Marching for King Billy

The Orange Order is a Protestant “fraternal organisation” named in honour of William of Orange, the Dutchman who replaced the Catholic James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. During the “marching season”, thousands of Orangemen and their marching bands parade through the towns of Northern Ireland, wearing Masonic-style sashes and bowler hats, carrying banners and Union flags. The high point is 12 July, the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, where, in 1690, “King Billy” saw off James for good, and secured the “Protestant ascendancy” in Ireland. Historically, the Orange Order has been closely aligned with the UUP: between 1921 (when Ireland was partitioned) and 1972, all of Northern Ireland’s PMS belonged to both. By contrast, Ian Paisley, from the 1950s on, often clashed with the Orangemen. Since the Good Friday Agreement, however, many Orangemen have switched to support the DUP. Their marches – for decades a major bone of contention – have long been banned from passing through some nationalist areas: the DUP has said it wants to reverse “the exclusion of Orangeism from ever greater areas of public space”.