The Glorious Twelfth
Roy Kerridge
Belfast
Midnight on Sandy Row, Belfast! At last it was 12 July in the heart of Ulster Protestantism. From where I was sit- ting in a little caa crammed with soldiers eating beefburgers I could hear a drum and fife band striking up, and I hurried outside. Large tipsy crowds thronged the streets, and while one boy tossed a red, white and blue mace spinning high into the air and caught it again, others played Orange anthems or danced cheerfully in the middle of the road. Beer peddlers carried tin-laden trays and young couples carried small children on their shoulders. Ice-cream vans were out in force, and hollow-eyed preachers screamed of hell and damnation before an enormous blaze that seemed to threaten the houses on either side, sending up billowing, spark- laden clouds of smoke.
`If they curse the Pope, don't argue with them,' a friendly soldier had advised me. `They'll think you're a ---- (here he
`I eat, therefore I am.'
stamped his left foot and whistled, to signify Catholic) and you could be a dead man.' The crowds looked friendly to me, but I didn't put them to the test, and went to bed in readiness for the Twelfth itself.
Next morning I found the Lisburn Road, once taken by William of Orange on the way to Carrickfergus, to be lined with chairs. Two thousand Orange Lodges frorn Ireland, Scotland and the Dominions would soon be pouring from their bases in Sandy Row and marching and playing all the waY to Edenberry, several miles out of town. This was an innocent, happy occasion, and I felt the same exhilaration I had known when the Pope visited Liverpool. Then the killjoys had been the Protestants, but now the boot was on the left foot, for the Provos had promised a 'blitz'. Higher barriers than usual were raised to conceal the awkward Catholic presence, and the day went of safely enough.
Here came the bands; colourful banners streaming with ribbons and adorned with orange lilies seemed to be arriving one above another in waves as they emerged from the Row. Excited children holding Union Jacks ran up and down singing the words to the tunes played by fife and drum, `The Sash', 'Derry's Walls', 'The Green Grassy Slopes of the Boyne', and mY favourite, 'The Lily-O', with its rousing chorus. Pop music seemed to mean little to these youngsters. I asked a 14-year-old boY what being a skinhead meant to him. 'Hay' ing short hair and listening \to this marvellous music,' he replied with a friend'
Invalids were brought out of the City Hospital for two hours of pageantry, the time it took for the parade to pass by. I followed the bands up Balmoral Avenue, Past the Barnett Demesne and picturesque Shaw's Bridge to the Field at Edenberry where feasts for the musicians were laid on in various little halls among the trees. On the grass in this attractive parkland, the Orange folk, in festive mood, opened picnic baskets and cider bottles, and listened to Preachers telling them how doomed they were.
I mused on the colourful orange and pur- ple spectacle I had seen, on the Wishaw Purple Defenders from Scotland, on Cromwell's Ironsides riding again, and on the banners so beautifully illustrated with Biblical scenes. Enormous talent had gone into this festival, which is to Belfast what Carnival is to Trinidad, or Mardi Gras to New Orleans. The oddest entry, to my mind, was a big black and white van advert- ising the Edelweiss Private Hotel, Isle of Man, covered in slogans reading 'Lifts To All Floors'.
Garry, a raffish-looking young man, and his adoring sweetheart Laura had this to say: 'You can't put it into words, it's so fantastic. Unless you are born in Ulster, you Won't understand. We wouldn't miss this for the world! Yes, we have Catholic friends, and although they don't want to know about the Twelfth, they're all right as they have their own festivals.'
Another of my favourite tunes, 'Cock o' the North', was struck up and the bands cheerfully marched all the way back to San- dY .Row, ceremonial swords and pikeheads flashing in the sun. A kindly-looking middle-aged couple strolled along behind me, the man's sash proclaiming him to be a Past Master of the Loyal Orange Lodge. When I asked him about his beliefs, he seemed alarmed at first, so used are Orangemen to finding themselves Misrepresented.
`The essentials of being an Orangeman are these,' he replied. 'Praising God, Upholding Protestantism, honouring the Queen and living up to what an Orangeman should be — kind, helpful, humble and unselfish. There is one mediator between Cod and man, and that is Jesus Christ, and We would like to convert Catholics, Hindus and others. I was elected as Past Master by
learning Lodge, after passing several degrees and learning the various signs and codes. No, I did not have to ride on a goat, that's just a story some lads tell outsiders for a joke.'
That evening, among the ugly scenes of a rowdy Ulster Volunteer Force pub in Sandy Row, I remembered these words and hoped that the Past Master's views would prevail. All the good Orange men, women and children, who had spoken to me freely tinder the impression that I was from the `County Down Spectator', had gone to bed long ago. Every one of them had described the day as 'great', and there was nothing left to add. Litter piled the streets and San- dY Row's day of glory was over.
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