CHAPTER 7

HISTORY ON THE MARCH OR FORWARD MARCH?

‘There is no street with mute stones and no house without echoes’ Góngora Y Argote (1561–1627)

History on the March

7.1 Both sides to the parades dispute are conditioned by history. As Dr A. T. Q. Stewart put it so aptly:

7.2 Neither tradition is likely to understand – and may even demonise – the other, if it is not recognised that both contributed to the development of politics within a confessional (or sectarian) framework in the 19th century, with religion as the badge of identity.

7.3 So origins are important, not least when considering the parades issue. Orangeism is distinctive in many respects, and not least in its longevity. It has been part of the warp and woof of Irish history for 207 years and has outlived all its protagonists. But, while Orangeism's old adversaries may be gone, the batallioned ghosts remain to haunt it. There is no statute of limitations on memory. When those who have no affinity with Orangeism see it in procession, many of them see history on the march. And they see Orangeism as having been throughout its long history, as well as today, on the wrong side, certainly on the ‘opposite’ side.

7.4 It is therefore important (without expressing any view of its opinions) to put the phenomenon of what many still regard as the ‘bogeyman’ of the last couple of hundred years of Irish history in context. Its rise in 1795 is now seen as a consequence rather than a cause of the tensions of the time, the product of long-standing feuds and economic rivalries which the norms of the period (and of many periods in Irish history) made it acceptable to settle by violence.