#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.

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."