Sir, – The performance of the loyalist band and its Orange supporters at St Patrick’s Church in Belfast on “The Twelfth” validates the National Trust’s decision to allow a place for evolution deniers at the new Causeway Visitor Centre. Their case has been effectively made. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – I find James McGeever’s description of members of the Orange Order as “children of the Nation” (July 15th) as insulting to me as it would be to them. They regard themselves as children of another nation (the UK) and have absolutely no interest in Ireland or being Irish. In fact the majority of them exhibit nothing but hostility to this country and its people.
Drew Nelson’s whining about the “demonisation” of his community is a case in point. In fact the conflicts over parades have their origins primarily in the ghettoisation of the Irish community in the North. This was caused by the original granting of permission to march in areas where they weren’t welcome in the first place. The responsibility for this rests with the unionist closed shop which ran the North, notably the sectarian junta which ruled from 1922 to 1972.
Being born on the island does not make one Irish as both the Orange Order and the Duke of Wellington have amply demonstrated. Persisting in this dangerous fantasy is a wishful daydream at best and an extremely harmful and offensive delusion at worst.
Interestingly, this simplistic analysis is merely a continuation of two strands of Republican thinking on the conflict during the Troubles.
The first strand was the “perfidious Brits” argument (ie “If the Brits weren’t here, they’d become Irish”). The second was the “false consciousness” idea (“They’re really Irish, they just haven’t realised it yet”). Needless to say, both approaches offended unionists.
The sooner we recognise that the Orange Order and unionists generally are part of a British minority in Ireland whose differences deserve to be respected, the sooner their paranoia about Irish intentions, ie their assimilation by us, could be assuaged. – Is mise,