The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions. Ruth Edwards Dudley

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СКАЧАТЬ I am told that some local Orangemen who are members of the DUP were annoyed at this remark. I am sorry to have hurt their feelings, but I record what I hear.

^† I was corrected about this later. It would have been true six or seven years ago: indeed, in 1991 the wife of a Sinn Féin worker brought her children, her sunglasses and a chair with her and watched the parade. In the last few years, however, because of the increase in sectarian tension, Catholics stay away. There would, however, be many stalls and shops manned by Catholics servicing the paraders and onlookers.

^* Orangemen describe them as ‘blood-and-thunder’ bands, Catholics (because they dislike them) and loyalist youths (because they love them) call them ‘kick-the-pope’.

^† I should have added, ‘or in the Gaelic Athletic Association, which provides a social and sometimes political focus to their lives’.

^* I remember particularly the Murley renditions of ‘It’s A Long Way to Tipperary’, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and ‘All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor’.

^* A clarifier here. My occasional references to ‘my’ lodge merely denote a friendly relationship and are not intended to suggest that a male-only all-Protestant lodge has taken leave of its senses and admitted as a member a female atheist who was baptized Catholic. I have standing invitations to certain functions there, I’ve eaten there three times and I feel a special gratitude to the brethren for being so kind and welcoming to a nervous outsider.

^* Technically, in 1984, the city became ‘Derry’ while the county remained ‘Londonderry’. In practice, Catholics tend to call both Derry and Protestants both Londonderry. Those trying to avoid giving offence call the city Derry/Londonderry and humorists call it Stroke City.

^* Republicans irritate unionists by comparing themselves with the ANC.

^* Another insulting term for Protestants is ‘Jaffas’. Abusive terms for Catholics include ‘Fenians’ and ‘Taigs’.

^* The playwright Hugh Leonard elucidated this approach in a comment on the funeral in January 1998 of Billy Wright, the notorious loyalist terrorist: ‘The town of Portadown was closed down yesterday for the obsequies of Billy Wright. Shopkeepers were “asked” to suspend business. “Your co-operation is noted (my italics) and appreciated,” is how the request was worded. Take away the olde-worlde politeness, and the translation goes: “Shut up shop or we’ll blow your effin’ heads off.” The morality is, of course, that the more people you murder, the bigger your funeral.’

      Even when operating ceasefires, loyalist and republican paramilitaries have traditionally kept control of their ghettos by kneecapping or beating half to death with iron bars or baseball bats studded with nails the disobedient or those classified as ‘anti-social’; shopkeepers are brought to heel by vandalizing or setting fire to their property.

^* In 1996, after Drumcree Two, the subtle, learned and sophisticated Cardinal Daly – like most of the population of Ireland – went nakedly tribal. In an emotional and often bitter television interview he declared himself betrayed and shocked by the decision to let the Orangemen down the Garvaghy Road and thereby reinforced the prejudices of all those loyalists who doggedly believe that Catholic clergy are, at best, closet republicans and, at worst, tribal witchdoctors.

^* My brother pointed out that the poem was based on Longfellow’s ‘The Jewish Cemetery at Newport’, which laments the fate of the Jews at Christian hands.

^* Orangemen report frequent confusion on the titles front. My favourite example was the Australian who got so muddled about whether to call a visiting dignitary ‘Most’, ‘Right’ or ‘Very’ Worshipful, that he lost his grasp completely and addressed him as ‘Most Adorable Brother’.

^* I mentioned to a Orangeman on one occasion that I had left in the middle of a set of speeches because they were awful and I couldn’t bear any more. He laughed. ‘My favourite moment at these events,’ he said, ‘is when after a particularly excruciating performance, the seconder gets up and says: “I would like to second the motion so ably proposed by Brother X.” ‘

^* I once went to a Portadown Black ‘Last Saturday’ where my companion and I were taken to eat in the Orange Hall and therefore became honoured guests, even though James was from the British Foreign Office – an institution which as a consequence of the Anglo-Irish Agreement is believed by most unionists to be intent on selling them out. After the meal, we stood with some friends in the field waiting for the speakers on the platform to get going. We were spotted by an officer who felt we had to be given some mark of respect. Two chairs were brought down from the platform, placed in front of the crowd and we were summoned. ‘No, no, please, I’m fine,’ said James, who is of a retiring disposition. More experienced in the ways of Orangemen, I sat down without protest and eventually he too was persuaded to sit. Within a minute he had spotted an elderly woman and had given her his seat. Down from the platform came the officer, carrying another chair; this time James accepted his fate. For the whole of the service, except when on our feet for hymns and the national anthem, the three of us sat there, apart from those on the platform the only people among the thousands present not standing or lying on the grass.

^* NORAID (the Irish Northern Aid Committee) has since 1969 raised money in the United States ostensibly for the families of republican prisoners. In effect, it has freed up IRA money which could then be used to buy weapons. Its members are happy to encourage people 3,000 miles away to kill and be killed. Its organ, The Irish People, is a hymn to hate.

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       What Members of the Irish Loyal Institutions Do

      The Orangeman is a man of truth,

      Who scorns all fraud and art; And rear’d in truth, from his early youth, He has shrin’d it in his heart; For it proves to him a mighty shield Against every foeman’s dart; And his life he’d yield, on the blood-stain’d field, Ere with that bright gem he’d part.

      The Orangeman is a man of might,

      But trusts not in fleshly arm; He dares to fight for freedom and right, And he knows no vain alarm. But strong in truth, in virtue bold, He fears no earthly harm; For his heart’s stronghold, like his sires of old, Is in virtue’s potent charm.

      The Orangeman is СКАЧАТЬ