are fundamentally and basically spiritual problems. May I quote words spoken a few weeks ago by the County Grand Chaplain, William Bingham, when he addressed a fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference:
‘As I look around Britain today, I look at the situation not only as an Orangeman, and an Ulsterman, but as a Christian – indeed a Christian minister. I am committed to Orangeism, but I am supremely committed to Christ. I recognize that my approach to religion – indeed many people’s approach to religion in Northern Ireland – is out of tune with the times in England but I do feel passionately that Christ and the gospel has provided the answer to the deepest needs of society and that peace and reconciliation begin at the Cross.’
The parallel with ancient Israel, Kennaway went on, was that
every time she went wrong spiritually, she went wrong politically. Every time she went after other gods, she lost her political battles … We are in danger of becoming a race merely of political Protestants … if we get away from the centrality of the word of God …
I believe in the principles of the loyal Orange institution, but I wonder do we all believe in these principles? … We have to make sure that our principles and our practice run parallel … I cannot help but fear that will ultimately be our downfall. We will become political Protestants and we will abandon our biblical principles. You see as I often say to groups of Orangemen and I make no apology for saying it again and saying it here: ‘If you are involved in something or you’re doing something which you know in your heart of hearts is out of keeping with the principles of scripture, then do, I beg you, not only for your soul’s sake – and that’s far more important than anything else – but for the sake of the institution which you profess to love, change your ways or resign.’
Oh, we have great principles, we have noble principles, but our condemnation will be when the world points the finger at us and asks where is our practice? Our principles and our practice ought to be the same. Do we want to see change? Do we really want God to bless us? Do we really want God to intervene in a situation in Ulster where if we are honest with ourselves we know it is only God’s intervention that can save us … People like to draw parallels to our present crises to the turn of the century – the Home Rule crisis – but some things are different, you know. And you’d better believe it. You see God played a more significant part in our nation at the beginning of the century. People were fundamentally more religious. And when they sang the words of that hymn we sang – ‘O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come’, they actually meant it. Do we? What’s the answer?
The answer is reformation and revival under the anointing of the spirit of God.
After we had sung the final hymn – a setting of the 46th psalm about God our trusty shield who makes wars cease – and, of course, the national anthem, and most people had left, Kennaway anxiously questioned those of us remaining about whether he had got his message through. Had he been direct enough? Always, my biggest culture shock when I go to the Ulster Protestant heartlands from London or Dublin, is once again to realize to what extent they say what they mean and mean what they say. It is no wonder they have such difficulty with the English desire to fudge and the southern Irish desire to please everyone.
A few of us stayed on for a chat and they showed me some more of the damaged Brownlow House. I asked about the band and was told that it was regarded as a major breach of Orange etiquette that its members had not come to the service. They shouldn’t, said one of them, be hired if they weren’t prepared to participate in the religious part of the proceedings. There was criticism, too, of the martial way in which they had banged out the hymn tunes. But one of the Orangemen shrugged. ‘What can you do? There are only two local bands and they’re both blood-and-thunder, because that’s what the young men like, and there’ll be bad feeling if we don’t hire locals.’ ‘If necessary,’ said Brian Kennaway, who is notorious for not suffering gladly either fools or yobs, ‘we could dispense with a band and parade down the road whistling.’
So once again, another own goal by decent Protestants and another example of the how perception and reality are at odds where the Orange Order is concerned. Here was a service attended by believing Christians, who listened intently to the message that they should live their lives as witnesses to God. Most of these people are the salt of the earth. But because they hire the local band, an outsider observing their parade could well have gone away with an image of drum-beating bigots.
A Cancellation, 9 August 1997
I was over from London for the Apprentice Boys’ parade which was to take place the next day, when just before midnight came the news that the Newtownbutler Residents’ Association was determined to block a small Black parade through the town early the following morning. So Mark and I decided to go there before we went to Derry.
The situation in Newtownbutler was particularly sad. Despite tragedies like Enniskillen and all the border murders, Fermanagh Protestants are notoriously less bigoted than those of any other Northern Ireland county. Newtownbutler had a cross-community historical society and a Thursday Club for the elderly and prided itself on its harmoniousness. As one resident put it in the summer of 1996: ‘When there was a death both communities attended the wake house and the funeral.’ And a local SDLP politician told a journalist that cooperation was the norm: ‘It’s the so-called sick-cow syndrome. It doesn’t matter if it is a Protestant or a Catholic cow. I remember once there was a cow in distress and the owner was away. A neighbour called to borrow something on the farm and saw the cow and called in others and by the time the calf was born, the DUP, the UUP, Sinn Féin and the SDLP had been there to help. That cooperation is there yet, but it is most definitely under threat.’
It was Drumcree Two and the subsequent boycotting of Protestant businesses that had made the difference. Within two months of Drumcree, Catholics and Protestants were boycotting alike and sectarian tensions had provided fertile ground for the establishment of a Newtownbutler Area Residents’ Association to try to block parades.
By August 1997 Newtownbutler was radicalized and no Catholic residents were prepared or able to challenge the Residents’ Association, which was able to swell its ranks when necessary by bringing in reinforcements from outside. What caused particular offence to Protestants were the protesters from the nearby town of Clones, in County Monaghan in the Irish Republic.
Mark and I arrived around 7 a.m. in Newtownbutler to find a group of disconsolate young men. Some of them had just arrived, a few were still arriving and others had been up all night fearful that the police would seal off the main street. Some of them seemed drunk. Not long before they had been told that the Blackmen had cancelled their parade. A smashed window was testimony to their frustration.
We walked up to the top of the village and then back to the bottom because I was shivering and Mark had a sweater in the car. A few RUC men arrived and took up their position at the top of the main street, well away from the protesters. They were in good humour because, as they confirmed, the parade had been cancelled. They would not have to face insults, stones, petrol bombs and maybe worse.
We wandered back to the protesters and found that some of them were still deeply reluctant to believe this had happened. It might be a cunning ploy. It might be that if the protesters left, the Blackmen would arrive and stage their parade after all. I couldn’t help. These were cross young men. It was not a gathering where one could explain that the Royal Black Institution didn’t approve of telling lies.
Protesters stood around grumbling for a while and then matters were enlivened by the arrival of a red-headed American woman in army boots who engaged the residents’ leader in conversation for the next fifteen minutes or so. Mark and I stood by fascinated, for here in the flesh was the living embodiment of the Noraid* stereotype – the American who was more republican than the republicans, whose crassness and bigotry made even Sinn Féin twitch.
She lived in Derry, it emerged, and had done so for two years. She had come to Newtownbutler with a carload of protest banners and was staying in a local guest-house. Amid great laughter at her own intrepidness,