The Orange Order: A Contemporary Northern Irish History

"I’ve chosen this because the Orange Order and Orangeism is just so important to Northern Irish identity. This book goes in depth into the connections between the Orange Order and the unionist movement, and the way Orangeism as a socio-political organization has huge influence on politics. It also provides a useful balance, because it’s a relatively objective history, to an overly optimistic view of the Orange Order. Just as in any study of Irish Republicanism, the Irish Republican Brotherhood is very important because it was not a political party, but had huge political impact, so this book demonstrates how the Orange Order has had a huge political impact. The book also analyzes the social background and the social profile of the Orange Order—the kind of people who support it and who is involved in it. “Northern Ireland is already the most heavily subsidized part of the UK” It looks at Orange engagement in Northern Ireland since 1969/7. It provides very much a contemporary view of the role of the Orange Order and Orangeism in community tensions and the community politics of Northern Ireland since then. He does talk about ‘identity choices.’ In Northern Ireland, the term ‘identity choices’ does seem a bit weak. You might call them that but they make a big impact compared to other identity choices… But mostly it is quite light in terms of nationalism theory. It’s more of a contemporary history and the social science methodology comes in the make-up of the order and the kind of people who are involved in it, and the Order’s attitudes to, for example, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and ‘mixed marriages,’ as they’re called. If you’re a member of the Orange Order, you were traditionally not supposed to marry a Catholic. That’s very old-fashioned now, and people do. But, traditionally, that was the Order’s attitude. It is really quite a peculiar organization to have major political and social impact in the 21st century. Absolutely. It also has a lot of contemporary relevance because anyone reading it will say, “Gosh, I can see these debates in the Scottish context.” But it provides the wider historical perspective, yes. Probably Kaufman’s The Orange Order because although it is a detailed, quite academic book, it’s just so amazing to see how a political process is inflected by a group that isn’t a political party. What’s interesting is what they’ll play for, and if they will, indeed, play for anything. I suspect—this is very contemporary, it could be outdated tomorrow—that the perception of weakness surrounding Theresa May is such that one of the reasons the DUP are not actually hammering out even a basic confidence and supply deal is that they are waiting to see what happens in the Conservative Party. They don’t want to be associated with a Conservative prime minister who is not going to last more than a month or two. They want to extract maximum advantage, financially, for Northern Ireland in terms of their own position. They’re not really interested in imposing their policies on the rest of the UK. You can disagree or dislike the DUP because of their attitude to same-sex marriage, but they’re not interested in getting the Conservative Party to adopt it. “Ireland got forgotten—because to include it would be too complicated. It would suggest that Britain, in some sense, no longer existed in the way it had existed in 1900—and continuity is really important to national memory.” Their interests are about showing that they can deliver for Northern Ireland, and that it’s a waste of time backing any other Unionist party but them. They want to show they can increase public expenditure—because Northern Ireland is already the most heavily subsidized part of the UK. The other thing they’ll want is a soft border with Ireland, because Irish business also sustains the Northern Irish economy. One of the ironies of Northern Ireland is that it’s virtually unsustainable without UK government support and without Irish government trade. They supported Brexit, but they want to have a soft border with the Irish Republic, which probably means at least staying in the Customs Union. The answer to that is no. Ireland has been written out of Britain’s history. If you look at the way British history was written in the 19th century, there are a lot of Irish people in it, and there’s a lot about Ireland in it. The United Kingdom included the whole of the island of Ireland until 1922. Then, when the Free State happened and Ireland became more or less independent in 1922, people’s consciousness of Britain changed. Suddenly, you had to deal with the fact it wasn’t part of the UK. People had to ‘remember’ a British history that excluded Ireland, and it became very difficult to include the six counties of Northern Ireland, not least because of the intensely sectarian character of the politics. So Ireland got forgotten—because to include it would be too complicated. It would suggest that Britain, in some sense, no longer existed in the way it had existed in 1900—and continuity is really important to national memory. So the end of the Union, which was a huge disruption, potentially, in 1922, was coped with by pretending that Ireland was never involved anyway. That was in spite of the hugely significant that Irish men and women played for the UK in, for example, World War I. Lord Kitchener was an Irishman. Garnet Wolseley, who was chief of staff for the British Army between 1885 and 1900 was an Irishman. The 1st Duke of Wellington was born in Ireland. Once you start scratching the surface, there are a lot of Irish people in British history, it’s just that their Irishness has been forgotten. British politicians were better informed than the public, but they still acted in a way that didn’t always create optimal outcomes. I’d have to say here that among Northern Irish secretaries, Mo Mowlam was unusually sensitive and effective, as was Tony Blair among Prime Ministers. Like Gladstone, Tony Blair understood that there was a real problem in the historic relationship with Ireland that needed to be addressed—whereas quite a lot of other politicians have just seen it as some sort of issue that’s got to be resolved. But actually it’s so deep-seated, it’s so long-term and underlying, that you have to have a lot of conversations and a lot of understanding to get to the heart of the sensitivities. And, for many people, the sensitivities appear completely ridiculous. One of the oddest things about understanding Northern Ireland as British—in the sense that many people in Northern Ireland intensely feel themselves to be British—is that the way the society operates, their politics, their passionate view of history, are completely alien to modern British identity."