Larne leads way in enjoying shared culture
DESPITE living on a small island where cultures collide, it’s not too often you can find the traditions of green and orange sitting as comfortably side by side as in Larne.
It’s a town where the annual Irish Dancing Festival takes place in an Orange Hall, where Irish dancing has been enjoyed by all, and where one family in particular has immersed itself in both.
On Thursday night Jim King accepted his 50-year jewel after half a century in the Orange Order with LOL 884.
His daughter Angeline has embraced Irish dancing and the Irish language.
As a writer of several books, and about to take up a role as writer in residence at Ulster University in September, Angeline always felt it was important to study language.
Her latest book Dusty Bluebells includes passages in Ulster-scots.
Several years ago her enthusiasm for words and their history brought Irish to the town when she invited language campaigner Linda Ervine along for a taster session.
Afraid she might be the only person attending, she roped in her father to go along, but she need not have worried.
“I’d always wanted to learn Irish,” she said.
“I put out a message to members of the Larne Renovation
Regeneration group and immediately around 50 people signed up to come along.
“I thought some might drop out, so I rounded up the family and everyone really enjoyed it.”
Dad Jim was one of those brought along, and he said there was a long tradition of embracing traditions in the harbour town.
“The Victoria Orange Hall has been packed year after year for Irish dancing festivals,” he explained.
“And in my own view you can’t be in a Christian organisation like the Orange Lodge without embracing your neighbours.
“When I was growing up in Larne there was always just one community. I see myself as British and Irish. So much of our history is shared. It’s a history of community.”
The Irish classes have continued for three years now, though curtailed recently by Covid-19, but they were just the latest in a tradition of cultural crossovers in Larne.
“I had always been an Irish dancer, and it was when I got word back from my publisher in Dublin that a passage in my novel A Belfast Tale was not accurate because there were some Protestant Irish dancers in it, I thought it was worth delving into,” Angeline added.
What followed was another book, looking at the tradition of Irish festivals, dispelling the myth that Protestants don’t dance. Irish Dancing: The Festival Story was published in 2018.
“Irish folk dancing was extremely popular in my home town, where it’s common to find families with four, five or even six generations of dancers. In Larne Irish dancing has a legacy stretching back to the first Irish folk dancing festival in 1928,” she said.
“In the 1800s solo Irish dancing was simply called step dancing, and when the men of the Orange Order provided a party piece at the end of an installation or social event.
“The social dances among Catholics and Protestants were known as ‘country dances’, renamed ceili dances by the Gaelic League in London in the late 1890s.
“It’s important people know the story of our shared culture.”