NI: Law and Orange Order (feature)
01 July 1996
In the second week of July, the Orange Order took to the streets to challenge what looked like a simple operational decision of the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, and won. Annesley, who had already announced that he would retire earlier than expected in November 1996, had decided to re-route an Orange Order march which planned to return from a church service at Drumcree on the outskirts of Portadown via the Garvaghy Road. This road passes through a Catholic housing estate. On the same occasion last year, the RUC barred the road until an agreement was reached between the Orange Order marchers and local residents, an agreement brokered by the Mediation Network for Northern Ireland. This year, the Orange Order - in a pre-planned operation - mobilised throughout the North of Ireland in protest at the re-routing. After four days, Annesley changed his mind, forcing a way through the protesting Garvaghy Road residents for the Orange Order marchers by means of police batons and plastic bullets. The inability and unwillingness of the RUC to uphold its original decision, with or without the assistance of the British Army, created a huge sense of outrage throughout Ireland, raising fundamental questions about the constitution and control of the RUC, and the role of the British government led by Secretary of State Sir Patrick Mayhew who, prior to the events at Drumcree, had also announced his retirement as MP for Tunbridge Wells (at the next general election). The Taoiseach, John Bruton, interviewed by the BBC on 12 July, directly blamed the British government for the widespread loyalist intimidation of Catholics throughout the Drumcree stand-off and in an unprecedented public attack went on to say:
"A state cannot afford to yield to force; a state cannot afford to be inconsistent; a state - a democratic state - cannot afford to be partial in the way it applies the law and I+m afraid we have seen all three basic canons of democracy breached in this instance."
The Orange Order, Unionism and Marching
The Orange Order was founded in 1795 and takes its name from the Dutch royal House of Orange whose King William III - the
Protestant William of Orange - is the hero of the annual 12th July celebrations commemorating the defeat of the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The are other +loyal institutions+ including the elite Royal Black Preceptory and the Apprentice Boys of Derry. The Orange Order requires its members not to be "Roman Catholic or Papist" or to be married to one. If a member "dishonours" the institution by marrying a Catholic then they shall be expelled. Members must swear "true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and to her Protestant successors". The Order's members are sworn to secrecy and have a duty to "strenuously oppose the fatal errors and doctrines of the Church of Rome" and to "resist the ascendancy of that Church". In the 1830s, the Order was banned for a brief period. During the latter half of the 19th century, the Orangemen were often blamed for outbreaks of disorder and sectarian attacks, and parades were frequently banned - at least six commissions of inquiry into Orange disorder were held in the second half of the century. The Order took on a more political role during the Home Rule campaign and became directly associated with Unionism and Protestant middle and upper class interests. After partition the close identification of the Unionist political and governing class with the Orange Order was widely and publicly celebrated. Most Unionist politicians were members of the Order and July 12th was soon declared a public holiday and remains the basis of school and work summer holidays to this day.
During the period of the "Orange State" (1920 to 1972) Orange marches came to have a special status. They were rarely banned or re-routed while demonstrations by nationalists or republicans were frequently banned.
Being a secret society, the membership of t