Every July an Orange Order parade takes place in Rossnowlagh, County Donegal. An annual festival that attracts large crowds, it has the support of the local and wider Donegal community, irrespective of their political or religious affiliations. It passes off peacefully every year and is viewed as neither intimidating nor antagonising. It is welcomed and supported by those who are not members or supporters of the Orange Order.
One hundred and thirty kilometres east is Drumcree which, similarly, has an annual Orange Order parade that, along with many other such parades in Northern Ireland, is viewed in a very different light. It provokes large protests by nationalists and is viewed as a divisive event that has no support from those outside the protestant or Orange tradition.
Why is it that these two Orange Order parades within such close proximity, both involving catholics and protestants of Ulster, can provoke such different reactions? Why is one Orange Order march in Donegal viewed as a welcoming non-sectarian family day out for all the community, whilst the other in Armagh is viewed as a divisive sectarian event that seeks to perpetuate division within the community?
The answer lies in partition.
Ireland’s politics at the beginning of the twentieth century was embedded in a deep sectarianism resulting in a simplistic conflict between green and orange, catholic and protestant. The prescribed solution was the attempted division of the two tribes in the misguided belief that the dominance of one over the other in each jurisdiction would resolve the political issues.
This didn’t work.
The prescribed solution in the southern State was ultimately derailed by a written constitution that guaranteed religious and personal equality, eventually implemented by the Supreme Court, and by an electorate that could amend that constitution to mould a predominantly secular non-sectarian State.
The prescribed solution in the northern State also didn’t work. There was no attempt at religious and personal equality in the early years of the northern State but, even when those fundamental requirements of any State were put in place, Northern Ireland could not design an escape route out of perpetuating sectarian conflict. In part this was due to the immutable binary political structure of Northern Ireland.
As well as damaging both communities, that structure has denied each community in Northern Ireland the opportunity to progress along a political path not moulded by the anachronistic politics of green and orange.
We know how damaging that structure was to northern nationalism in the last century. However, the assumption that the political structure of Northern Ireland only damaged the interests of the nationalist minority must now be revised considering the growing cultural and political isolation of Ulster unionism.
That isolation is evident in the inability of Northern Ireland unionism to express its cultural identity without generating opposition or antagonism, frequently intolerant, outside of its own community. In truth, it is the politics moulded by the structure of Northern Ireland that has prevented the advancement and promotion of its cultural identity.
What is less frequently acknowledged is that the politics of Northern Ireland has also been damaging to northern nationalism in ways different than traditionally envisaged. The northern State left many nationalists in a traumatised state following decades of discrimination and violence which to this day undermines the ability of some from presenting a hand of reconciliation and tolerance to their fellow citizens. That explains why nationalism in Northern Ireland does not respond to Orange Order parades in the same way as nationalism in Donegal or elsewhere in the South.
Regrettably, it is an inescapable fact that the laboratory conditions created in Northern Ireland by partition have accentuated division and prevented real inter-community reconciliation.
Recent events at Drumcree set back cross community relations in Northern Ireland. They also highlighted difficult questions for those who advocate for Irish reunification. One of those questions that must be answered is what role and protection would the Orange Order and the loyalist tradition have in a reunified Ireland?
The answer must be that in a reunified Ireland the orange and loyalist tradition would not be viewed as a divisive sectarian tradition seeking to exert supremacy over others on the island. Instead, it would be viewed as an important part of Ireland’s cultural identity that needs to be acknowledged, protected and cherished to ensure the success of a new Ireland that prides itself on diversity and respect for all traditions.
It should also be uncontroversial to acknowledge and ultimately celebrate, even in a gathering such as this, the broader constitutional legacy on these islands of William of Orange. To do that we must not view him exclusively through the prism of Northern Ireland politics.
He was, after all, responsible for the permanent curtailment of royal power, the establishment of the supremacy of parliamentary democracy and the promotion of free elections and free speech in parliament. These are concepts that were expanded further by the republican ideals espoused by the many Ulster protestants who founded the United Irishmen in Belfast in October 1791 and indeed by the eponymous inspiration for this cumann.
There is a broad range of political and cultural viewpoints that would be strengthened in a new reunified Ireland that would also challenge the political conformity that has developed on either side of the border since partition.
We should all recognise that opportunities exist in unlikely locations.
