FEATURE: Republican tells of a 'fascinating' Twelfth
IT'S not surprising that a republican who visited this year's Twelfth parades for the first time concluded his review of the day by saying that he would not be back.
What is surprising is that he found parts of the day, where he toured around several parades – enjoyable.
Mark McGregor who was one of a group of bloggers – those who write online columns, who got together to report and review this year's Twelfth.
The group published their reports on Slugger O'Toole, the Northern Ireland politics and culture website, which has a number of contributors who cover most of the political spectrum – including supportes of the TUV, DUP, Sinn Fein and UUP.
One of the website's regular writers from a republican perspective, Mark McGregor instigated this year's Twelfth coverage, suggesting that they go out to different parts of the Province and report the day's events.
Writing ahead of the Twelfth, Mr McGregor stressed that he was attending the parades with a negative perception of Orangeism and was not out tot take part in any sort of 'reconciliation' project.
Starting his review, he wrote: "How do you write about the Twelfth after your first proper one? I've no idea. I've just had a fascinating day."
He recalled setting out to see a parade leaving the Co Antrim village of Crumlin: "Up early to get the local Crumlin parade before they headed off to wherever and I'm glad I made it.
"At one point it looked like we'd miss the parade due to a bus connection to Lisburn for the Belfast parade, before they left, but we ended up getting to enjoy (and I think I did enjoy it] the noise of two proper Lambegs beating out a deafening sound across a village deep in sleep.
"No noise, no cars, just a deep drumming spreading for miles. Almost hypnotic over an empty street."
Unsurprisingly, Mr McGregor was less impressed with other aspects of the Twelfth. Still writing about Crumlin, he continued:
"I almost forgave those that thought this inconsequential parade needed to take place without an Antrim GAA flag in sight. A display of music and culture rarely found the rest of the day."
By contrast, he was unimpressed by the music on display in Belfast, describing it as an 'utterly tedious' parade.
"Blood and thunder flute bands belting out the same kind of stuff time after time. The lodges aren't the centre of attraction, it is gaudy bands with flutes."
He questioned the culture where many parade spectators drank huge amounts of alcohol – often, he said, within sight of police officers – at the Belfast parade, but said that in Bangor it was very different, with officers doing more to enforce on-street drinking laws during a 'civilised parade'.
"Still a bit of drinking on the street but better bands – accordion, brass, pipe and an easy atmosphere.
"Up to the field and it was like an expanded school fete – still drink but not drunkenness going on."
Mr McGregor said that he did not intend to go to the Twelfth again and advised readers wanting to experience their first Twelfth to avoid the Belfast parade.
Other contributors to the website, some of them Orangemen, wrote for the perspectives on the day.
Mick Fealty who runs the Slugger website, said of the team who had reviewed the Twelfth for the site: "Some of them were members of the Orange and some of them were people who'd never been near an Orange demonstration, who did the usual thing, this is in the middle classes – turning their back on it and going to their holiday homes in Donegal, north Antrim or the Mourne Mountains.
He said that his team had reported on the marked differences between the Twelfth in places as diverse as Belfast, Bangor and Fivemiletown.
"We had a guy at the demonstration down in Fivemiletown and I had nothing from him except a few text messages which were primarily photographs", he said.
"It told it's own story – it was very small, very intimate, in a roughly cut hay field, small scale, bouncy castle for kids, everybody sitting round eating their sandwiches… it's the kind of thing that is obvious to anybody whose family's been in the Orange or to the parades when they were younger.
"None of this stuff is terribly obvious to people like myself who grew up as a Catholic, who saw the parades, …who were perhaps fearful at times, particularly in the early 70s when the Troubles were bad and there were a lot of random assassinations.
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Monday 28 May 2012
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