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Showing posts with label Orange Order. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orange Order. Show all posts
Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig ✍It is difficult to tell whether certain sections of society in the twenty six counties are naïve, disingenuous or deliberately intent on deceiving the public in relation to the nature and purpose of the Orange Order.


 Patrick Costello TD, a Green Party member of the Good Friday Agreement Oireachtas Committee, has called on the government to legislate for the 12th of July to become a public holiday in the Free State. While here in Dún na nGall, the Orange parade is welcomed uncritically, apparently because it proceeds peacefully rather than due to any amending of its toxic core ideology. 

The Orange Order may claim to be a defender of the Reformation, interested only in protecting religious freedom. In reality the evidence points towards something entirely different. Something that is deeply intolerant, profoundly offensive and at base, advocates Protestant supremacy. 

Think for a start of the proliferation of bonfires festooned with photographs of political parties and politicians, Irish tricolour flags and other sectarian bric-a-brac. Reflect then on the repertoire of nasty and offensive music and songs. The most recent addition to the collection being a scurrilous song sneering at the murder of a young Catholic woman on her honeymoon. Consider finally the renewed attempt to march down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown. In a town that is predominantly Unionist, demanding to parade through the only nationalist street in the borough sends an ominous message to the residents of the beleaguered area. A message that reeks of a desire to reassert supremacy and domination. 

No, the Orange Order is not at heart a benevolent institution, notwithstanding the fact that many of its members are decent, hard-working and inoffensive. The fact that the Order tolerates, facilitates and accommodates the objectionable and obnoxious behaviour and beliefs of many within its ranks renders it as an institution, a pariah. Refusing to identify this reality or to pretend that the Orange Order is merely a fun loving and benevolent institution risks turning a blind eye or worse, to tolerate something profoundly undemocratic. Doing so would create a benchmark for reactionaries that could only endanger our entire society. 

Let’s call a spade a spade and spare us all from such a bleak scenario.

 🖼 Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig is an independent councillor on Donegal County Council.

Don't Call A Spade A Shovel

Dr John Coulter ✍ As a mainstream Presbyterian minister’s son, I’ve always been known for my dark sense of humour to cope with the stresses and strains of being a preacher’s kid.

Indeed, I’ve carried this dark humour into my career in journalism as a mental health coping mechanism.

However, it was to be this dark sense which landed me in some hot water with my line management at the News Letter in the mid 1980s when I was dispatched to the picturesque County Down village of Scarva for the traditional 13th July Sham Fight hosted by the Loyal Order’s senior movement, the Royal Black Institution.

In fact, my late dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, a Past Assistant Sovereign Grand Master and Deputy Imperial Grand Chaplain in the Black Institution, was one of the preachers that day during the platform proceedings.

The Sham Fight’s day of activities includes a reenactment of the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 when the Protestant Orange champion, King William III, defeated his Catholic father-in-law, King James II, to militarily seal victory for the Glorious Revolution.

Having written my story of the day’s events, known then as a colour piece, I rang the copy taker at the News Letter to phone through my story. My headline read: ‘Shock win for James!’ The news desk certainly did not appreciate my humour!

But that memory from the mid 1980s aptly summarises the dilemma which the Loyal Orders, and especially the Orange with the Twelfth only a couple of days away, face in terms of their influence in the pro-Union community.

Orangeism is in danger of facing a ‘Shock win for James’ outcome if it fails to give the pro-Union community a constructive and workable way out of the current Stormont impasse.

For me, as someone who has lived most of my life in an Ulster Unionist Party, Loyal Orders, and mainstream Irish Presbyterian upbringing, the Orange Order was the cement which kept the pro-Union community together. The aristocratic businessman could sit with the working class labourer in the lodge room and call each other ‘brother’ as equals.

During the many decades of Northern Ireland’s existence, when the Unionist Party dominated the Stormont Parliament before 1972, the Orange lodge room was how the ruling upper and middle class dominated Unionist Party could communicate with the Loyalist working class.

But just as the Unionist parties in 2023 clearly seem disconnected from the Loyalist working class, so too, is the Orange Order in danger of becoming disconnected in terms of influence from the pro-Union community.

With the Covid pandemic restrictions well and truly lifted, we can expect tens of thousands to attend the various Twelfth demonstrations across Northern Ireland on Wednesday, followed by tens of thousands more folk to pack into Scarva on the 13th for the Sham Fight.

