Marching season…….why is it allowed?

Grannynannywanny

lafergar
Are they mostly men? Why do they gravitate to this stuff?

Here’s a photo from BBC website from Belfast today

More fool them.

I'm pretty sure most of the sectarian marching is done by males.

lafergar

Grannynannywanny

lafergar
Are they mostly men? Why do they gravitate to this stuff?

Here’s a photo from BBC website from Belfast today

More fool them.

I'm pretty sure most of the sectarian marching is done by males.

There are women involved too - not as many as the men, granted, but they do exist. In fact, I'm sure there's a Ladies' Orange Order (or similar name) in Glasgow.

Silly - but dangerously bigotted - pompous little men marching around in their ludicrous bowler hats and determined to provoke trouble.

They should be proscribed.

Can you imagine that absolute outcry if they banned it? The police would have a lot of work on their hands.

I think it's about time they moved on, but if you banned it can you imagine the fuss certain people would make. Mostly males, puffed up.

It wouldn’t be just ‘a lot of work’ or ‘men puffed up’ it would be carnage.

OldFrill

That's a Scottish perspective.

Fifty or more years ago, there was more of a division in Scotland between Protestant and Catholic. It possibly went back as far as the animosity between John Knox and Mary Queen of Scots when the Catholic Mary returned from an upbringing in the French court and her brief marriage to the Dauphin to a Scotland which had mostly embraced the non-conformist cause - and/or later to the savagery of Culloden where the bid of the Catholic Stuarts to regain the British throne was put down as rebellion by England.

It has lessened from what it was when I moved to Scotland, but Glasgow is near to Ireland and has not forgotten. Rivalry between Rangers and Celtic still exists, although a few players have been signed despite being of the "wrong" denomination.

On an individual level, the two denominations get on perfectly well - it is of course the same God that each of them worships. The difference is just in the details.

Good post, Elegran. Most of the adherents of both main streams of Christian thought get on with one another. It's just the diehards on both sides who keep it going in various ways. Anyway, over for another year and, apart from air pellets being fired at Orangemen, seems to have passed without incident. You get more trouble from two opposing football teams, and not necessarily the two you have mentioned.

Just some random with an air rifle firing and hitting folk in central Glasgow. That's ok then.

Elegran puts it so well.
Of course sensible people would like an end to the marching but it’s impossible to impose. Dreams of its supporters seeing the light are simply dreams.
There’s peace of a kind in the north and I wouldn’t want that destabilised. We do not want a return to paramilitaries running their side of the walls

It's those 'celebratory' bonfires in Belfast that are a problem just now. There is one near essential services, but also near an asbestos contaminated site. The Police were threatened with violence if they tried to remove it.
Not sure if it was ignited last night.

It was Meremia on Friday night with the fire brigade on standby near the electrical generator/substation which was at risk.

So many marches/parades nowadays, all supporting their right to do so.
All blaming others for any violence that occurs and all inviting violence from both the supporters and those who oppose them.

Where would you start?

I hope, OldFrill, you are not implying that I am happy with an air rifle being fired. My town centre was blown up during the Troubles. I hope the Police got the air rifle person as it could be any one of us next.
The bonfire should never have been allowed on that site and could have been repositioned when they started the building of it. Has the asbestos just been discovered, or was it there for a while/years? In which case, why was it not removed earlier?
These bonfires were never that high in the past. However, there is a competition on to have the highest bonfire in the world. I believe, from the Belfast Telegraph, the Craigyhill one at Larne may make it this year. TBC by the Guinness Book of Records. Time to move on and hope that all parties from all sides accommodate the culture of the other as people try to do on the mainland.

Sectarianism is dying in both Scotland and Ulster, and it's likely the Orange Lodges and their Catholic equivalents could fade away in the next 30 years. However, they still have a right to parade every July and mostly they pass without incident.
While you hear so much about the bigotry of Rangers supporters in Glasgow and sadly this has boiled over into violence and murder in the past, don't forget Celtic aren't blameless either. You had a group of Celtic fans singing rebel songs in Birmingham earlier this year next to the site of the pub bombings and many openly support the IRA and sing offensive songs about the late Queen to stir up trouble.

I go to the football regularly and I have to say that the sectarianism and abuse from both Rangers and Celtic fans is horrendous - far worse than that of any other team. We've had Celtic fans throwing all sorts at rival fans, players and even the ball boys and girls. I know every team has its fair share of 'bad' fans, but the Old Firm are worse than most.

I don't understand how any right minded person can get so riled up about events which occured hundreds of years ago?

The events may have occured hundreds of years ago, but the 'traditions' and prejudices linger.
Thanks JJ for the info about the bonfire.
Someone should have a word with the Guinness book of Records, as supporting these massive bonfires is somewhat dangerous.

You’re welcome Maremia.
My husband was born in Carrifergus, he still has family in the locality and the Republic, MSM as always, doesn’t tell the whole story.

We travelled from Larne to the Antrim coast yesterday and Larne, Lisburn and Ballymena particularly were dressed for the occasion with Union Flags and the Red Hand of Ulster flags. DD found this display of ultra nationalism to be rather unnerving. Up here on the coast, there was nothing of the sort.
In the early seventies, it meant a time of very high alert (as if it could have been any higher anyway) and restricted movement for us, but only time DH and I ever actually saw a parade was when we’re leaving N.I. to come home, caught up in traffic in Larne on the way to the ferry as a huge march went past.

Just for your information, I looked up the GBofR highest bonfire. 2019 it was Austria at 198 feet 11 inches. Craigyhill, Larne is 205 feet 6 inches. It will be interesting to see who will try to wrench the record away from Larne.

Tradition and the chance to cause trouble.

True eazybee.

Just in response to 'who does the marching' upthread, one young girl I worked with, in the dim and distant, was very proud of the fact that as a child she was given the honour of carrying the Bible, on its purple cushion, near the head of the march.
The ladies marching wore wide-brimmed white hats and white gloves.

But nobody dared to break through the ranks, going from one side of the street to the other.