Thursday, November 01, 2007
Orange hall razed in Republic…
YET another Orange hall has been burnt out in Ulster, this time on the other side of the border. It’s the third to be destroyed out of 10 in County Cavan over the last 20 years.
Belfast Gonzo @ 11:40 AM
Cue the apologists.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 12:53 PMI think half the Orange halls being burnt nowadays are done so by the members themselves in order to get cash in on insurance policies.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 01:14 PMWe’re all afraid to comment in case we are reported to the PSNI for incitement.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 01:20 PMThe cause has yet to be determined.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 01:27 PMYou should take that information to the police, Eamonn.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 01:28 PM‘Think’ suggests it’s not a ‘fact’ Joe. Eamonn is inviting us to believe in ‘ulterior self combustion’. A claim that should be treated with precisely the same suspicion as the story that marks left on prisoners during interrogation are invariably ‘self inflicted’ in order to cause trouble for the authorities.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 01:37 PMEamonn,
That still leaves half the halls being burnt down for other reasons. And even if only one was burnt down by sectarianism, then that is still greater than zero and is therefore too big.Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 01:59 PM<aside>Mick, I recall the Northern Counties Hotel, Portrush, and ‘ulterior self-combustion’ - on successive Saturday nights.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 02:07 PMAye, but there may have been a motive there.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 02:11 PM‘ulterior self combustion’.’
IIRC ‘Ulsterior self combustion’ has been part of NI culture for decades . Perhaps it’s just a ‘tradition’ in some areasz/ the obverse being the RC Church Doors ‘painting’ phenomenon ?
The answer has got to be finding the vandals responsible for these acts and put them to work at their own expense to repair under supervision the property damage they have inflicted on the community . Either that or a mandatory 10 year no probation jail sentence with hard labour !
Theres been far too much of this s**te!
GreenflagPosted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 02:32 PMLet’s hope no harm comes to Brownlow House, even if the OO does have a big cash incentive to torch it. I do sympathise with any OO lodges in this awful dilemma - to press on with a failing enterprise or collect a one-off insurance windfall. But, even if only one was burnt down for the insurance, then that is still greater than zero and is therefore too big
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 02:35 PMLet’s just hope this thread doesn’t continue the unconscionably silly road. Here’s a cross posing from a previous thread, which concerns the tolerance of such attacks.
The LSE defines civil society thus:
...the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional forms are distinct from those of the state, family and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family and market are often complex, blurred and negotiated. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors and institutional forms, varying in their degree of formality, autonomy and power. Civil societies are often populated by organisations such as registered charities, development non-governmental organisations, community groups, women’s organisations, faith-based organisations, professional associations, trades unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions and advocacy group.
It is related to notions of social capital. In short it is not a problem that can be neatly dumped at the door of a single actor (barring the guys who are behind it).
The ‘smart’ nature of this campaign may be one reason why there’s not been an outcry in the communities in which the attacks have taken place at such treatment of a local minority. It’s hard to get a sense that it’s a local problem if the local hall only gets hit once in a three year campaign. That’s another reason why putting it down to local yobs is so plausible at first sight. As you draw outwards it becomes obvious there is something much more systematic involved here.
To clip to an obvious comparitor, the Harryville residents who turned out in support of vigil Mass goers and against the Drumcree protesters did so because there was an obvious challenge to the social bonds of the local community, not because they are more virtuous than civil society in the Catholic majority West.
There is, it seems, a confusion in this discussion between the acts themselves and their victims. I suspect there are many people who could cite reasons why certain parties and institutions were somehow beyond the Pale and therefore not deserving of our collective sympathy when targetted in this way. However, it is the act that is the thing, not the identity of the victim.
Considering the diversifying pressures that the Republic and Britain are under, you don’t need to enter a First they came… defence to understand that some form of pluralism will have to be struggled for if Northern Ireland is to prosper in a world in which change and diversity is the natural condition. If that is to happen, we need to start caring now (rather than later) about the individual fates of people who live outside our own tribal zones.
Louis Feldman on Radio Four last year: “the informal connections we have between us actually have a dollar value to them. You get along better in life depending on the people who know and how much you trust them and they trust you”.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 03:15 PMGiven the recent antics of a Sinn Fein supporter it seems strange to me that there isn’t more condemnation of these twats.
I don’t suspect a conspiracy, just drunken bigoted vandalism.
Unionists face a huge uphill struggle if their community is to prosper in the future. This nonsense doesn’t help anybody.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 03:46 PMWhat surprises me is the antipathy of Republicans to the Orange tradition.
I mean if you’re just a common or garden Catholic with no particular axe to grind then the Orangies are a bunch of bigotted oul’ bastards upon whom you wouldn’t piss if they were on fire.
But that’s not the case with Irish Republicans, they actually have devoted thirty three per cent of the flag to which they give their devoted allegiance to Orangeism, their martyrs were buried under the colour of Irish Orangeism, and yet they proclaim fervently to hate Orangeism and all it stands for.
Simple question, why do they celebrate the Orange Order on their National Flag?
The Orange Order was formed in Armagh a century before the creation of the Irish Tricolour.The Orange stood for one thing and one thing only in Irish politics; maintenance of the protestant monarchy and ascendancy in Ireland. If you’re going to stick that on your flag well at least understand what it means and either take the colour off your banner or have the decency to embrace it as a respected and welcome part of your heritage.
What’s it to be folks?
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 03:52 PMEds: Deleted
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 04:00 PMlib,
I’m not sure the ‘politics of condemnation’ will work. This in-group, out-group mentality (of which Susan McKay’s story about the conduct of Immigration officials at Aldergrove in yesterday’s Irish News may be just another example) that means people see their communities as discrete entities with separate paths and separate outcomes is what’s at fault here. In fact if one sinks, we all sink.