But what messages of hope and positive leadership for the pro-Union community in the midst of a cost of living crisis will be heard from the various demonstration field platforms? Given that financial crisis, coupled with the ongoing Stormont impasse, the pro-Union community really needs a religious and political constructive boost.

This uplift is especially required after May’s council elections when the Provisional IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, copied its Stormont achievement of last year and became the largest party in terms of seats across Northern Ireland’s 11 councils.

Many Unionists and Loyalists have the current fear that if the DUP cannot secure a deal over the Windsor Framework, Stormont will be permanently mothballed as in 1972 to be replaced with some form of Joint Authority for Northern Ireland in which Dublin has an even greater say in the running of this part of the UK than it enjoyed under the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Basically, Orangeism needs to send out a three-fold message to the pro-Union community. Firstly, the Order can act as a catalyst to mobilise the pro-Union vote and combat the scourge of voter apathy in the pro-Union community. Put bluntly, how many Unionist Assembly and council seats were lost to Unionists not coming out to vote?

Secondly, many Orange platform proceedings will involve a religious service. The Order must face up to its spiritual obligation to encourage people to re-engage or develop their Christian faith. The Order must issue a challenge to the Christian Churches - especially the various Protestant denominations - to join this pro-Union voter mobilisation.

Thirdly, the Order can act as a forum to develop Unionist political unity. Again the question can be posed - how many Unionist seats were lost at the Assembly poll in 2022 and the council election in May because Unionist voters did not transfer to other pro-Union parties and candidates?

I have made no secret of my aspiration under my ideology of Revolutionary Unionism for a single unionist movement, simply called The Unionist Party, with a series of pressures groups to represent the various strands of pro-Union thinking in the same way as the Labour and Conservative parties in Great Britain contain a series of pressure groups to represent various views.

As a first step to achieving this single Unionist Party, the Orange Order must use its influence to re-launch the so-called United Ulster Unionist Council, or Unionist Coalition, (affectionately known as the Treble-UC) which existed in the 1970s to represent the various Unionist parties.

This need for the Orange Order to push this three-fold message is something which I have stressed in a previous column.

Likewise, having attended the annual Rossnowlagh demonstration in County Donegal, which normally takes place on the Saturday prior to the Twelfth and is hosted mainly by the Southern Ireland border county lodges - along with an increasingly large contingent from Northern Ireland, I am very much in favour of my Revolutionary Unionist movement having a more overt political influence in the 26 counties.

Again, this was a move I supported in an opinion piece in the Belfast News Letter where I was education and religious affairs correspondent in the 1980s.

Put bluntly again, Unionism needs to radically play the Orange Card as I outlined in this article.

Journalistic colleagues have written articles and produced documentaries on the threat posed by dissident republicans. I push the urgency of the Loyal Orders not to dilly-dally on the need to emphasise a purely democratic route for the pro-Union community.

At the back of my mind, I harbour a fear that if the various pro-Union parties and the Loyal Orders cannot get a workable solution to the Stormont impasse, that there are those who are the mirror image of dissident republicans lurking in the Loyalist community who will take the view - you Unionist politicians, Orange lodges and Protestant churches have had you chance; now it is our turn! The gun and bomb must never ever be allowed to return to pro-Union thinking and action. Democracy and the ballot box must always remain supreme.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Where Now For Orangeism In 2023?

Dr John Coulter ✍ The Orange Order has a brilliant opportunity to use its traditional Twelfth demonstration platforms to build both Unionist political co-operation as well as kickstart the Stormont Executive.

For generations, the Loyal Orders - and especially the Orange - have played a pivotal role in influencing Unionism politically.

But with Northern Ireland facing crumbling health and education sectors as well as a cost of living crisis, the time has come for the Orange to really step up to the mark and provide a constructive example to the Unionist family’s political leaderships.

I outlined the importance of the Orange as a catalyst for Unionist co-operation in an article published in 2016.

Although the Orange has openly voiced its opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Windsor Framework, the summer marching season could be the platform to create a mood within Unionism which could see the DUP re-enter a Stormont Executive come the autumn.

Okay, folk may point to North Antrim MP Ian Paisley Junior’s hard-hitting ‘ice age’ interview on the BBC Nolan Show as an indicator of a hardening of the DUP’s attitude towards the British Government and Westminster political establishment in general.

