Orangemen are asked not to take offence but, in the interest of saving trees, throughout this book I use ‘Catholic’ to mean ‘Roman Catholic’.
* Irish for ‘vision poem’. The Irish Catholic Utopia was a country from which all the Protestants would have been evicted.
† Protestants call Catholic churches chapels.
* An Orangeman asked me to point out that such merchandise has nothing to do with the Orange Order.
† I was wrong. Paisley did not join the Independents when he fell out with the Orange Order. He is, however, an Apprentice Boy.
* Known locally as a heart-attack on a plate, this is normal rural fare and can include bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread and potato bread, and is usually accompanied by home-made soda bread, one of the most delicious foodstuffs in the world.
† Ireland has few black residents and Ulster hardly any, so locals are unaware of any ambiguity when they refer to the Blackmen. One July I was standing at a reception desk in a Belfast hotel when an American woman asked if there would be any more marches that summer. ‘Oh yes,’ said the receptionist, ‘the Blackmen parade on the last Saturday in August.’ She continued finalizing the guest’s account and thus missed her astounded and bewildered expression. I thought of setting the tourist right, but decided it was more fun not to.
* I am told that some local Orangemen who are members of the DUP were annoyed at this remark. I am sorry to have hurt their feelings, but I record what I hear.
† I was corrected about this later. It would have been true six or seven years ago: indeed, in 1991 the wife of a Sinn Féin worker brought her children, her sunglasses and a chair with her and watched the parade. In the last few years, however, because of the increase in sectarian tension, Catholics stay away. There would, however, be many stalls and shops manned by Catholics servicing the paraders and onlookers.
* Orangemen describe them as ‘blood-and-thunder’ bands, Catholics (because they dislike them) and loyalist youths (because they love them) call them ‘kick-the-pope’.
† I should have added, ‘or in the Gaelic Athletic Association, which provides a social and sometimes political focus to their lives’.
* I remember particularly the Murley renditions of ‘It’s A Long Way to Tipperary’, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and ‘All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor’.
* A clarifier here. My occasional references to ‘my’ lodge merely denote a friendly relationship and are not intended to suggest that a male-only all-Protestant lodge has taken leave of its senses and admitted as a member a female atheist who was baptized Catholic. I have standing invitations to certain functions there, I’ve eaten there three times and I feel a special gratitude to the brethren for being so kind and welcoming to a nervous outsider.
* Technically, in 1984, the city became ‘Derry’ while the county remained ‘Londonderry’. In practice, Catholics tend to call both Derry and Protestants both Londonderry. Those trying to avoid giving offence call the city Derry/Londonderry and humorists call it Stroke City.
* Republicans irritate unionists by comparing themselves with the ANC.
* Another insulting term for Protestants is ‘Jaffas’. Abusive terms for Catholics include ‘Fenians’ and ‘Taigs’.
* The playwright Hugh Leonard elucidated this approach in a comment on the funeral in January 1998 of Billy Wright, the notorious loyalist terrorist: ‘The town of Portadown was closed down yesterday for the obsequies of Billy Wright. Shopkeepers were “asked” to suspend business. “Your co-operation is noted (my italics) and appreciated,” is how the request was worded. Take away the olde-worlde politeness, and the translation goes: “Shut up shop or we’ll blow your effin’ heads off.” The morality is, of course, that the more people you murder, the bigger your funeral.’
Even when operating ceasefires, loyalist and republican paramilitaries have traditionally kept control of their ghettos by kneecapping or beating half to death with iron bars or baseball bats studded with nails the disobedient or those classified as ‘anti-social’; shopkeepers are brought to heel by vandalizing or setting fire to their property.
* In 1996, after Drumcree Two, the subtle, learned and sophisticated Cardinal Daly – like most of the population of Ireland – went nakedly tribal. In an emotional and often bitter television interview he declared himself betrayed and shocked by the decision to let the Orangemen down the Garvaghy Road and thereby reinforced the prejudices of all those loyalists who doggedly believe that Catholic clergy are, at best, closet republicans and, at worst, tribal witchdoctors.
* My brother pointed out that the poem was based on Longfellow’s ‘The Jewish Cemetery at Newport’, which laments the fate of the Jews at Christian hands.
* Orangemen report frequent confusion on the titles front. My favourite example was the Australian who got so muddled about whether to call a visiting dignitary ‘Most’, ‘Right’ or ‘Very’ Worshipful, that he lost his grasp completely and addressed him as ‘Most Adorable Brother’.
* I mentioned to a Orangeman on one occasion that I had left in the middle of a set of speeches because they were awful and I couldn’t bear any more. He laughed. ‘My favourite moment at these events,’ he said, ‘is when after a particularly excruciating performance, the seconder gets up and says: “I would like to second the motion so ably proposed by Brother X.” ‘
* I once went to a Portadown Black ‘Last Saturday’ where my companion and I were taken to eat in the Orange Hall and therefore became honoured guests, even though James was from the British Foreign Office – an institution which as a consequence of the Anglo-Irish Agreement is believed by most unionists to be intent on selling them out. After the meal, we stood with some friends in the field waiting for the speakers on the