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>>From Ainriail - the Irish Anarchist bulletin list
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The Orange Order: an enemy of ALL workers
It is unfortunate, if perhaps somewhat
inevitable, that the now annual battles around
the 'marching season' fall along religious
lines. The Orange parades are being used to test
the supposed neutrality of the northern regime
and the RUC in particular. The losing side in
this dangerous game however is likely to be the
working class, Protestant and Catholic, as the
confrontations and the sectarian attacks that
occur around the Orange marches drive people
further into 'their own' communities.
The reality of the Orange Order is that it is a
counter-revolutionary institution set up and
maintained to target not just Catholics but also
'disloyal' Protestants. It's formation and
spread was encouraged by the British state in
the years leading up to the 1798 rebellion
precisely in order to drive a wedge between
ordinary Catholics and Protestants. The 12th of
July was picked as the key date to provide an
alternative attraction to the marking of
Bastille day and in itself to mark the sectarian
massacre that led to the formation of the Orange
Order.
The Orange Order was born in Armagh in 1795 as
part of an armed terror campaign to deny full
citizenship rights to Catholics. This was in the
context of struggles between landlords and
tenants in the area of which the Anglican
Archbishop of Armagh said "the worst of this is
that it stands to unite Protestant and Papist,
and whenever that happens, good-bye to the
English interest in Ireland". Specifically the
penal laws forbade Catholics from bearing arms,
but radical (and mostly Protestant) volunteer
companies in the 1780's had been recruiting and
arming Catholics with the "the full support of a
radical section of Protestant political
opinion"1 .
The sectarian attacks that accompany Orange
marches today also go right back to its origins.
Again in 1795 up to 7,000 Catholics were driven
out of Armagh by Orange Order pogroms. But there
was one key difference with today, then many
expelled Catholic families were sheltered by
Presbyterian United Irishmen in Belfast and
later Antrim and Down, and the (mostly)
Protestant leadership of the United Irishmen
sent lawyers to prosecute on behalf of the
victims of Orange attacks. They also sent
special missions to the area to undermine the
Orange Order's influence.
Indeed the Orange Order probably played a key
part in ensuring the failure of the 1798
rebellion. At the time General John Knox, the
architect of this policy described the Orange
Order as "the only barrier we have against the
United Irishmen"2 after the failed rebellion he
wrote "the institution of the Orange Order was
of infinite use"3 . The survival of the Orange
Order since, and in particular the special place
it was given in the sectarian make up of the
northern state (every single head of the 6
counties has also been a senior member of the
Orange Order), reflect its success in this role.
The strategy was simple. In order to prevent
Protestant workers identifying with their
Catholic neighbours the order offered an anti-
Catholic society, led by the wealthy Protestants
that offered all Protestants a place in its
ranks, and the promise of promotion and
privilege. The annual parades were a key part of
this strategy, they filled two roles. They
allowed the working class Protestant members a
day in the sun to mix with their 'betters' and
at the same time lord it over their Catholic
neighbours.
At the same time they exposed radical Protestant
workers to accusations of being 'traitors' for
refusing to take part in the events. Much of the
imagery of loyalism, the bonfires, the bunting
and the painted kerbstones provide an
opportunity to demand of every Protestant worker
in a community 'which side are you on'.
Right from the start the parades have been
accompanied by violence as they attempt to force
their way through areas where they are not
wanted. The first parades of 1796 saw one
fatality, but in 1797 14 were killed during
violence at an Orange parade in Stewartstown. In
1813 an Orange parade through one of the first
areas of Belfast identified as 'Catholic' saw
four more deaths.
The town of Portadown has long been a hot bed of
'contentious' parades, banned marches took place
there in 1825 and 1827. In 1835 the Portadown
marches claimed their first victim, Hugh
Donnelly, a Catholic from Drumcree. Armagh
Magistrate, William Hancock, (a Protestant),
said:
"For some time past the peaceable inhabitants of
the parish of Drumcree have been insulted and
outraged by large bodies of Orangemen parading
the highways, playing party tunes, firing shots,
and using the most opprobrious epithets they
could invent ... a body of Orangemen marched
through the town and proceeded to Drumcree
church, passing by the Catholic chapel though it
was a considerable distance out of their way."4
In the relevant stability after the defeat of
1798 the British and local ruling class felt
they no longer needed the Order and, as we have
seen, went so far as to ban it and its marches.
Its survival during these years shows that the
institution cannot simply be viewed as dependent
on Britain or local Protestant rulers. It also
fed off the historical legacy of sectarianism
and annually offered a chance for the 'little
man' to feel big. In this sense the
psychological attraction of Orangism for poor
Protestants is similar to the attraction
described by William Reich of poor
workers/unemployed for fascism.
The Orange Order's complex nature is also shown
by the events of 1881 when it was possible for
the Land league to hold a meeting in the local
Orange hall at Loughgall. Micheal Davitt told
the crowd that the "landlords of Ireland are all
of one religion - their God is mammon and rack-
rents, and evictions their only morality, while
the toilers of the fields, whether Orangemen,
Catholics, Presbyterians or Methodists are the
victims".
This danger of class unity saw the ruling class
and British conservatives rapidly returning to
the Order and the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland
responded with a manifesto claiming that the
Land League was a conspiracy against property
rights, Protestantism, civil and religious
liberty and the British constitution. When the
question was put this way the Orange Order
fulfilled its role and went on to provide the
scab labour which attempted to harvest Captain
Boycott's crops.
>>From this period on, with the growth of the
socialist movement, the Orange Order's warnings
became extended to the idea of a conspiracy of
"Popery", "anarchy" and "communism". These sort
of warnings were repeated whenever periods of
social radicalism saw Protestant workers acting
in their own interests as it was precisely at
these moments that the danger of them linking up
with Catholic workers threatened the unity of
the Order. In 1932, when the Falls and Shankill
rioted together against unemployment, the Order
warned "loyal subjects of the King, the vital
necessity of standing guard against communism".
Although Catholic workers have been and continue
to have a higher chance of being unemployed than
Protestant workers for much of the North's
history, rates of Protestant unemployment have
still been high. This gave the Orange order both
a 'carrot and stick' to encourage Protestant
workers to join. The Order was a place where
workers could meet employers, and formally or
informally receive job offers. On the other
hand, particularly in rural areas, employers
would be aware of who was a member and
discriminate in job applications against those
who were not.
Understanding the reactionary origins of the
Orange Order is central is understanding why the
claims that the marches represent 'Protestant
culture' is about on a par with claiming a Ku
Klux Klan march represents 'white culture'.
Indeed the very promotion of a separate
'Protestant' culture can only be seen as deeply
reactionary in the context of the 6 counties.
The term 'Protestant' culture is never used to
include the Protestant republicans of 1798 or
1934, for instance. As such it's real meaning
can only be 'anti-Catholic'.
Andrew Flood
More articles on Drumcree, July 12th and the
Orange Order at
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anti_orange.html
1 The Defenders, p18, Deirdre Lindsay, in 1798;
200 years of resonance, Ed. Mary Cullen. 2 The
Tree of Liberty, Radicalism, Catholicism and the
Construction of Irish Identity 1760 - 1830,
Kevin Whelan, p119. 3 The Tree of Liberty,
Radicalism, Catholicism and the Construction of
Irish Identity 1760 - 1830, Kevin Whelan, p120.
4 The figures for killing and quotes in this
section come from the PFC report 'For God and
Ulster: an alternative guide to the Loyal
Orders' to be found on the internet at
http://www.serve.com/pfc/loyal.html
This article is from Workers Solidarity No 57
published in May 1999
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