Teenager Dylan Walker walked backwards all the way along the 3km between Connswater in east Belfast and City Hall, his camera phone fixed determinedly on the front of the great Orange Order Northern Ireland centennial parade.
At least 100,000 people lined the 8km route from Stormont’s Parliament Buildings into the city centre on Saturday; through leafy, prosperous Knock, where red brick and stucco villas sit behind well-maintained hedges, and on down the Newtownards Road into working-class loyalist Connswater and Pitt Park, gritty estates living in the shadow of Harland & Wolff‘s giant cranes, across Queen’s bridge and into High Street and Donegall Place.
At times, the crowds were like those seen before or after a great sporting occasion. They lined the road 10-15 deep on either side, sometimes swarming on to the tarmac, especially outside pubs. Children played tin drums, waved flags, blew soapy bubbles or squirted gaily coloured “silly string” from aerosol cans as the bands — 130 said they’d come — marched passed. On High Street, motorcycle police nudged people back and out of the way of the lead party of Brethren, who were followed by the Kellswater Flute Band which struck up Glanthia, a firm favourite marching tune, as City Hall hoved into view.
“Are you filming the whole thing,” I asked Walker (15) as we neared the city centre. He was.
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Why?
“It’s for me Granny,” he said. “She’s 60 and can’t make it down here.”
The traditions of culture and heritage that bind the generations are deeply important to Orangeism. Up to 25,000 members of the Orange Order, and their bands, had gathered earlier at Stormont for the centennial celebration, postponed last year because of the pandemic.
“There were those who told us there is nothing to celebrate,” Grand Master Edward Stevenson told the crowd in front of Parliament Buildings. “They sought to belittle, undermine and erase the history of our people and our country . . . We are all immensely proud of this place and its achievements in the past 10 decades.”
They came from all over Northern Ireland, from the Republic, Scotland, England and North America. Among them from Leitrim were county Grand Master Joe Morton and his friend county secretary David Morton. “We just want to be part of the whole thing today,” said Joe. The cross-Border connection was important and felt by them both.
“There would have been friends of ours that would’ve left [the South] at partition and during the ‘50s and ‘60s when times were hard and they found opportunities in the North,” said David.
Soprano Clara Wilson, in a bright orange satin-silk ball gown, took to the stage and sang Vera Lynn. “This is the song my Daddy always asked me to sing,” she told the crowd. Gary Wilson, county officer for Fermanagh, in top hat and tails and wearing a distinguished sash that looked like it had been worn by his grandfather, let alone his father, led Donna Best in a graceful waltz in front of the stage. The gently rolling We’ll Meet Again seemed to epitomise a yearning for times gone by that hung over the occasion — unlike the Union flag, missing from Parliament Buildings because, by agreement, it is only permitted on designated days, and Saturday wasn’t one.
Wilson’s second offering was I Vow to Thee My Country, followed by the Elvis hit, It’s Now or Never.
“Never” is a word never far from an Orangeman’s thoughts.
In a thanksgiving message, Worshipful Brother, the Rev Ron Johnstone mixed faith, history and politics. He remembered the “thousands of families who had to flee southern Ireland because of their faith and allegiance”. It was an insult to refuse God’s salvation, he said, fusing the thought that God had divined Northern Ireland. The forefathers had vowed “to defend their British heritage and thank God they did”.
Northern Ireland’s internal enemies came in for a lash.
“If you cannot love your own country, how can you profess love for others,” asked Rev Johnstone, ending his prayer with the cry: “For God and Ulster. Amen!”
The Grand Chaplain, Worshipful Brother, Rev John Noble, also prayed to God for Ulster.
“Lord, this is my home, this is our home,” he said. It was the place where we were born and to which we gave our loyalty. “This is your land. This is our land,” he declared. The keynote speaker, grand secretary, Worshipful Brother, the Rev Mervyn Gibson, had an uncompromising message for those who say a Border poll is on the agenda, certain to be followed, as night follows day, by a united Ireland. He belittled their “utopian Ireland where we are told we will be valued . . . a new Ireland where the planter after 400 years will finally be accepted”, he said with derision.
“Let me respond to this magnanimous gesture. We neither need your permission nor acceptance. We are here longer than Joe and Richie’s folks are in America [a reference to US president Joe Biden and congressman Richard Neal who recently visited.] We are United Kingdom citizens by birth, Northern Irish through our culture and heritage, which makes us British by choice and conviction.
“We have no intention of becoming part of an all-Ireland. Save your breath.
“It doesn’t matter what you promise or offer, it doesn’t matter if every day was the 12th of July. If it’s not under the Union Jack then count us out. British we are and British we’ll stay.” The Northern Ireland protocol had to go; “no tweaking, no tampering, no fudge, no constructive ambiguity, no excuses”. He wanted to “make it very simple” for the European Union and “those on the other side of the Border”. There would be no tolerating, he said, “any system, process or structure that will allow checks on any goods trading within the UK or for use within the UK . . . we will not be mastered by no foreign power, nor subject to laws and regulations made by foreign governments”.
“Resilience, determination, and fortitude will see the union maintained,” he assured his audience. “Every man, woman and child here has a role in securing the union for the next 100 years. . .
“And the cry to those who seek to persuade us [about the] protocol or push us into a United Ireland is still the same: No surrender!”
The crowd loved it. His denunciations of the protocol and rejection of constitutional change were cheered and applauded. The occasion was heralded by a sustained beating of Lambeg drums. Stout men from Coleraine’s Bannside Fife and Drum Club took it in turns to lash them for all they were worth. They stood in front of Parliament Buildings, looking down on the imposing statue of Dublin-born unionist hero, Edward Carson. Stormont’s rolling lawns sweep down the lime-tree fringed Prince of Wales Avenue, lined on this occasion also by onlookers and stands selling loyalist souvenirs, burgers and soft drinks and a Mr Whippy ice-cream van.
“The eyes of the world are on us,” Deputy Grand Master, Right Worshipful Brother Harold Henning told them before the parade moved off. “Walk tall and walk proud. Smile and let the world see us on parade.”
“It’s good to be back out on the road,” said Stephen Burns, city grand secretary from Derry. His friend William Wray, city Grand Chief Marshal, agreed. “After the pandemic, it’s the first major event that’s going to display our culture. I hope everyone enjoys it and it goes off peacefully, as I expect it will,” he said.
It did.