Orange Order leader Drew Nelson wants to see annual Protestant parades celebrated the way Brazilians celebrate Mardi Gras, he tells Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
Drew Nelson, grand secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, has relations in Dunmanway in Cork whom he sees from time to time.
"About two years ago I visited a local history group in an old converted shop in the town," he recalls. "On the wall I saw a timeline of all the events that had happened around the War of Independence in west Cork, for instance the killing of Michael Collins and the killing of a priest - that was a famous incident down there. But what was obviously missing was the massacre of Protestants that took place - on that very street - on the main street of Dunmanway, in April 1922."
He had gleaned this information from Peter Hart's book The IRA and Its Enemies, which some nationalist historians have challenged.
"I went out to the car, brought in the book and said to the girl, 'This happened in April 1922. There were a lot of Protestants murdered here and that's not on your timeline.' The girl said, 'I never heard of that.'"
"The point of the story is that this has been written out of the history down there," concludes Nelson. "As I go around towns in the Republic of Ireland, I see monuments to the people who committed these murders but I never see any memorials to the people who were murdered."
Nelson took up his senior post in the all-Ireland Orange Order 18 months ago. It's a function he is delighted and proud to hold. Many would view his job as a poisoned chalice. But, like John Hume, he has a vision - to see annual Orange parades celebrated the way Brazilians celebrate Mardi Gras.
Nelson is descended from Planter people - who, unlike their more radical United Irish brethren, held with the British crown in 1798 - so his Protestant pride in the office is understandable. But to be comfortable in such a position with some very treacherous parades' disputes ahead is more difficult to comprehend. Indeed, the contentious element of the marching season kicked off last night with the annual Tour of the North Orange parade through north Belfast. The hope at the time of writing was that last night's parade would wind up without major incident and that a deal forged between nationalists and a local loyalist group that includes Orange members could serve as a template for the rest of the summer and beyond. And even if there were trouble, both sides said they were committed to finding a firmer resolution to parades in future talks.
Socially and politically, much hinges on how the summer unfolds, and Nelson is a central player in this serious piece of annual theatre. There's Whiterock in west Belfast this day week, Drumcree 15 days afterwards and Ardoyne shops in north Belfast - a regular flashpoint area - on the Twelfth of July. Drumcree passed off without major incident last year but Whiterock last year and Ardoyne for the past two years were disastrous and there is real concern about more of the same this year.
Which is where Nelson comes in to the equation. He is a quiet, pragmatic, 49-year-old, single Co Down solicitor who is phasing out his legal work to concentrate on sorting out the annual ructions over parades. His post as grand secretary is a non-paying honorary one, although he is comfortably off from some shrewd investments. He sees his task as a longish-term project, but can't walk away from what this summer throws up.
Current grand master Robert Saulters reportedly is about to stand down from his position and Nelson therefore realises the buck will stop with him.The Orange Order desperately needs an articulate, modernising figure after the PR disasters of recent years. The handling by the Order's old guard of the aftermath of Whiterock last year was embarrassing, with local leaders blaming the police, nationalists and Secretary of State Peter Hain for the trouble, rather than the Orangemen, bands members and loyalist paramilitaries who were captured on camera engaged in violence. One senior figure - in either a Freudian or vocabulary slip - kept saying he condoned the violence when he meant condemned.
"There's a recognition by us that we need to articulate our case better," says Nelson, "and we need to improve our image and we need to work at that all year round - proactively and not just react to events."
Last week, for the first time, senior Orangemen held "cordial, useful and businesslike" talks with the Catholic Primate, Archbishop Sean Brady, in Armagh. They've met the SDLP twice. They've travelled to Áras an Uachtaráin to sup tea with the President's husband, Martin McAleese, and senior Department of Foreign Affairs officials. In terms of the Order and its history, that is radical.Nelson is one of the main officials behind this Orange charm offensive. There is considerable cynicism in some nationalist quarters that this is an exercise to get the Parades Commission scrapped, but while this certainly is an Orange ambition, Nelson says the purpose of all this enterprise is to resolve disputes around Orange parades "once and for all". And finally, slowly, perilously, progress is being made.
GOING BACK GENERATIONS, members of the Nelson and (from his mother's side) the McGimpsey families were Orangemen. "The Nelson family originated in the Glenavy district of Co Antrim. We left there in the time of the 1798 Rebellion because we were loyal to the crown and that was an area where Presbyterianism was very strong in terms of supporting the 1798 Rebellion. Because the Nelsons were a loyalist family, Lord Downshire granted them a tenancy on his estate in Co Down. I joined because I felt that the Orange Order would protect my Britishness and my Protestant community rights."