Then again, as someone who grew up with Paisleyism in North Antrim, and call me cynical, but I strongly suspect that the ‘ice age’ utterance has more to do with who runs the DUP than a clear statement of policy.

Ironically, just as the DUP found itself as a Westminster power broker when the then Tory Prime Minister Theresa May needed DUP MPs as part of a ‘confidence and supply arrangement’ to prop up her Conservative Government, the DUP could find itself back on the front row of British politics if after the next UK General Election, there seems to be a hung parliament and Labour needs DUP votes to prop up Sir Keir Starmer’s administration.

However, the DUP cannot afford to let the people of Northern Ireland hang about politically to await the outcome of any UK General Election, especially if a similar election in the Republic throws up a Sinn Fein-led, or even majority rule, republican movement government in Leinster House.

While the Loyal Orders can maintain their dogmatic stance against the Protocol and Framework, they could also use the platform speeches over the Twelfth - as well as the Royal Black Institution’s August Black Saturday demonstrations - to gently persuade the DUP of the necessity of having Stormont back, even in shadow form.

The Loyal Orders, especially the Orange, were once the cement which held the many strands of Protestantism, Unionism and Loyalism together. The upper class businessman and the working class labourer could both sit side by side in the lodge room and call each other ‘brother’.

While some may try to dismiss the Orange Order as a movement now for middle aged folk and pensioners, it should not be forgotten that almost every Orange lodge on parade on 12 July will be accompanied by a musical band.

Indeed, while membership of the Loyal Orders may have dipped over the past generation, there is a thriving marching band scene, especially among the flute band fraternity. Herein lies the influence of the Orange Order. It can be a forum for influence amongst that fraternity with many of these bands based in loyalist working class areas.

The real danger is that the DUP digs its political heels in so much over the traditional marching season that time runs out for devolution to return and some form of joint authority with Dublin, dressed up as 21st century Direct Rule, is foisted on Northern Ireland.

The Dublin government got its toe inside Northern Ireland’s door in 1985 with the then Anglo-Irish Agreement, which saw the Maryfield Secretariat established near Belfast.

Sinn Fein is pushing hard for the British Irish Ministerial Council to be given more powers in the running of Northern Ireland because of the devolution logjam.

Although the DUP held its council representation during last month’s local government poll, if the cost of living crisis bites even harder this year, at some point could the DUP be punished at a future Westminster General Election?

Perhaps the solution is for the Stormont Executive to be reformed by the DUP, but with limited powers until new legislation can be brought forward at Westminster to safeguard the Union for another generation?

This may be viewed as a sticking plaster solution for a major cost of living crisis, but at least the devolution engine would be ticking over. Come the 12 July, the Orange Order has a wonderful opportunity to turn the key in the devolution ignition.

With tens of thousands of people listening to demonstration speeches that day, the Order cannot afford to waste this golden opportunity to be the power broker of Unionist politics.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Orange Order Must Use Twelfth Demos To Kickstart Stormont

Lesley Stock ✒ In all the time of the troubles we, as a community, were all hit by the inhumanity of our fellow man. We witnessed atrocities, murders and destruction based on someone’s firmly held beliefs. (The wrongs or rights of those for another time).

We all remember the horror of hearing in 2011 the heart-breaking story of a talented, beautiful young teacher having been brutally murdered in Mauritius whilst on her honeymoon. That young woman was Michaela McAreavey, daughter of Micky Harte. The fact that she was a Catholic never entered our heads. She was one of us and that was enough to grieve for her and her family. That was, until a few days ago, when details of a band at Dundonald Orange Lodge broke its foul stench onto the internet.

The first I was made aware of ‘that’ video, was by chance on Twitter, and unfortunately I was stupid enough to watch it. I sat for some time in the kitchen, wondering had I actually misheard the words of the song drunken louts were singing in a hall. Then, details of the words were published and I sat and cried, not only for the Harte/McAreavey families, but for the disgust I felt for being born a Protestant, for I knew that some would ‘cash in’ (not literally) on the premise that ‘all prods were sectarian bastards and of course, this kind of rabble are indicative of the PUL community.' And then, there it was, including the trolls who have nothing better to do all day other than abuse anything Protestant or British.

