they mass around a dripping platform, a remarkable feudal, patriarchal, tribal, historical anachronism in these days of moderation, toleration – whine, don’t fight – enlightenment." 

Frank McGuinness’s play Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme also hit on the Orange Order. 

Brian Feeney on the Orange Order and public funding

Why we are the way we are in Northern Ireland

I think the video above captures better than any words could, why Northern Ireland remains so unstable.

Vice correspondent asks some kids on the outskirts of Belfast:

“For all the Americans out there, what’s the celebration? Why are you doing it?”

The children respond:

Children (whole): ……………………… silence*
Child 1: “I dono [sic].” children laugh*
Child 2: “Battle of the Boyne and all that action there…”
Child 3: “Bit of fun”.

I explored the video and the surrounding issues further on eamonnmallie.com. You can read that essay here.