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

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СКАЧАТЬ new recognition of the necessity of taking on the nationalists at their own game. ‘We’ve been too stiff-necked and proud to explain ourselves,’ said one. ‘We’ve got to change.’ There is nothing they would like so much in the Clogher Valley as to watch on television the new leader of the Ulster Unionist Party wipe that smile off Gerry Adams’s face.

      There were aspects of the day I had no room to put in that article. Such as that my host – who wanted me to know how bad it could be – insisted that we sit on the wet grass and listen to an evangelist who seemed to me to be completely deranged. Or that I was totally baffled that chaps speaking from the platform referred to each other as ‘Sir Knight’. I was baffled too that there was almost no reference to politics: I had a vague impression that all marches ended with a unionist politician going on about the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It was only afterwards that I discovered that the Black was concerned more with the spiritual than the political.

      I didn’t mention that I discovered that it was rather fun singing hymns – this was the first of my many attempts at ‘O God, Our Help in Ages Past’ – nor did I refer to the ‘resolutions’ that were proposed at what I had just learned was called a ‘demonstration’. Here are the three listed in the leaflet I was given, which included this instruction about a forthcoming anniversary service: ‘Sir Knights to assemble on the Augher Road beside the Filling Station at 2.45 p.m.’

      FIRST RESOLUTION

      In pursuit of lasting peace in our land, we stress the need to contend earnestly for the Faith: We urge all Sir Knights to continue to live in harmony with their neighbours and to do all in their power to witness to the saving truths of the everlasting Gospel. We call upon everyone to embrace the Faith once delivered to the Saints and to engage whole-heartedly in the battle against the evil forces so rampant in today’s society.

      SECOND RESOLUTION

      We, the Members of the Imperial Grand Black Chapter of the British Commonwealth, send our loyal greetings to Her Majesty The Queen. The commemorations of the end of the Second World War enabled the British people to manifest their deep respect for Her Majesty, who has maintained the commitment and duty to Her people as displayed throughout the war by Her Father and Mother, and confirmed their conviction that the Monarchy remains the keystone of our Parliamentary Democracy.

      The third one was more foxing. But then I had not yet learned how immediate for many religiously-minded Protestants is the Old Testament.

      THIRD RESOLUTION

      We applaud the good citizens of Northern Ireland who remained unnerved by the shocks and uncertainties since the cessation of military operations by terrorists.

      We regret that little was done to prepare the population for the inevitable confusion similar to that experienced by ancient Israel when released from captivity in Egypt. Unlike them we must remain resolute and ready to take full advantage of favourable developments before the end of the year.

I didn’t mention either, as I didn’t want to hurt Henry’s feelings, that while I understood the attraction of parades, this seemed to me a pretty weird way of enjoying yourself, interesting though I’d found the experience. Nor that living in London where I virtually never hear the national anthem, I was moved by the fervour with which those attending the service sang it at the end. Nor that I greatly enjoyed the warmth of the welcome given in the Orange Hall to a female southern Irish Catholic (albeit an atheist – which, of course, to them is worse) and was touched that the Worshipful Master thanked me formally for bothering to come. I appreciated everyone’s friendliness, liked the atmosphere in the pub and the warmth and the chat of the drinking bandsmen and women and lodge-members. And I was thrilled that RBP No. 800 was now informally my lodge.^*

      4. Scarva, 13 July 1996

      We’d had a very jolly Twelfth the previous day in Kesh. Despite the rise in sectarian bitterness after the events at Drumcree, there had been little to see except the parade and people enjoying themselves in the manner of rural Protestants: a sunny day, ice-cream, picnics, soft drinks, lots of stirring music and chatting to neighbours constituted for them a veritable heaven. My English companions, Gary and Paul, who’d come to a parade for the first time, had had a surprisingly good time; we’d been entertained for lunch at the Orange Hall where, as always, I was the only woman guest, and had a chat with Lord Brookeborough, grandson of a Northern Ireland prime minister and one of the few remaining members of the Ulster gentry still in the Orange Order. He had introduced us to an Orangeman in a wheelchair, an ex-member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, whose legs had been blown off as he helped a Catholic, who was too drunk to walk properly, to get away from a place that was being evacuated. He was a cheerful man who said he had merely done his job, had no bitterness and was grateful to God for having spared him.

      Now a friend was taking Gary and Paul and me to a day that a lot of parade-connoisseurs regard as the best spectacle in Northern Ireland: the annual parade of the Armagh Royal Black Preceptories and the Sham Fight.

      A Black event is prized by all of those who want to see the loyal institutions at their most disciplined, dignified and responsible. And because of the nature of the Black, a far smaller portion of the bands are ‘blood-and-thunder’. So it’s a splendid outing for accordion, pipe and silver bands. (One of the pleasures of a parade is to see someone I have met socially appear completely transformed. I remember gentle, slightly diffident Eric suddenly appearing in front of me resplendent in his kilt and bagpipes, exuding joy and pride in his band and his community.)

      The problem with Scarva is that it has become too popular and the lane down which the parade goes is narrow. If you want to walk along with a band, you have to do so behind the families sitting in their folding chairs or on their blankets, swigging soft drinks and munching sandwiches and cake. Scarva is a bit too respectable and tame to attract yobs although there is sometimes a bit of trouble from the small lager-drinking brigade.

      Our day was complicated by my needing to have a word with James Molyneaux, the Imperial Sovereign Grand Master, who was leading the parade. ‘We’ll go through the fields,’ announced our country friend, and took off at speed to lead us over barbed-wire fences and thorn-hedges and across boggy land and through muddy puddles to find Molyneaux before he disappeared into Scarvagh House to dine with the dignitaries. When we finally made it via the back route into the field, it was already full of stalls and Blackmen and bands and families. There was no sign of Molyneaux and the platform was deserted. So I had to climb over yet another fence and go to Scarvagh House.

      By this time the Sham Fight between King James II, the loyal institutions’ hate figure, and their hero, King William III, was in train. It is a bizarre and rather touching event, given an emotional context because there is an oak tree in the grounds under which William is supposed to have camped on his way to the Boyne. The following year, when I actually walked the route more or less backwards about twenty yards in front of the parade, I was highly diverted that the leading marshals were a King James and a King William in vaguely period uniform, in green and red respectively, adorned with tricorne hats with appropriate cockades. It rather takes away from the mystique when the two great enemies are engaged in moving bystanders out of harm’s way, but then, except for a little ritual in Orange lodges, mystique is not much prized in that part of the world.

      What happens at the Sham Fight is that, when everybody has arrived in the field, King William and his main henchman General Schomberg on the one hand, and King James and General Patrick Sarsfield on the other, appear on horseback to thunderous applause followed by motley footsoldiers more or less dressed for the part. After riding round and round for a while, the kings and generals, still on horseback, fight each other with swords while their followers use swords, pistols with blanks or just СКАЧАТЬ