These idiots in the video, thankfully, have been now put under investigation for what I can only describe as one of the worst cases of vile, sectarian behaviour I’ve had the misfortune to witness. But, apart from wondering how the heck a human can sit down and make up such grossly offensive words to a song about another beautiful human purely based on her religion, it then struck me as the condemnation poured in from the Orange Order and others, that this has been going on in band halls and Orange Halls for years. This, hopefully would be the time whereby the Orange Order had a prime opportunity to get their house in order.

With the unprecedented revulsion from every community now being on the world's stage, I’m hoping that the Orange Order can put robust measures in place to eradicate this type of sectarianism within its ranks. Some have been calling for it for decades, and with every song, every drunken action by either bandsmen or members of the OO, it has been (quite rightly) fueling the gap between the two communities.

For the loyalists who cry ‘our culture has to be acknowledged and protected’ I say – you’ve just lost your battle if nothing changes.

The only way that you can have any credence in that argument is if both members of bands and OO members are now held to account by strict sanctions if found to be in breach of a code of conduct. And nothing short of booting out will suffice!

It came as no surprise to me that I learned that the vermin in the video hadn’t even marched! This show of drunken loutish behaviour occurred even before what was to be a celebration of the Platinum Jubilee. A family day of celebration I might add. Then again, some would say the 12th celebrations are that as well. Perhaps in the rural areas, but never in the city.

The Orange Order should now dump any band who is drunk prior to a march – even should it be one member. When bands are prohibited from marching they’ll soon get the message. However, the leaders of the Orange Order have to implement and enforce these rigidly, otherwise - like spoilt kids of parents who always back down and give them their way - the sectarianism will just carry on. Now is the time for a turn in PUL actions which give CRN communities the ammunition to call for their demise. But even whilst typing this, I reflect that some within the PUL haven’t really had their heads screwed on for years!!

If you want your culture to be respected, start having respect for yourselves! You can’t complain about eradication of culture, when that culture breeds the kind of vile sectarianism we as a nation witnessed last week. Get the act sorted:

  • have events people of all ages, classes and religion can attend without the trappings of drunks, foul imbeciles
  • have a zero alcohol tolerance for participants and ‘hangers on’, and by all means get snattered at the end of the parade/event if that’s your thing.

The organisers now have a chance to turn the tables. I only hope they take it.
 
 Lesley Stock is a former PSNI and RUC Officer
currently involved in community work. 

Maybe This Could Be The Start Of ‘Respect’

Padraic Mac Coitir ➤ This is a short piece written about unionist gangs and their allies in the Orange Order. 

Things may have 'slightly' changed nowadays but those bigots still beat their drums as they parade through areas spouting their sectarianism. Just yesterday the unionist gangs threatened John Finucane as he thought he could safely go in and sort out a local dispute over a rat-infested rubbish dump. In recent years we've seen those same gangsters being feted by members of the same party John Finucane belongs to.

On Saturday 8th July 1972, serious confrontations broke out in Portadown as unionist gangs attempted to attack local nationalist homes in the Obins Street area with stones, bottles and petrol bombs. As the confrontations increased in severity, shots were exchanged between unionists and local republicans.

Earlier, that same day, local Cumann na mBan Óglach Julie Dougan had died as a result of a car accident while on active service in the Obins Street area.

RUC and British Army units (which included the Paras) attempted to quell the nationalist crowds in Obins Street using rubber bullets, water cannon and CS gas. There were several further exchanges of gunfire between Brit forces and republicans.

The trouble continued well into the early hours of Sunday morning and only subsided when large numbers of RUC and British troops flooded into the area. With the area virtually under curfew-like conditions, RUC and Brit forces carried out raids on around 20 homes and refused to allow anyone to leave the area for any reason.

The Brits removed the barricades, and with the entire totally locked-down, the way was open for the Orange Order to parade through Obins Street on Sunday 9th July on their way to Drumcree.

However, just before the Orange march took place, the RUC and Brits then permitted 150 masked and uniformed members of the UDA to parade into Obins Street and line up along both sides of the street to form a "guard of honour" for the Orangemen. After the Orangemen passed by, the UDA continent then formed up behind the Orangemen and marched with them to Drumcree. They also later accompanied the Orange Order as they paraded along the Garvaghy Road.

In the book Freedom Struggle, it was acknowledged by the IRA that actions by the RUC/British army and loyalists had effectively broken the 1972 ceasefire which would totally disintegrate completely a few hours later in the Lenadoon area of Belfast.

