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Books
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A poem for the day – Launching the Whaler Juan Peron
A Belfast epic, and one of my oldest poems, the opener of my first collection, Grub. The gist of the story was found in Moss & Hume’s Shipbuilders to the World: 125 Years of Harland and Wolff, Belfast, 1861-1986, which tells how Eva Peron was due to launch a huge whaling vessel in Belfast, built [...] read our review » -
Do Words Matter?: Book Review of Political Discourse and Conflict Resolution – Debating Peace in Northern Ireland
I share many of the concerns of Andy Pollak, whose recent post ‘My Response to the Slugger Begrudgers’ zeroed in on the ‘relentless flow of negativity’ of some Slugger commentators. Pollak’s post was largely concerned with the medium of the blog. Indeed, I think the anonymity of the online world encourages extreme discourse and allows [...] read our review »
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“You can see Newton’s mind at work…”
To add to the open access treasure trove at the Royal Society, Cambridge University Library is putting online some of its collection of books, maps, manuscripts and journals. We have called the first phase of our work on the Cambridge Digital Library the Foundations Project, which runs from mid-2010 to mid-2013 and has been made possible [...] read our review »
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Comment on “Wake up”, indeed.
on 13 July 2010 at 10:10 am
Look at ‘Two hundred years in the Citadel’ to see why.
It’s on http://orangecitadel.blogspot.com/
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Comment on The Marching Season – Whats it all about?
on 13 July 2010 at 10:04 am
SO NOW WE KNOW:
It’s all about: “walking down a road behind a good band with family, friends and neighbours watching is actually an enjoyable experience, even with no-one watching it is still a pleasure”
So now we know, it’s a day out for narcissists. That would explain why some can’t see how offensive their behaviour is.
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Comment on DUP Support for Islam4UK parade through Wootton Bassett and Republican parade through Shankill?
on 14 February 2010 at 8:42 pm
Nelson McCausland’s accusation that the minority community in Portadown is pursuing a policy of ‘cultural apartheid’ is a gross and insulting distortion of the facts. The International Criminal Court defined apartheid as being inhumane acts ‘committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime’. Neither the nationalist/catholic community in Portadown or the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition are interested in oppressing Orange culture or dominating Protestants. What they are about is putting an end to the cultural, socioeconomic, and political discrimination and violence that has been revived with symbolic displays of Orange supremacy for a couple of hundred years.
The actual origins of that tradition of sectarian apartheid can be traced at least as far back as June of 1795 when a Rev. George Maunsell called on his congregation ‘to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in the true spirit of the institution’ by attending a sermon to be given by a Rev. Devine of the Established Church at Drumcree on Sunday the 1st of July. That 1st of July Sunday service gave birth to the 200-year-old tradition of ‘First Sunday’ ‘Church Parades’ to and from Drumcree Church. On page seventeen of a ‘History of Ireland’ (Vol. I), published in 1809, Francis Plowden described the Rev Devine’s sermon as having:
so worked up the minds of his audience, that upon retiring from service, on the different roads leading to their respective homes, they gave full scope to the antipapistical zeal, with which he had inspired them, falling upon every Catholic they met, beating and bruising them without provocation or distinction, breaking the doors and windows of their houses, and actually murdering two unoffending Catholics in a bog. This unprovoked atrocity of the Protestants revived and redoubled religious rancour. The flame spread and threatened a contest of extermination…
Two hundred years later, in July 1995, we had the ‘first’, ‘Frst Sunday’, ‘Drumcree Siege’ and the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland published ‘The Order on Parade’. In that ‘educational’ booklet the Grand Lodge held that ‘If people were better informed as to the nature of the Orange Institution they would be in a much better position to understand the purpose of parades’. The booklet went on to explain Orange culture and defended all and every Orange Parade as being part of a colourful tradition that fulfilled a common need to celebrate political and religious commitments and beliefs. They described Orange parading as being ‘a celebration’, ‘a display of pageantry’, ‘a demonstration of strength’ that provides ‘a sense of tradition’, ‘a testimony and a statement of beliefs’, and ‘the culmination of each lodge’s activities’.
Now we have a Minister for Culture who is determined to revive ‘religious rancour’ and risk a return to the ‘contest of extermination’ by supporting the culture of physical, territorial, political, socioeconomic, religious and symbolic domination that has issued from the doors of Drumcree church ever since that murderous ‘Frst Sunday’ of 1795. Perhaps if ‘our’ Minister for Culture were better informed as to the history of those paramilitary demonstrations of strength he would be in a better position understand what motivates opposition to such expressions of Orange culture. To that end, and with the editor’s permission, may I direct him and the Grand Lodge historians to the research papers that I have posted on the internet at http://orangecitadel.blogspot.com.
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