Two Orange Orders

A Chairde,

I would like to thank Ruth Dudley Edwards for enlightening me to the fact that there are obviously two Orange Orders, one of them being the Order she describes in her book, The Faithful Tribe. This being the misunderstood one the one in which the wives and mothers of its members merry themselves making tea and sandwiches, whilst joking of them ``playing silly buggers''. The same one that but for the lack of better PR skills would no doubt be loved by all.

This must of course be different from the other Orange Order, the assiduously anti-Catholic one, the one which US State Senator Tom Hyden compared to white supremacists in Mississippi in the 1960s in its treatment of Portadown's Catholic nationalist community. The one with its long-standing links with paramilitary loyalism, that had secret meetings with LVF leader Billy Wright (Orangeman David Trimble included) at the stand-off in Drumcree in 1996. The one that calls for an inquiry into his death yet ignores the numerous murders and over 1,300 forced evacuations by pro-Orange supporters.

I can only assume, also,that she must be enamoured by the other Orange Order to the one that David Jones is a member of. For he is not at all jovial when he threatens that if they are not down the Garvaghy Road by the fourth of July, to symbolically stamp their domination on the Catholic community, ``then we are on the slippery slope to something possibly as serious as civil war.''

And he doesn't mention anything about tea and sandwiches either.

Denis O'Halloran
Lewisham.

A Chairde,

May I express my disgust at the begrudgery and downright sectarianism displayed by your columnist, Laura Friel, in her recent article on the Church of Ireland Synod, titled ``Sound and Fury''. For my part, I was greatly encouraged by the deliberations of the Synod, particularly after hearing extensive extracts of the contributions on Raidio Éireann. Here was a church taking the deliberate and courageous step of acknowledging the sectarian menace within its midst and providing a lead which I feel all the Christian churches (and the political parties) might do well to follow. At the very least, the Synod should be positively welcomed as a tús maith and your columnist's snide dismissal of the event displays a depressing bigotry on her own part.

Those of us who live alongside Church of Ireland communities understand the role which the select vestry plays in the administration of individual parishes and we ought to understand the difficult course that the Church of Ireland has adopted in challenging sectarian bigotry while avoiding massive defections, particularly within areas of Orange strength. Far from sitting on their hands, delegates that I heard addressing the conference, including several members of the hierarchy from northern dioceses, made thoughtful and well-argued contributions to the debate.

But how does the organ of Irish republicanism respond? First of all by questioning the resolve of the Church of Ireland to address the issue of sectarianism through `decisive action' rather than what is sneeringly referred to as `polite debate'. More then that, we are told that such debate will be seen as `an abdication, not the exercise of moral responsibility'.

`The niceties of theological debate will, Ms Friel informs us, `cut no ice with a world which already views Drumcree as a carnival of sectarian reaction'. In the mind of your reporter, internal dicscussion and debate are a waste of time, undeserving of recognition. Reading the sub-text, she believes that the Church of Ireland should travel a path that republicans in their own discussions of the way forward would never countenence - the diktat of a leadership oligarchy.

Towards the end of her article, Ms Friel writes: ``The Church of Ireland was spawned in the same supremacist pond as the Orange Order and Ulster Unionism.'' I can scarcely believe that such a gratuitously insulting remark could have been allowed in your columns with editorial sanction and I can only hope that the aformentioned diatribe slipped in without the editor's knowledge. It is probably the most disgracefully sectarian remark ever to appear in a newspaper representing the republican viewpoint. Laura Friel should take the advice of one contributor to the Synod, who reminded delegates that the battle against sectarianism begins by confronting the inherited sectarianism within ourselves.

As for the Church of Ireland `breaking with its past', there is indeed much in that past that is to be deplored, as there is in all churches, but let us not forget that it was out of this community that some of the great geniuses of the Irish nation emerged: Dean Swift,'Premium' Madden, Theobald Wolfe Tone, Thomas Russell, Thomas Davis, William Smith O'Brien and many more besides. For too many republicans, it appears that Irish history only begins with partition and the institutionalising of sectarianism North and South. For too many `republicans', lip-service is paid to the core principle of our creed - non-sectarianism. I look forward to the day when republicans begin to discuss the issue with the same honesty and openness as has been displayed by the Synod of the Church of Ireland. And let he or she that is without even a hint of bigotry cast the first stone.

Brian MacDomhnaill.