Padraic Mac Coitir is a former republican
prisoner and current political activist.

Unionist Gangs & The Orange Order

Controversial Political Commentator, Dr John Coulter, uses his Fearless Flying Column today to map the way forward for the Loyal Orders in the aftermath of the historic visit by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to the Orange Museum.

Moving The Orange Forward

Unionist commentator Dr John Coulter was an Orangeman for more than 20 years. In this exclusive article for The Pensive Quill, the ex-Blanket columnist reflects that it is as much in republicanism’s interests for the Orange Order to rediscover its political direction as it is in Unionism’s. Dr Coulter fears that unless this new role for the Order is achieved, a violent dissident loyalist movement will emerge based on Protestant working class frustrations.

Sash My Father Wore

I don’t recall having been inside an Orange Hall before. Unless somebody surprises me with something I have completely forgotten about, childhood jumble sales or the like being held in these places, NewtownCunningham would, I am certain, be my first visit to one.

I had been invited there to speak at a seminar as part of the Creating Space for Learning and Sharing Programme, put together by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, and financed by the International Fund for Ireland. These days I try to speak at public events as little as possible, much the same for TV appearances. Unfortunately the Boston College affair intervened, compelling me to rise from my self-imposed torpor and go and bat at the crease. I have been told I have a good face for radio so I don’t mind doing that so much.

Since moving South the value of anonymity has made itself felt. There is much to be said for a quiet life, free from rows and controversy: a setting where children can walk the streets or go to school and not be made to feel uncomfortable because their parents don’t vote Sinn Fein.

Seeing no future for the republican project as an answer to the question of partition – and having grown disenchanted by the amount of energy and resources expended by so many in flogging a single dead horse – the need to further comment on republicanism just never seemed as pressing. Even post-Blanket blog writing was rarely carried out with the same enthusiasm or rigour: a certain lackadaisical property had embedded itself in the psyche, and in my mind my own writing had gone off the boil.
 
These days it is a rare occasion that I put in an appearance at much: my dubious logic for being an inveterate funeral evader is that as I won’t be going to theirs because they won’t be going to mine.

But yesterday I did turn up at Newtowncunningham Orange Hall, having been invited to speak there on the topic of independent republicanism.  I arrived after a four hour bus journey the previous evening from Dublin to Letterkenny during which I finished off Midwinter Sacrifice by Mons Kallentoft and then immediately started a review copy of You're Mine Now by Hans Koppel. On the blurb the husband of the central character is called Lukas, whereas in the book he is Magnus. Unproofed but hardly unread.  My passion for Scandinavian crime fiction remains unbounded. The thought of meeting Donegal Orangemen was not going to prevent me from going down my traditional reading route.

That evening in the Donegal home of a friend he and I drank whiskey and chewed the fat on all manner of things, even theology. I told him I hadn’t seen him in years to which he responded I had seen him in Belfast in January. Memory and its vagaries! I no longer trust it as I once did.

I had no sense of trepidation about speaking in an Orange Hall. If they listened, they did; if they hooted and tooted, they would do that too. Either way I would deal with it. Ultimately I anticipated no hostility and was not proved wrong. The hosts were graciously hospitable, brimming with rural charm and bonhomie. They served up a scrumptious breakfast before the business of the day began.

After a brief introduction to the history of Orange Lodge 1063 by two of its members, I took the podium. I gave a 20 minute talk which I had prepared in advance. It was a collection of ideas that I had given expression to over the years but had not pulled together in one piece. I sought to address what I considered to be the redundancy of the republican meta narrative and to outline one, inter alia, independent republican position. It seemed to go down well enough if the question and answer session that followed was anything to go by. I sensed that the Orange Order in Donegal felt it was tolerated rather than accepted as part of the community; that discrimination was insidious.

I was followed by Quincey Dougan, a marching bandsman from Armagh’s Markethill. He explained something of the culture of these bands of which he had been a member for 27 years. He readily acknowledged that he was a loyalist, even an extreme one, although what he had to say was delivered without any of the venom we have come to associate with extreme loyalism. Here was an articulate advocate of loyalism making arguments that republicans and nationalists at least need to hear before they decide to deconstruct and dismiss.

