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The Faithful Tribe: an intimate portrait of the loyal institutions byRuth Dudley Edwards
by Gary Kent________________Half a million people in Northern Ireland - a third of its population - left the province during this year's parades season. This figure, even if it is only ten per cent correct, speaks volumes about the parlous state of community relations in parts of Northern Ireland.
Many progressives would blame this on the Orange Order which Irish republicans accuse of being like the Klu Klux Klan.
The Orange Order has about 100,000 members in Northern Ireland and as far afield as Togo and Ghana. About 10% of its Liverpool members are black and the Order refused to operate a colour bar in Apartheid South Africa.
It is an exclusively Protestant organisation to promote the Protestant faith and, it says, civil and religious liberty for all. Its rituals seem at best insular and archaic: crown and bible and all those bowler hats, sashes and brollies remind one of the 50s.
But no organisation of this size or obvious importance in Northern Ireland's political life can be easily dismissed. If the Orange Order is part of the sectarian problem, it might also become part of the solution.
Ruth Dudley Edwards believes that the loyal institutions have been traduced by a campaign of grotesque misrepresentation - often helped by their stubborn refusal to play the modern public relations game. She is an outsider willing to "squelch through the mud in the company of religiously-minded men in bowler hats who keep making a fuss about walking down roads." She has taken the time to understand their viewpoints, build bridges and offer constructive criticisms. This Dublin-born Catholic turned atheist also infiltrated a male institution which seems to largely allow its women supporters a very traditional supportive role - making tea and sandwiches.
The book is a mixture of anthropology, eyewitness reportage, politics and history. It starts with a canter through various parades which illustrate how different they can be - from conciliation to confrontation. It details why men join and what they do in the privacy of their Lodges in the north and internationally, their rituals and songs, then examines its religio-historical background whilst warning about how selective memory feeds contemporary emnity. It looks at the Protestant experience in the south after partition - it has all but disappeared.
It then focuses on the "Orange Vatican" of Portadown near where the Order was founded. It is also the base of the fascist LVF group formed by Billy "King Rat" Wright. It has been the main arena of conflict between Protestant marchers and Catholic residents. Discussing Drumcree takes up a third of the book.
She is scathing about residents' groups which are "transmission belts" for the IRA, undemocratically formed and cowering internal Catholic dissent with vociferous machine politics that smell of fascism.
Their leaders are often republican convicts who seek to divide Protestants and turn them against the British State. These groups began as a part of Gerry Adams' strategy of "angry voices and marching feet." Mo Mowlam is reported to have told Orangemen of the IRA strategy to destablise Northern Ireland and warned them not to walk into the trap.
But Catholics on the Garvaghy Road and elsewhere have reasons to fear the worse. Many have been beaten and murdered. Residents' groups have prospered and acquired legitimacy because they were able to tap into and organise deep fears of Catholics being what some call the "white niggers" of the north.
It is also as important to distinguish between Orange marchers and loyalist terrorists as it is to distinguish between residents and those republicans who create or exploit these confrontations. But Orange parades are tarnished by the presence of "Kick the Pope" bands.
She takes us, with an acute mixture of vox pop, analysis and personal observation, through the bloody, frightful and more peaceful stages of Drumcree 1 through to 5. This year's Drumcree was relatively peaceful but in 1996 Northern Ireland seemed to be on the verge of civil war.
It ends with a draft speech for the Prime Minister advocating stability and conciliation, written by her and others including former IRA commander Sean O'Callaghan.
This is not a comprehensive history of the Order. But her highly readable account brilliantly burrows into the heart of the Orange and Protestant psyche - from the triumphalist to the decent, teetotal (sometimes), stubborn, indecisive, inarticulate and frequently stupid.
The Orange is said to have proved to be the "Provisional's greatest ally." She may be sympathetic to their plight but is not duped by them. She quotes an Orange friend saying that "Billy Wright has filled the vacuum that is Harold's head." Harold Gracey is the Portadown Orange leader who has lived in a caravan at Drumcree ever since the parade was banned in 1998.
She also occasionally makes irritating and injudicious generalisations that spoil her case. For example, she writes that whilst Protestant men bond in the Order, Catholic men bond in the pub or the Gaelic Athletics Association. Most do none.
She also says that the qualities that enable the Protestant community to endure siege conditions don't allow for intellectual nimble-footedness and public relations talent. Up to a point, Lord Copper. These are sometimes precisely the conditions which nurture such talents. There is a desperate need to deepen the pool of political talent on both sides of the sectarian divide.
However, the Orange Order has been changing in recent years. A new more liberal leadership has marginalised its extremists but is limited by the intense democracy of the movement - each Lodge is autonomous. Brian Kennaway, a leading figure, criticises the negative image of the constant use of parades and protest rallies, some of which resulted in violence and warns of the dangers of bringing vast numbers on to the streets. There is a growing acceptance of the need for face-to-face dialogue between the Orange and residents' groups.
Anyone who wishes to fully understand Northern Ireland must read this book. It is empathetic but does not whitewash the brethren. The Order could play a big role in providing some stability during a time of great, unsettling change. You could say that it could keep many Protestant men off the streets - but you know what I mean. There must be better ways of maintaining an identity in a society that must become less segregated and less ground down by its vast history.
Those who refuse to understand all parts of the equation or just take sides between ethnic groups help sustain the problem. This book is a splendid and highly controversial corrective to such bad habits.
Gary Kent is Westminster correspondent of the Belfast-based Fortnight magazine. He has tramped the fields with Ruth Dudley Edwards and this year was a guest of Sinn Féin on the Garvaghy Road.
This review was published in the Times Change during the week of August 22, 1999.