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."

The Unionist Gap

In a previous post I wrote about 'The political orphaning of moderate unionism'. And here I wrote about Catholic Unionists.

I also wrote about the Unionist Gap here.

The political orphaning of moderate unionism

NI Life And Times 2015

The unionist people are far ahead of unionist politics. I've written here that for all the madness there is much normality in Northern Ireland - there are Two Worlds in Northern Ireland. Alex Kane wrote that "people in Northern Ireland are much more liberal, laid back and genuinely cosmopolitan than the main unionist parties realise." Newton Emerson wrote:

"The political orphaning of moderate unionism has been a particular source of wonder and despair. 

What party represents the vast majority of unionists — those who are not Orangemen, bandsmen, gunmen, Bible-bashers, flag-flyers, bonfire-builders or all the other overlapping little constituencies that unionist politicians never dare to disappoint? What party can represent the 400,000 “garden centre” Protestants who refuse to vote, or appeal to any Catholic “economic unionists” who might just accept a British province that treated them with respect? How has such a substantial need for representation not been met for almost a century?"

Windsor's leadership in Northern Ireland

Steve Bell on the Queen's visit to Ireland, May 18 2011

The great cliché of this post-Saint Andrews age has been that unionism has no leadership. George Bernard Shaw once said that unionism is like a military without an officer class, there remains a degree of truth in this to this day. 

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - John Kyle

John Kyle is A Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) councillor at Belfast City Council. He is contesting the Stormont Assembly Elections 2016.

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Linda Ervine

Linda Ervine is well known for her activism in East Belfast in the field of the Irish language. In September 2012 she became Irish Language Development Officer with East Belfast Mission. Linda is 54 and was born in Belfast and self-identifies as British, Irish and Northern Irish. She went to Park Parade Secondary School. Becoming a young mum she continued her education in my early 30s. Linda went to QUB and did a degree in English, followed by PGCE, becoming an English teacher in a girls’ secondary school in East Belfast. 

Brian John Spencer: "When did you first learn about the Easter Rising of 1916?" Linda Ervine: 

Sir James Craig was Irish

Sir James Craig, Viscount Craigavon, by society painter Sir John Lavery

William O'Brien wrote a description of Sir James Craig, the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and utterly loyal adjutant to Sir Edward Carson, in ‘The Irish Revolution and how it came about’ (1923):

"Sir James Craig… The Ulster leader was never an incorrigible enemy of a modus vivendi with his Southern countrymen. Like so many of the higher Orange type, if he was an irresponsible being for half a dozen mad “ anniversary ” days, he was for all the rest of the year a kindly neighbour, a fast friend, more honest of heart than complex in the convolutions of his brain matter, but in all things, flattering or otherwise, as irredeemably Irish as the granite ribs of Cave Hill."

TIME Magazine featured Sir James Craig on the May 26 1924 cover of the magazine. Inside it produced a short feature on the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland:

Edward Carson, father of the IRA?

In the final lines of the September 1913 poem, Yeats wrote, "Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone. It’s with O’Leary in the grave." The rebel leaders shared these fears and, inspired by the rebellion of Edward Carson, they later emulated Carson's example.

Home Rule was loyalty?

John Dillon by Carlo Pellegrini ('APE') 

John Redmond said:

"Let us have national freedom and imperial unity and strength."

Being Loyalist and Irish

Gusty Spence said:

"It’s sad today whenever you see a kind of an anti-Irishness. I suppose maybe it’s understandable because of the Provisionals campaign. Whatever little bit of Irishness people felt or some people felt - I feel greatly Irish - it was kind of driven out of them by these people who purported to be absolute Irish, and dogmatic, by bombing and shooting them."

The inglorious Twelfth

John Hewitt, Ulster poet, at a 12th July march

Seamus Heaney wrote a poem, 'Orange Drums, Tyrone, 1966', about his experience of the Twelfth July:

'The lambeg balloons at his belly, weighs
Him back on his haunches, lodging thunder
Grossly there between his chin and his knees.
He is raised up by what he buckles under.

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. 

Jamie Bryson - Latex Loyalist

Being born middle class but believing you're loyalist. 

Jamie Bryson is a middle class imposter. Just as Hitler wasn't German, Jamie Bryson isn't Working Class protestant. (I invoke Godwin's Law as a point of irony because Bryson does it so regularly.) This has been the grand sham of Northern Ireland since December 3 2012: The self-appointed loyalist big mouth isn't even working class.

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. 

The Lundy terror, Ctd

The scene in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, as spectators watch the annual Burning of Lundy ceremony. Robert Lundy

I was struck by the Israel-Gaza debate. One point repeatedly made, as Ed O'Loughlin did, was that it is eminently possible to be fiercely critical of Israel policy without hating Jewish people. What a perfect epigram to articulate the situation in Northern Ireland - it's eminently possible to be fiercely critical of loyalist policy and conduct without hating the loyalist people.