While listening to Quincey I got a phone call from the Irish News, which sort of surprised me as I thought they were not talking to me these days. While I might have problems with policy and procedures at the paper I would never snub its journalists and remain prepared to talk to all at the paper if they talk to me but not down at me. The journalist in question wanted to talk about Priory Hall. While not expecting to be treated fairly by the paper these days, I still spoke to her.  I see no reason not to talk to any particular journalist if they are news gathering. Later I was told I should have given it a miss as they would stitch me up. That remains to be seen. I am more than capable of battling my corner. But I didn’t feel I could stand speaking in an Orange Hall and get all high and mighty when asked to speak to a journalist from a paper I have some as yet unresolved difficulties with.

After feasting on some tasty Orange cuisine for lunch I wondered how it was possible that there could be any slim Orangemen. I was tempted to ask facetiously if we were simply the papists being fattened up for the kill that afternoon by a blood curdling mob screaming ‘for God and Ulster.’ The staff for the day were the essence of hearth and home. 

Tommy McKearney took to the podium immediately after lunch addressing from a different angle the theme of independent republicanism that I had tried to cover in the first session of the morning. His argument while not altogether dissimilar to my own was more upbeat, stressing the plurality of key strands within republicanism; that it was not partition fixated. His emphasis was shaped by his strong affinity with the Left. I wondered to what extent some people were eager to speak rather than listen, if they even followed the news or simply wallowed in their own prejudices. Tommy was told that his party, to which he has never actually belonged, had only 2% of the vote. Some people might not always go back as far as 1690 but they seem to prefer the past to the present.

The last speaker of the day was Gary Moore, a former UDA prisoner. A somewhat pronounced Ballymena accent and an affected shambling demeanour did not disguise a very astute intellect that outlined the work he was doing in the loyalist community, much of it in the area of Ulster Scots. It was easy to detect a disdain in him for big house unionism as he narrated his impoverished upbringing.  One point that struck me was when he spoke of the killing of Robert Bradford and how that had impacted on perceptions. He fully understood how republicans viewed Bradford and his death but 2 elderly women, one of whom was his granny, if I am right, said that ‘if they will kill a pastor they will kill us all.’

The impact of that on a child growing up can only be formative. From that moment on life in an armed loyalist body was the pathway he felt destined to tread along. Republicanism will be enhanced by trying to understand the multiplicity of factors that feed into the motivation behind people embracing loyalism.

Time to leave, when it came, was hopefully only a temporary parting of the ways. I had met too many unionists in my day to think they were all monsters impervious to reason. I am as easy in their company as I am in the company of others I disagree with politically. There are many from the unionist community who happen to be much more liberal in outlook than some I have come across on the nationalist side. No side can claim a monopoly on tolerance and intellectual pluralism.

Apart from the virgin territory of an Orange Hall there was nothing new in it to me. I have been exchanging views with loyalists and unionists for two decades and have spoken to unionist audiences. The Orange were probably less familiar with it than ourselves. They had agreed to welcome two former IRA prisoners into their hall, and then found they got two atheists as well. If it was a bit much for god fearing, devil dodging Ulster Protestants they didn’t show it, bantering and joking with the rest of us. What did strike me perhaps more than anything else was the sense of humble pride they took in their own history: proud of their family and proud of their lodge. Neither brash nor boastful, they were people I could feel absolutely no enmity towards.

On departure, rather than spend four hours on the bus from Donegal I took a lift over to Monaghan Town where I could catch the Letterkenny bus on its return leg to Dublin later in the evening. On our way there I asked Tommy to show me the Omagh street where the effects of armed republicanism were all too poignantly felt in 1998.  I had visited many republican graves in Tyrone with Tommy shortly after my release from prison and curiosity rather than any sense of balance prompted my request on this occasion. Yet, visiting the street where republicans had wreaked so much devastation, I felt that if ever there was a spot to anchor the never again sentiment it was surely there. Perhaps the greatest besmirchment to the memory of the dead of Omagh was that physical force republicanism did not die the very same afternoon.

The events of Newtowncunningham Orange Hall reminded me not to mistake the margins for the centre. Northern society is a wide ocean where each side looks across at the other, seeing the turbulent waters that separate them as being of either an orange or a green hue with each trying to dilute the colour not to its liking. Yesterday’s seminar sends only a small ripple into the vast turbulence, and one that might as easily be forced back to shore come the next tide carrying a surfing flag waver of whatever colour.  Peace there might well be, but it is far from tranquil.

Still, I thought it worth a shot ... of a different type.

Newtowncunningham 1063

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