I paid a brief nostalgic visit to the Twelfth this year – almost four decades since I first went near a parade.
Published: 17 July 2025
From a largely Roman Catholic background (although my English paternal grandfather was a Methodist-turned-Quaker, and I had become an atheist) I knew almost nothing about Orangeism.
But I was chairwoman of the British Association for Irish Studies, and took seriously its commitment to looking at Irish history, politics and culture from the perspective of all the inhabitants of the island.
I would write later that what I then associated with Orangeism was “thuggish, stupid, sectarian bigotry” but that my friend and I enjoyed the noise and colour and spectacle and – above all – the music we experienced at the Belfast parade that year, 1987.
By the time I came back seven years later, I was at the beginning of a journalistic career.
I was making good friends among unionists and my hostility was directed towards the IRA and its apologists whom I had come to believe were a cancer on the island of Ireland.
Though it was raining, in 1994 I wrote about how much I enjoyed the parade – from the decorations, the banners and the military music to the wildly different uniforms and the general friendliness from men and women of all ages.
Over the next few years of contentious journalism I was warmly welcomed by a Royal Black Preceptory lodge in Aughnacloy where I was overfed, met many people who were the salt of the earth, and came to know unionists well.
I become an admirer of the stoicism, courage and tolerance shown by a people under siege from mendacious sectarian murderers.
I greatly appreciated the frankness and open-mindedness of innumerable unionists during the horrors of Drumcree in the mid-1990s.
This was when the Provisional IRA were staging bloody confrontations as part of a ruthless conspiracy to make Northern Ireland ungovernable.
I had also reached the dizzy heights of being hated by both the Provisional IRA as well as loyalist hardliners from the Spirit of Drumcree.
During those years I had extraordinary adventures and made wonderful friendships.
Although I was happy at last week’s Twelfth to see the progress the Orange had made to make it so communal and family-oriented, my enjoyment was rather clouded by the absence of friends.
The Reverend Brian Kennaway, for instance, who took on the bigots on his own side while giving no quarter to the Provos, and became greatly admired by thinking nationalists in the Republic, was a companion whose company I loved for his wisdom, integrity and sense of fun.
I’ve missed him greatly since his death in 2019.
Brian was one of many staunch unionists who enriched my life, as did the heroes and heroines I met among the RUC and British army.
These were people who sacrificed so much and were so demonised by bad people and betrayed by the gullible.
But Northern Ireland still exists, Ireland’s Future has got nowhere.
And whatever posturers like former taoiseach Leo Varadkar, President Michael D Higgins, and yesterday’s man Gerry Adams, say, people down south have no interest in a united Ireland.
Now unionists should be fighting tooth and claw for the veterans.
