The Twelfth 2025

» Conor Keenan

Every effort by the Orange Order to rebrand the “Twelfth” as “Orangefest” and their “Battle not the Bottle” campaign have been abject failures.

Every now and again, the ghost of the Orange State appears to remind us of the bad old days.

In those days, the Orange Order marched where it wanted, when it wanted and made sure we knew of its privileged position. The Orange State was supreme. All the apparatus of the state, from its police force to its civil service and judiciary, were willing collaborators in upholding that premise.

The marching orders used every opportunity to remind those who dissented from that position of their place. Stay in your box. Or else.

My memory of Orange Order parades throughout my childhood and teenage years are exactly like that. My home community of the Short Strand was effectively locked down. The RUC, British Army and, or, the UDR, literally swamped the area. Every entry and exit point was blocked. Their role was to ghettoise local people and ensure the marchers were in the ascendancy, while they mocked and deliberately disrespected the community which they viewed as a stain on their parade route. It was a sport they enjoyed and excelled in.

The days leading up to the main Orange day of the year, the 12th of July, would be filled with an apprehension and tension which I can vividly recall. Each year was always going to be the one when “the Orangemen” would invade the area. Workers in the industrial and public sectors were forced to take the “Twelfth fortnight” as their holidays.

Thankfully much of that has changed. 

The apparatus of the Orange State has been dismantled.

The organisers of Loyal Order marches now have to apply to the Parades Commission to march. They cannot walk where they like. Conditions are imposed on parades. Local communities can have an influence. 

However, a minority has never adjusted to, or embraced, the principles of the Good Friday Agreement and reality of our peace process. It’s a mindset which still hankers back to the days of the Orange State.

I must admit to have found this 12th July period to have been depressing.

The insistence on building, lighting and encouraging attendance at a bonfire in the Village area of south Belfast, in immediate proximity to asbestos waste and an electricity sub station, despite obvious public health concerns, defies any rational thought. It is hard to escape the belief that the Village bonfire went ahead simply because of a supremacist attitude that “no one will tell us what to do. We are the people!”.

I witnessed totally disrespectful and triumphalist behaviour from both bands and supporters as the Orange parade passed St Matthew’s Church and the Short Strand community, which brought me right back to the Twelfths of yesteryear. Every band except three, from approximately 21, played passing St Matthew’s Church while the Saturday Vigil Mass was ongoing inside. All the most offensive tunes were played to raucous yahooing.

Thankfully, largely due to the efforts of the local community in arranging diversionary activities, the vast majority of the Short Strand community ignored the marchers. That this passed without any significant disorder and no reaction to the provocation does not make it acceptable.

In Glengormley in north Belfast, a band stopped outside the constituency office of Gerry Kelly MLA to sing “The Sash”. Attendees of the parades in Belfast stopped to urinate outside homes in the lower Falls. Elsewhere across the North, other bonfires burned Irish national flags and other emblems. The Palestinian people were targeted for racist abuse. In County Tyrone an effigy of migrants in a boat was placed atop one of these hate pyres. Almost 30 years after its last march through the lower Ormeau and Garvaghy Road, the Orange Order still apply to parade through those communities.

Every effort by the Orange Order to rebrand the “Twelfth” as “Orangefest” and their “Battle not the Bottle” campaign have been abject failures. Many see the Twelfth period as something more akin to Kristallnacht, where lawlessness and hate crime are permitted for a 24-hour period.

I may not agree with it, but I fully accept that the Orange tradition is part of the fabric of Irish society. That reality is inescapable. I also see the benefits of the band culture in giving a purpose to young people and the sense of community, particularly in rural areas.

It should have its place in Irish society.

I am also confident that we are in the end days of partition.

Sinn Féin has invested heavily in its outreach to the northern Protestant and Unionist communities. Sometimes we have stretched our own base. We are right to do so, and we should — and will — continue.

A new Ireland, free from the external influence of the British government must incorporate a place for the Orange tradition.

In 2025, that tradition has however arrived at a point when it needs to decide if it will continue to let itself be tainted, or even defined, by the behaviour of sectarian and racist bigots.