ANOTHER KIND OF IRISH
St. Patrick’s Day celebrations were not always viewed favourably
For most people of Irish descent, as well as those with a day pass, Montreal’s St. Patrick’s parade has been a welcomed event since it started 191 years ago. What’s not to love? You order pitchers of green beer and sing rebel songs. You shake your fist at the sky when anyone mentions England and dream of a united Ireland.
That’s all wonderful fun, except for one thing. There’s another kind of Irish. Irish Protestants. We are the Union Jack-waving faction of dour privilege who live north of the border in Ulster — an ancient province that was resized by politicians during partition to ensure a Protestant majority. We were the rent collectors and eviction bullies, the helpmates of British rule who, unfortunately, came down on the wrong side of civil rights.
We have our own annual parade on July 12 to celebrate King William of Orange winning the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. So, in Northern Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day used to be a primarily Roman Catholic event.
“Ach, it wasn’t for Protestants at all,” recalls Uncle Bobby, who lives outside Belfast. For a spell back in the 1970s, Bobby had the horrifying honour of being on the hit list of both the IRA and their Protestant counterpart, the UDA. “But now it’s for everyone, especially over there for yous in North America.”
Indeed, it is. If St. Patrick’s Day is any kind of barometer of sectarian strife, things have certainly improved.
“The conditions that necessitated armed conflict no longer exist,” said every single peace and reconciliation worker I interviewed in Belfast for a 2011 Maclean’s article. That phrase was spoken, verbatim, by both Protestant (Loyalist, as in loyal to the Queen) and Catholic (Republican) community arts workers who seemed tired of repeating it. The Maclean’s assignment was on the city’s contemporary murals, which are moving away from political propaganda toward less loaded topics, like the Belfast shipyards where Titanic was built. The official message across town was clear: we’re moving on.
While there have been tragic flare-ups since the 1994 ceasefire, the worst of The Troubles are hopefully over, thanks to laws that aim to eliminate systemic discrimination against the (mostly) Roman Catholic Republicans living in Northern Ireland. Now, at least on paper, everyone in the North has equal access to education, housing, decent employment and the electoral process. Tit-for-tat murders and car bombs are no longer common occurrences. My cousins’ children are growing up free of the kind of menace that once suffused daily life on some streets, in some towns, in some parts of Northern Ireland.
Our first trip to my parents’ homeland was in the summer of 1969 — the same year The Troubles exploded into modern guerrilla warfare and the British Army occupied the North. My mother and father — the same people who saw danger around every corner in Canada — took us home without giving it a second thought. They’d left Northern Ireland right after they were married in 1961, before hostilities boiled over, so they were shocked to find themselves returning to a militarized zone.
“It’ll all blow over by Christmas,” said Granda, as we passed through an army checkpoint, one of many over the years. We stayed outside Belfast in Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, in The White City, a council housing development where dad grew up.
Just an hour’s drive away, Loyalist mobs roamed the Crumlin Road and Bombay Street in Belfast, eventually ousting thousands of Catholic families from their homes over the next four years. The Civil Rights movement had shaken the Protestant community, who felt threatened by the rising Catholic population. Animosities flared, as the IRA scrambled to push back. Peace Walls were erected at flashpoints. Armoured vehicles were trundling down roads and British soldiers walked backward with weapons drawn.
The British army had originally shown up to protect Catholics from Loyalist vigilantes, but the nature of the occupation soon changed, as the army helped to provoke all-out war.
“Let’s go out and have a look around,” dad said, as he tied the belt on his trench coat and put on aviator sunglasses.
“Not dressed like that, or you’ll be shot,” said Granda, “Get those glasses off ya’ Billy. You look like a squaddie.”
Granda was serious. Businesses on Scotch St., where Granda had his printing shop, were being bombed. You couldn’t leave a car unattended, in case it was rigged with explosives, and stores were equipped with metal detectors.
“You had to be careful where you took out your pack of cigarettes,” recalls Uncle Bobby, who had the audacity to marry a Catholic and speak out about discrimination.
“Catholics smoked Gallaher’s green and Protestants smoked Gallaher’s blue. Ach, it was terra’, but it wasn’t about religion. It was about equality.”
Dad spent the rest of the trip on high alert, looking out windows and closing curtains. It was odd to see him like this because I knew him as the affable New Canadian who talked to everyone in line at Loblaws.
If dad was on high alert, mom was in a permanent state of tactical readiness. Now she knew the score. Her two girls were in a combat zone. Her home was no longer the pastoral land of Girl Guide troops and Christmas pantomimes. The Troubles threatened the security she always took for granted inside a Protestant- run system. That system was under attack and, like many people living in a bubble of privilege, she never saw it coming. Because she hadn’t personally done anything to keep her Catholics friends and neighbours down, she was surprised and even a bit hurt by blanket charges of bigotry and repression.
When we returned to Canada, we experienced The Troubles like everyone else who listened to As it Happens. We heard journalists with English accents reporting live from Belfast. Dire, they said, in one syllable. We heard the heavy footfall of soldiers running on wet pavement. The narrative of Irish Republican suffering won the PR war, quite rightly, and Irish Protestants on our side of the pond laid low and continued to see themselves as essentially British subjects, removed from “that carry-on over there.”
So began my complicated relationship with our Irish Protestant heritage. Was it a legacy of discrimination? Yes. Why did admitting that feel like a betrayal? I would not forsake my family and become an armchair rebel from the safe shores of Canada. Anyway, discrimination against the Catholic community was being righted … right? Over time, all those mixed emotions began to swirl around one thing — the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
It’s not that simple, I think, watching people have fun on March 17. Haven’t you read your Irish history? Some of you are in the wrong parade! Your ancestors are turning in their graves!
But, as The Troubles peter out, it is counterproductive to recall the two solitudes of Northern Ireland. Ulster, that flawed province of the north of Ireland, is healing. This first-generation (Northern) Irish Canadian shouldn’t be picking the scab over here, fretting over tribal loyalties and throwing a wet blanket over what is now a non-sectarian, pan-Irish event. It’s time to unclench and accept a pint of green beer.