The Twelfth of July was a big day where I come from and a source of huge excitement for us children, since we weren’t aware of the sectarian background to all of it then, since our village was probably 90 per cent Protestant. My older brother’s birthday was on the 12th, and when he was wee, he allegedly thought the bands came out to celebrate with him!
Where did you live? There were once Orange parades in many places and they have since died out. A friend told me that his father remembered them as a boy in Brooklyn. (The nuns told him not to look— or he would go blind! Lol).
I remember an orange march in Edinburgh, twenty years ago perhaps. Anyway, hadn’t expected it, and I remember how the atmosphere in the street changed, people disappeared into shops and the pub, a touristy pub just off the Royal Mile, a woman encouraged me to go in with her. It felt eerie and menacing but passed by peacefully.
It’s surprising that it is highly charged in Scotland. While there are certainly many Catholics and people of Irish heritage there, I would have thought it more like the Canadian parades.
I believe there are legal obligations to allow the parades to take place but, it seems, there are mixed opinions… that’s putting it politely. There’s an annual parade in Manchester, for instance, in most cities here in the UK, I guess? I was stuck in traffic in Glasgow one year when a march came through (with a heavy police presence) and again, an eerie, charged atmosphere. Perhaps it’s the drumming that echoes through the streets.
It could also be a general distaste for parades, which almost always manage to be divisive.
I personally hate parades of all kinds. There’s something about the martial aspect of them combined with the “look at me.” Maybe there are more people who feel this way than I thought!
No Orange lodges are left in my area, but there's still a road in the northern part of the county called the Roman Line. As far as I know, it's OK now for Catholics and Protestants to live on either side of it...
I guess it’s better than the Falls Road in Belfast, which had 10 foot high iron gates, shut at night and all day Sunday, to keep them separate. The gates are still there.
I read accounts of the Manhattan Orange parades in the 1870s that generated taunting grew to violence when the paraders came in the vicinity of workers (Irish Catholics), who were paving streets on the West Side.
The Twelfth of July was a big day where I come from and a source of huge excitement for us children, since we weren’t aware of the sectarian background to all of it then, since our village was probably 90 per cent Protestant. My older brother’s birthday was on the 12th, and when he was wee, he allegedly thought the bands came out to celebrate with him!
Where did you live? There were once Orange parades in many places and they have since died out. A friend told me that his father remembered them as a boy in Brooklyn. (The nuns told him not to look— or he would go blind! Lol).
I remember an orange march in Edinburgh, twenty years ago perhaps. Anyway, hadn’t expected it, and I remember how the atmosphere in the street changed, people disappeared into shops and the pub, a touristy pub just off the Royal Mile, a woman encouraged me to go in with her. It felt eerie and menacing but passed by peacefully.
It’s surprising that it is highly charged in Scotland. While there are certainly many Catholics and people of Irish heritage there, I would have thought it more like the Canadian parades.
I believe there are legal obligations to allow the parades to take place but, it seems, there are mixed opinions… that’s putting it politely. There’s an annual parade in Manchester, for instance, in most cities here in the UK, I guess? I was stuck in traffic in Glasgow one year when a march came through (with a heavy police presence) and again, an eerie, charged atmosphere. Perhaps it’s the drumming that echoes through the streets.
It could also be a general distaste for parades, which almost always manage to be divisive.
I personally hate parades of all kinds. There’s something about the martial aspect of them combined with the “look at me.” Maybe there are more people who feel this way than I thought!
Absolutely. There’s a St George’s parade I read about…. makes me squirm!
No Orange lodges are left in my area, but there's still a road in the northern part of the county called the Roman Line. As far as I know, it's OK now for Catholics and Protestants to live on either side of it...
The Roman Line! Wow!
I guess it’s better than the Falls Road in Belfast, which had 10 foot high iron gates, shut at night and all day Sunday, to keep them separate. The gates are still there.
I read accounts of the Manhattan Orange parades in the 1870s that generated taunting grew to violence when the paraders came in the vicinity of workers (Irish Catholics), who were paving streets on the West Side.
Catholics attacked the parades. That’s how the riots started.