Last Saturday: Royal Black County Grand Master Mervyn Kernaghan will be one of proudest men in Dromore

Approximately 350 preceptories and 300 bands will be involved in the traditional parades on what is also known as Black Saturday.

Of the Dromore spectacle, Meryvn said: “I’m praying for good weather. If you get a good day it brings the spectators out and it puts everybody in a real good mood.

"I pray that everyone will have a fantastic day. We’re there to the glory of God – that’s why we’re there."

Mervyn, who will chair the platform proceedings, has been a member of the Royal Black Institution for more than 40 years.

The 65-year-old said: “I was 22 when I joined. I’m 65 now. This would be my 43rd Black Saturday.

“My first outing with the Royal Black Institution was Bangor on Black Saturday. You always remember where you were on your first one.

“I now have the great honour of being the County Grand Master of Co Down. This is the last year of my term, it finishes on October 21.

“It has been absolutely brilliant. I have really enjoyed every second of it.

"It carries a lot of responsibility with it but at the same time is a great honour.

“It is a great institution, there’s no doubt about that. I cannot speak more highly of the Royal Black Institution.”

Asked how he came to join the Royal Black, Mervyn said: “My father never was a member of any of the loyal orders. I had uncles who would have brought me into the Orange.

"It was a man I was friendly with, an elderly man by the name of William Adams, who brought me into the Black.

“I belong to Aughnaskeagh Orange Lodge, traditionally all the Aughnaskeagh members went to Waringsford Black.

"This man, the late William Adams, he was a member of Aughnaskeagh Orange and Waringsford Black. He also was a lecturer in the Black and he conferred degrees at Dromara.

"The night I received my Royal Arch Purple Chapter degree, he said, ‘now Mervyn, you’ll be going to the Black but you’ll not be going to Waringsford, you’ll be going to Dromara’. He said if he were a younger man that’s where he would be. He paid my initiation to make sure that’s where I went.”

Mervyn added: “Never in my wildest dreams when I joined Dromara Black did I ever think I would hold office in Ballynahinch District and most certainly not in the County and definitely not to be given the title of County Grand Master of the Black, which truthfully is a great honour.”

He said that he would love to be able to initiate his grandsons: “I have grandsons who have joined the Orange, there’s into the Black yet. It would be their grandfather’s wish that they will join the Black. I hope that I am spared by the Lord to let me initiate them into it.”

Meryvn explained how marital compromise has them living at an address suited to the couple: “I’m Dromara through and through. My wife is a Dromore woman. She wouldn’t leave Dromore and I wouldn’t leave Dromara – so the compromise was we got a house on the Dromara Road in Dromore. That kept everybody happy.”