Don’t take my word for it, here’s this week’s New Scientist: “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary”
As you say, this vandalism/campaign really doesn’t help anyone. The bottomline: as a society we are judged from without as a society at large.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 04:29 PMThese individuals are only attacking an evil, sectarian, dinosour of an organisation, that has no place in Ireland.
Seán.
LimerickPosted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 04:34 PMI don’t suspect a conspiracy, just drunken bigoted vandalism.
What about the Ballycolman Irps arrested near near Strabane earlier this year?
Or the stuff going on in and around North Armagh?
Obviously not all of this is organised, but some of it certainly is.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 04:46 PMHarry not being an Irishman far be it for me to answer you but the orange bit on the Irish flag in no way celebrates the oo. Infact I would say its the antithesis of oo culture because its to celebrate the inclusiveness of protestants in Ireland something the oo has proved to be violently opposed to. Now maybe you’ve fallen down and done damage to your head or you are taking the piss because surely you know better. With the oo’s history its repugnant that anybody should think that the oo should be included or celebrated in anyway other than for its demise
The oo should be a proscribed organisation just as it was in much of its early history
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 04:57 PMSammy,
I don’t suspect any widespread conspiracy because I believe there are too many decent people out there.I also suspect that there is so much infiltration going on at the moment that any organised group would simply be playing into the hands of the security services.
The area I know a little about is South Armagh and things there are much less tightly organised than public perception has it. Can’t speak for anywhere else.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 04:58 PMHere are some important questions that all Christian Orangemen would do well too honestly answer.
1. Why do you need to be a member of a SECRET religious organization? Is not your church a satisfactory channel for fellowship, and through which you can use your energies to reach the lost?
2. Is your church not protesting against the errors of Rome and the host of other errors to make it a sufficient voice for you? Maybe a change of church is required - a place where Protestantism is faithfully upheld?
3. Would a monthly Church prayer meeting surrounded by believers not be more suitable for fellowship than a monthly lodge meeting surrounded by ungodly men?
4. If a march is something that one dearly cherishes, would a Christian march with Gospel texts, terminating in an Evangelistic Service, not be more effective and beneficial in turning our unsaved Protestant and Catholic neighbours to Christ?
5. Would you agree, the saved Lodge member is devoting time, effort and money into things which are at best secondary and at worse futile and unbiblical? Matters which divert him from the great comission, which commands us to preach the Gospel, first to our family and friends (Jerusalem), then to our own community (Judea), then to our enemies (Samaria) and finally unto the uttermost parts of the earth? Does not membership of these secret bodies severely hamper our efforts to reach those who are perceived by many to be our enemy community.
6. Many ex-lodge members have admitted their strong anti-Roman Catholic feelings to the point they could not love their neighbour and rarely witnessed to them. After resignation their attitudes radically changed. Do you need such a change of heart?
7. Many lodge members find it hard to miss a lodge meeting yet they readily find it easy to miss the church prayer meeting. Does it not show which God is on the throne?
8. Since we all now know of the horrible mockery committed in the Independent Loyal Orange Institution, the Royal Arch Purple Chapter and Royal Black Institution initiation ceremonies, should not the true child of God want to forsake them, and loudly protest against them?
9. Does it not make you uncomfortable that you are involved in rituals and symbolism which other anti-evangelical organizations also make use of like the Masons, Mormons, Knights of Malta, and even the Ancient Order of Hibernians?
10. How can you justify being unequally yoked with unbelievers in a RELIGIOUS brotherhood that also requires you to call a fellow member ‘brother’ irrespective of whether that man is a child of God or a child of the devil?
11. How can you condemn Catholicism for addressing their priests as “Father”, and not condemn the Orders use of the religious titles of ‘Worshipful Master’, ‘Grand Master’ and ‘Most Worshipful Sovereign Grand Master?’ Jesus said in Matthew 23:9-10 “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.” Surely the context of the use of both titles is in a religious sense, something the Lord was forbidding to be done?
12. How can you biblically justify subjecting yourself to the religious authority of countless Chaplains, Lecturers and “Worshipful Masters” (at Lodge, District, County and Grand Lodge level) most of whom are unregenerate men? Is this not apostasy?
13. Can you point to specific guidance from the Lord, proving that it is the Lord’s will that you should be an active member of any secret society?
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 05:18 PM“The area I know a little about is South Armagh and things there are much less tightly organised than public perception has it.”
I’m not sure the Quinn family would agree with you there.
If things aren’t tightly organised and controlled it certainly isn’t for the want of trying.Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 05:20 PMMick,
It is amusing that anyone could classify the OO’s activities as “uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values”. within the OO that may vertainly be the case but within the larger society it is exactly the opposite. The OO is an isolationist collective of bigoted supremacists which exist only to coerce and bully its neighbours. By you logic Ireland would be a better place without such an organisation. The OO cannot, IMO, be described as an altruistic group, unless you buy into the notion that hate parades are no bad thing so long as somebody carries a bucket with the name of a local hospital on it.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 05:29 PMOrange order property is under sustained attack, so a lot of the response on here is to...well, attack the orange order, of course.
And so the climate for these things to happen is constantly replicated.
“I disagree completely with these halls being attacked but, you know, these orange people are....”
And so it goes on.
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 05:42 PMSean and Seán:
You are both perfectly entitled to take up whatever position on this matter that you wish: so long as it is ‘playing the ball’.
But can we have some (real, as opposed to ‘made up’) evidence for your ‘twin’ assertions that the OO should be banned?
Posted by on Nov 01, 2007 @ 05:54 PM