Yet it remains that anyone who criticises loyalism is automatically calumnied, castigated and cast aside as either, a demoniser/generaliser (though it be eminently self-evident that loyalism does the demonisers work for them) or, a "Lundy", "Guilty Prod" or "Rotten Prod". This second reaction is by far the more dangerous, coming as it does with an exterminationist impulse, so let me look at the "Lundy"-"Guilty Prod"-"Rotten Prod" pejorative and slander more closely.

Anti-Columbus Movement, Ctd

The first landing of Christopher Columbus by Dióscoro Teófilo Puebla Tolín

Within the theatre of political conversation, debate and argument in Ireland, and especially Northern Ireland, I find a self-hating, infantile and rejectionist school of thought that dwells within the republican mindset. The one that defines itself by it's relentless resentment towards Britain and its long involvement in Ireland. 

A reactionary ideology that sees British involvement as only one of land seizure, confiscation and conquest, degradation and exploitation, conflict and instability; as though prior to British involvement the island was one of immutable peace and stability; and as though, if Britain wasn't involved, other great super powers would not have done the same and probably much, much worse.

And that point was made on Radio 4, the grandest of ironies for myself - seen as a planter by the most extreme nationalist. The point was made by Dr Luciana Martins of Birbeck College who is from Brazil and was speaking about how Brazil emerged as a nation. She said:

"There was de kind of regret that we weren’t discovered by the British because the Portuguese legacy wasn’t so good. So there was something about, ‘Well if we were discovered by the British we would be the United States now’."

Odd bedfellows - Anti-agreement republicans and unionists

Danny McBrearty, former commanding officer of the IRA’s Derry Brigade and former comrade of McGuinness said:

"Nothing surprises me any more about Martin McGuinness, so if he does give the Queen of England a guided a tour around the jail where republicans fought and died for their principles, I would not be shocked… Authentic republicans should take no part in or welcome this visit to the Crumlin Road jail. Instead they should be outside protesting against the presence of a British Queen in a prison where their comrades suffered so much. As for McGuinness - he is only shaking hands and guiding around his true boss."

Linda Nash on Martin McGuinness said:

"Does Martin [McGuinness] forget that the Queen decorated the Parachute Regiment and that they remain decorated? Can you sleep at night having given orders to young Irish men and women to attack the Queen´s forces when many of these men, women and teenagers were then murdered? I hope you are happy with your new found friends Martin. For they are the employers of the men who murdered our loved ones. Your actions, in my opinion, are traitorous."

Gary Mitchell - When it's cool to be dumb, Ctd

Gary Mitchell spoke with the belfast Telegraph and shared his experience of school:

"I left with nothing. It's strange because in primary school I excelled. I passed the 11-plus. I didn't go to grammar school but went to Rathcoole Secondary School. We did mid-term exams and I was first in almost every subject. But people wouldn't play with me. I wasn't allowed on the football team. I was on my own. 

I got this idea in my head that I could be bottom of the class in every subject if I really tried hard, and believe me coming bottom in some of the subjects was very difficult because they got really low scores. But I managed it, and I became popular."

Let's repeat what Gary Mitchell just said: "I managed it - [to be bottom of the class in every subject] - and I became popular." This is horrendous. Then he said:

"I realised that learning things was a bad idea, and being dumb was a good idea. Being stupid was the smart thing to do."

He explained here his journey from chronic worklessness to famous playwright. He then explained his life after becoming famous:

"Things were going great – I had a family, plenty of money, plenty of opportunities and plenty of work. Everything seemed perfect. In fact, I remember standing outside our house one day with my wife, and she told me it was like heaven. Nothing ever went wrong – just before everything did go wrong.

Plus loyaliste que la loi

[UPDATE - High Court judges says PSNI 'wrongly facilitated' loyalist marches. I.e. the marches were illegal and were done illegally and unchallenged - read here.]

Brigid Brophy wrote in the Spectator Magazine in June 1981 here:

"The Northern Irish “loyalists” soon found themselves plus loyaliste que la loi and, indeed, in positive conflict with overall British law."

S. Nelson wrote in 1984 a book 'Ulster's Uncertain Defenders: Protestant Paramilitary and

Yelling Lundy! is the hallmark of authoritarianism

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lundy, Governor of Londonderry during the Great Siege of 1688-89

The hallmark of authoritarianism is yelling LUNDY! at anyone questioning loyalism. The extremists are a minority. Buy the ultra-reactionary radical insurgency opposed to rationality, to political compromise, to participation in a parliamentary system, is a loud and vocal one. And unfortunately a lot of this sort of intimidation is meated out with the consent and collusion of political unionism. They repress the moderate and rally the fringe with hysterics, bombast and propaganda.

Loyalism can't and won't take criticism. Loyalism can't and won't learn from shortcomings and wrongdoings. Brian Feeney said in the Irish News, ''Liberal unionists' like Lo labelled Lundies':

"The unionist view of the world... it simply this: to deny the validity and sanctity of the Act of Union is automatically told hold a false, untenable position.

He continued:

"The fiercest unionist reaction is and always has been reserved for anyone perceived to be any class of unionist who utters a word in suspecy of any aspect of nationalism."