Up and down Norn Iron today, Orange leaders are proclaiming that their “Culture” is under attack. But is it actually a “Culture” we can afford to tolerate. Should we…liberal minded people…be working to marginalise that “Culture” rather like we did with the Ku Klux Klan in the “Old South” and the Broederband in South Africa.
This morning an Orange Band stopped at St Patricks Church for a rendition of “The Sash My Father Wore”.
We will be assured by the Orange Order and their “liberal” and “letsgetalongerist” apologists that this is an isolated incident.
But it was an isolated incident last July and it was an isolated incident last September.
Which to me looks …calculated. Enough to demonstrate that the Orange bands will do their sectarian thing. That they will not be dicatated to by the Parades Commission and they will keep their sectarianism within the limits …enough to convince the Parades Commission not to impose a more stringest restriction next time around.
Of course to an old guy like me, Orange bands playing sectarian songs outside a Catholic Church or raising the volume slightly more than necessary as they pass a Catholic area is pretty much par for the course.
And in fairness I should say that some thirty years ago, I was at a funeral in a “Protestant” village in County Tyrone when the local lodge marched in respectful silence past the “Catholic” house where the wake was taking place.
Of course to me, a nationalist and Catholic from West Belfast, I am not surprised that the Pope burns on bonfires. Nor am I surprised that Catholic statues find their way onto bonfires. Or Irish Flags. Par for the sectarian course.
But curiously the letsgetalongerists get a bit edgy about flags from Poland or Palestine ending up on an Orange bonfire.
To the letsgetalongerist, limited sectarianism is ok but xenophobia and racism are bad.
And of course the big big concern for letsgetalongerists is NOT the hatred but the enviromental damage done by bonfires.
The difference between 1963 and 2013 is that we all have cameras. Orange sectarianism can be recorded. And we all have Tinternet and the excesses can be distributed to a wider audience than across an interface.
Likewise the gallows erected withan effigy of a Catholic priest (Fr Matt Wallace) who recently committed suicide by hanging is a disgusting act.
If the English Defence League was doing this in respect of a Muslim cleric committng suicide, there would be understandable uproar.
It is pure unadulterated HATRED. It is incitement to HATRED.
Here…we call it CULTURE.
Yet the best that letsgetalongerists can come with is for this festival of Hatred to be a tourist attraction, a carnival, of all things.
Shared Space?
Are Catholic residents not absolutely right to say that Orangemen should not parade their hatred past their homes.
It is not 1795. It is not 1849. It is not 1952. It is not 1997.
These are the same people who are kindred spirits of the Ku Klux Klan and the South African Broederbund…the very people liberals railed against until they were sent to the margins of civilised society.
It does our letsgetalongerists no favours when they talk about accomodating such disgusting people.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
Wonder what all those catholic unionists make of the ‘culture’.
Probably filling in a DUP membership form as the parade passes.
Exactly.
But I dont suppose there are many in Ardoyne.
Or anywhere else.
@Political Tourist,
Very good point.
I was once in a crowd of foot passengers waiting to board the Stranraer-Belfast Ferry surrounded by the Scottish Sons of William going over to Belfast for the 12th.
I was going to an Ulster Final being played the next day.
What shocked me was the number of passengers going the other way.
Not backpackers but ordinary punters young and old.
Here’s me stuck in the middle of England shirted Scotsmen (go figure) looking at a couple of hundred foot passengers.
They looked backed.
Nothing was said between the two passing groups.
And the thought occured, the people leaving NI to go Scotland the day before the 12th were probably not Catholics.
Just ordinary NI locals who wanted out of it. If you ain’t Orange and have seen it all before then maybe a couple of days in Scotland is the right idea.
Never in a month of Sundays can this be called culture.
Suppose it must be bummer trying to think of something to say if your a Grand Wizard.
Alex Salmond, yeh okay, keep that for next year.
IRA men, didn’t one of them meet the Queen.
Catholic Church, bit limited in the 21st Century.
Moslems, nope, makes you sound barking in a NI context.
All a bit boring tbh.
If only the could just say, FTP.
I don’t think its the Orange Order or the twelfth that attracts Catholic pro-unioners to the union.
But then you guys probably knew that.
Pingback: Radio Silence | footballcliches
I cannot see why SF is complaining about anti-Catholicism. Their policies are more anti-Catholic than the DUP’s
I see yer man at Slugger has been all-out spinning for the Orange Order again.
Natural progression.
I wonder how the teachers in the much talked about ‘integrated’ schools would explain this ‘culture’? Maybe they could get seamus heaney to pen a poem or two to convince more taig kids to embrace orangism/royalty? And rory macelroy could pop in for P.E lessons? Bono could take religion/spiritual classes and claim god told him it is okay to brown nose british royalty?
Maybe it wouldnt be possible as these planter stock/unionists tend to be too busy lining their pockets than taking time out to help others. But i would urge them to consider making time, to indoctrinate the wee taig kids, because there could be a trip to buckingham palace in it for them. Wouldnt that be nice?
Meanwhile Belfast Fianna Fáil have promoted orangefest for the entire island. https://www.facebook.com/belfastfiannafail