They are a bit perplexed in Rossnowlagh, Co Donegal, at the recent fuss in Dublin over plans to hold an Orange parade in the city. It was to have taken place on Sunday but has been postponed.
The only Orange parade in the Republic takes place in Rossnowlagh every year on the Saturday before the 12th of July, and has been doing so for more years than anyone can remember. The Co Donegal deputy grand master of the Orange Order, Mr Willie Anderson, once spoke to an old man who said he remembered an Orange parade there in 1900.
Mr Anderson believes it would have been good for Dublin had the parade gone ahead. It would have shown flexibility and he doesn't believe there would have been any trouble. There is no trouble or hostility in Rossnowlagh.
Mr Brian Britton, of the Sand House hotel, Rossnowlagh, said "the people of Donegal were surprised at the attitudes displayed in Dublin" in the debate about the proposed parade there. It showed "a lack of understanding, a lack of knowledge of the traditions".
"It doesn't mean condoning or agreeing with them. The people of Donegal understand that if you are from a tradition and you want to express it, you can do it openly and it is respected," he said.
However, he said, "go 30 miles south and that understanding is lost". He grew up with the parade and, though a Catholic, never had a problem with it. It is "a family day out . . . quite a spectacle".
Similarly with Father Patrick Conlon of the Franciscan Friary. The only problem it caused him or his colleagues had to do with the traffic. He recalled that when the friary opened in 1947 armed gardai were based in the grounds during the parade in case they were attacked.
This, it was soon realised, was going overboard and the practice was dropped. There has never been any trouble at the friary because of the parade. He was "sorry things didn't work out in Dublin".
Sgt Keith Gillespie, of Ballyshannon Garda station, has been on duty at the Rossnowlagh parade for the past "10 to 15 years". It is "very much a family affair. You get a lot of elderly people and disabled. There is never any hassle," he said. And if it's a good day "there are loads of people".
Traffic was the biggest problem and tended to be the main reason for gardai being there. Their presence, however, was generally low in number and discreet. "As low as 15" at times, he said, "the complete opposite of Drumcree".
Crowd sizes tended to vary. Some said there were 15,000 there in 1994, but the usual figure was about 10,000. He had no idea how people estimated the crowd size and felt that, possibly because the area is relatively small, a crowd of say, 5,000 might look much bigger.
Mr Anderson said about two-thirds of the lodges who took part in the Rossnowlagh parade were from the North and attended by invitation. There was no hostility and "any disturbance would be annoying to us", he said.
The order was "a Bible-based Christian organisation" and if he believed there was anything wrong with it he "would be out of it in the morning".
He is a member of the Church of Ireland. He was "not a bigot" he said, and "if it wasn't for the Catholic people, we wouldn't be able to hold Rossnowlagh".
The fields for the Orange rally were Catholic-owned, he said. The Orangemen co-operated closely with the local Ancient Order of Hibernians. They "swap drums, banners", and lent each other accordions for their parades.
"We agree to differ and to help each other," he said. If people behaved like that to each other in Northern Ireland, "it would be a different place to what it is now", he said.
This year's parade in Rossnowlagh is on Saturday, July 8th. Drumcree takes place the following day.