Tradition or Respect
Created | Updated Jun 21, 2003
That was then
It's that time of year again when tourists flock everywhere except Northern Ireland. Why? July is the height of the marching season. A time when the Protestant majority tend to march in celebration of a 410 year old victory of a Dutch pseudo-Protestant King William of Orange over the Scots-descended Catholic King of Britain and Ireland James II.
The Loyal Orange Order was set up to commemorate the day on the 12 July 1690 when King William finally defeated James at the Battle of the Boyne. The Loyal Orange Lodges set about to celebrate the day by parading their banners through their towns. LOL no. 1 is based in Portadown, Co. Armagh.
For years the Protestant community lorded their numerical and largely wealth superiority over the Irish Catholics and these parades became in essence a sign of who was in charge. With the civil rights movement of the 60's by the Catholic population, equality and consent became an item on the Irish agenda for the first time. Sinn Fein and the SDLP started in their own ways to fight for the Catholic cause.
This is Now
The Orange Order still demand to walk the traditional routes that their fathers and father's fathers walked, this despite the fact that, in a number of cases, the population has changed and is now made up of catholics, who do not appreciate such parades of sectarianism going past their doors.
In recent years a 'Parades Commission' was set up to look at every parade of whatever nature in Northern Ireland and to adjudicate on the appropriateness of it's route. This took the power out of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland's hand who had to made calls on the first two contentious Drumcree parades which lead to the now annual mayhem from the disappointed community.
This year yet again they ruled that first one and then a second Orange Parade down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown following a Church service at Drumcree Parish Church should be blocked. So yet again the Police have set up a block and a 24 hour policing exercise at the scene.
The other problem which arises every year, no matter which way the Parades Commission decide, is that the dissatisfied side of the community in Northern Ireland takes to the streets, burning cars, erecting barricades and throwing stones and petrol bombs at the police. This year they have also been firing guns, ironic considering they want the IRA to decommission now that they are in government.
The upshot for ordinary law abiding citizens is fear of going out in the evening, Belfast is a ghost town at nights this week and the late night buses have been stopped. Everyone's life is almost on hold, going back to some sort of autopiloted reflex to live in isolation as they did during the worst of the troubles in the 70's. Sadly, although the majority of the people of Northern Ireland still want peace, the minority are a strong fist which shatters such hopes and , at this time of year every year, seems to throw Northern Ireland back to the time they want to forget.
