Orange Order leaked documents: Slashing Belfast Twelfth could help curb drunkenness and 'poor behaviour'

• IN MAPS – Revealed: Orange Order's plans for a massively cut-down route through Belfast from the Twelfth 2024 onwards

The route would be cut from roughly 10 miles to four if the plans revealed in the leaked documents, and would stop halfway up the Lisburn Road and turn around without resting at a demonstration field.

Among the reasons listed for the cut are “an ageing population,” but also the hope that “it reduces the issues associated with the homeward element of poor behaviour, excessive alcohol consumption, late joiners, falling in by lodges and bands in inappropriate locations”.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster today, Orangeman and ex-UUP man Chris McGimpsey said: “I gotta say the age profile of Orangemen certainly in Belfast has increased significantly. I’ve now hit 70. I couldn’t walk to the field and back now, whereas 20 or 30 years ago it wasn’t even an issue.”

And when it comes to the public drunkenness among those following the parade, he said the order’s “It’s About the Battle, Not the Bottle” campaign had not worked.

"It obviously didn’t work because there’s still as much alcohol consumption as before,” he said.

“There’s no problem with people having a couple of beers and watching the parade. Everybody does it.

"It’s the excessive drinking and then some of the anti-social behaviour which has broken out.

"We all talk about rights in Northern Ireland. But for every right, you’ve an obligation.

"If the Orangemen are gonna walk through Belfast and bring thousands of people onto the street, the Orange Order cannot – and has clearly not – said: ‘Look that’s nothing to do with us – they’re not Orangemen’.

"You bring people on the street you’ve an obligation to deal with the effect of what you’re doing.”

The leaked documents are branded with the logo of the County Grand Orange Lodge of Belfast and titled: ‘12th July 2024 District Officer’s Briefing Paper’.

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