Nelson is a former Ulster Unionist member who won more than 25,000 votes in unsuccessfully standing against the SDLP MP Eddie McGrady in the 1992 Westminster election for South Down. He severed his connections with the UUP over its support for the Belfast Agreement.
The Orange Order membership is somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000, and probably at the lower end of that scale.
"Numbers are very slowly declining but the decline for us is minuscule compared to similar fraternal organisations." Some of that membership is in the Republic - and Nelson is also responsible for them. He feels up to 20 years ago many Southern Orangemen saw the Republic as a "cold place" for Protestants but that it is now "a much more open society". Yet there are problems that he raised with the Department of Foreign Affairs officials when he met them with Martin McAleese - issues relating to Orange halls and how the Order is perceived and treated in the South.
Nelson denies that the Order is anti-Catholic. "It is denominational. We have about 18 denominations in membership but we have to adhere to the one [ Protestant] faith." Nor, he insists, is it an anachronistic body which can't accept that Catholics and nationalists should have equal rights, as many nationalists see the organisation. He portrays the Order as a religious, cultural and, to a lesser extent, political body.
"I think there is a lack of understanding within the nationalist community as to how important our parades are for us. The religious aspect of going to a church service starts as soon as you put a collarette on. It is an outward display of our faith. When I put on my orange collarette I am making a statement saying I am a person who is willing to sit up and be counted for my community."
IF DISPUTES OVER parades are ever to be resolved there must be serious contact between Orangemen and nationalist residents' groups. But this isn't possible, says Nelson, expressing his formal position, because he believes many of these groups are aligned with Sinn Féin.
"We accept that Sinn Féin are elected but equally we have 311 members in their graves murdered by the republican movement and Sinn Féin continue to justify those murders and that's not acceptable." He acknowledges that Orange Order members also have been convicted of murderbut adds, "The difference is this, if some of our members become involved in crime we condemn that and tell them that's wrong."
Internal critics of the organisation, such as the Rev Brian Kennaway, Presbyterian minister and author of the recently published book, The Orange Order, a Tradition Betrayed, complain that several Orangemen who committed terrible acts were allowed to remain in the organisation. Nelson says that "discipline works well 99 per cent of the time but, like any other disciplinary system, we know that there are occasional lapses."
Nelson also believes that the provisional republican movement made a decision to orchestrate attacks on the Order. He says this started in the late 1980s and was designed to deflect republican grassroots' attention from the huge Sinn Féin/IRA shifts Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were preparing to initiate.
"In the first 20 years of the Troubles four Orange halls were burnt, one of which was in Cavan. But since 1989 there were 240 burnt. It is significant that at around the same time the republican movement started to oppose our parades. There was occasional bother before that but not to this extent."
Yet, on the other hand, Nelson is open enough to admit to double standards within the Order, and how there is a relationship between the Order and loyalist paramilitaries.
"I accept there is a basic hypocrisy there, yes. Paramilitaries are there and we accept that they are part of many Protestant communities. But that does not stop us from saying the activities that they engage in are wrong and that drug dealing, protection rackets, bullying and the bombing and murder - all these things - are wrong."
So, he knows there is a moral tightrope to be walked to resolve the hazardous disputes around parades. Unionists, loyalists, nationalists and indeed some more liberal Orangemen, when asked about Drew Nelson this week, described him as intelligent and hard-headed, but wondered had he the capacity to lead such a cumbersome, complex, unwieldy organisation from a state of perpetual storm to a calmer social and political climate.
While he ostensibly holds to the position of not treating directly with nationalists, equally he knows that the agreement thrashed out over last night's Tour of the North parade is the way forward, even though it involved Orangemen and republicans dealing directly with each other, albeit in large umbrella organisations.
"Because of Northern Ireland's recent history and because of present circumstances, all political life involves a degree of moral ambiguity," he says. Which sounds like shorthand for saying Orangemen and nationalists eventually must parley. Bringing the more inflexible membership to that position will be tricky. Nelson faces a daunting, unenviable challenge, and well he knows it. It will involve him employing that commodity familiar to peace processors - creative ambiguity.
"I am determined to see this through," he says.