Celebrating the Twelfth

This week I thought I would talk about the 12th in this podcast. When I mentioned a few days ago to some friends that I was going to do this podcast about the 12th and asked them what they thought if I sang a few Orange songs, the answer was no. And that’s understandable. Some of these songs are very sectarian, are about hatred and are not acceptable. I first came across Orange songs way back in the day when I came across the writings of Richard Hayward. He wrote a number of books about Ireland, about Irish folklore, about Ulster – its nine counties – and I still remain very fond of his writings. And that’s where I came across The Sash.It is old but it is beautiful, and its colours they are fine It was worn at Derry, Aughrim, Enniskillen and the Boyne. My father wore it as a youth in bygone days of yore, And on the Twelfth, I love to wear the sash my father wore. Anyone offended by that, either by my singing or my singing this song? Apologies in advance.The Orange marches have to have a place in the Ireland of the future. The Orange is one of our national colours – the tradition of Orangeism is not one that many of us will appreciate but it’s there none the less and on the basis of equality we have to make space for all of this. At the same time there can be no space for hatred or incitement to hatred.But let’s just look at some of the facts around the 12 July. The Battle of the Boyne was actually held on 1 July 1690. It was part of a wider European war. They just used Ireland – King Billy and the Pope on the one side and King James and the King of France – as one of the sites of their war. The Pope, Innocent X1 supported the Dutchman King William after the English parliament sacked King James and invited William to take his job. The Pope paid part of King Billy’s expenses and when news of his victory at the Boyne reached Rome a Te Deum was sung in the Vatican in celebration.The twelfth celebrations have little to do with religion though many Orange men and women are both religious and decent. Others infamously are not. They know the Twelfth is about power and domination. In its day the Orange Order was the backbone of unionism. Most business people, almost every unionist politician, Judges and senior RUC officers were members one of the Loyal Orders – The Orange Order – the largest - the Apprentice Boys, or the Royal Black Preceptory. It was essential in the control of the political system, the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries, and the domination by the Ulster Unionist Party of the North for over 50 years. The Orange Order was essential to the control that party exerted. It facilitated structured sectarian political and economic discrimination against nationalists and Catholics. It’s not for nothing that the North of Ireland is known by nationalists as the Orange State.And even to this day, and I have spoken to many Orangemen over the years and had good relationships with them, and enjoy those relationships yet, it’s still a matter of deep regret that the leadership of the Orange Order will not meet with the President of Sinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald in the same way that they refused to meet with me. The Orange Order was founded by the English and Protestant ascendancy in Ireland in the 1790s as a counter to the United Irish Society which was seeking independence from England. Its purpose was to defend England’s colonial presence and interests in Ireland and to divide people. Its fortunes waned through much of the early p