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Why celebrate July 12th?
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Andersonstown News Thursday
By Father Des

Will it ever be possible to accept the Orange Order marches as happy festival events?

Most of us have a serious problem – how can we in conscience joyfully celebrate a battle which resulted in our Presbyterian fellow Irish citizens being persecuted for nearly a hundred years?

Just can't be done. So most of us wish our Orange friends would not ask for it.

The persecution of our Presbyterian fellow citizens was so severe after the Boyne that the government – largely controlled by Anglicans – would not even recognise their right to worship in their own way, or  their rites of initiation, or their marriages. We can imagine what distress this last one caused. Imagine not recognising the marriages of all those people. The legal results are staggering.



Boyne

So those of us who are not Anglicans have a problem in conscience if we go out celebrating the battle of the Boyne which helped unleash this anti-Presbyterian persecution. While we may stand on the sidelines and quietly smile as the processions pass on their clamorous way, can we rejoice? No, not unless the persecution of our Presbyterian fellow citizens is something we approve of, which of course it is not.

It is argued that some of our Presbyterian fellow citizens every July insist, against all historical fact and reason, that they got their religious freedom and their laws and all from either English rebellions or Irish battles, including  the Boyne. Indeed, one is surprised at how our friends rejoice in their having been put down with such ruthlessness. The awe-inspiring rebellion in 1798,  really a revolution, led by Presbyterians and organised with Masonic technique, was an act of desperation by a people sorely tried. Yet every July our Presbyterian friends  in the Orange Order insist on telling us that the Boyne was a grand affair entirely. If we are less than enthusiastic it is for the good reason that we refuse in conscience to rejoice in the degradation of our Presbyterian fellow citizens.

And anyway, most of us do not approve of Popes engaging in wars, which unhappily they sometimes did. And of all the wars helped along by Popes, the one we disapprove of most is King William's war to get the English throne. That the Pope not only supported but partly paid for William’s  war,  including his battle at the Boyne, is something we cannot be proud about. And for him and his friends to have rejoiced at King William’s victory is something we have carefully and courteously refraining from mentioning in our meetings with Popes ever afterwards. Let bygones be bygones, we tell them. We do have to ask, however, when is a  Pope  going to apologise to our Presbyterian and Catholic friends for helping to fight other people’s wars against  them?



Downfall

Anyway, come July there will be much Orange rejoicing. And also much puzzling over why people should rejoice in their own downfall. True, things were patched up and by some strange juggling our Irish Presbyterian friends were reconciled to their Anglican rulers and even joined together to form the various Orange and other Orders. With results we know with great clarity today, because  our constant gloomy talking about them is relieving us of the happy task of planning and creating our own economy and justice system and who knows what else.

However, as we approach the marching season let us not be led astray into trying to tell the awful truth about  the Boyne, or to divert attention from the all-important bowler hats to the trivial matter of how we are all going to live. 

First things first, dang it.