THE ballroom in Leinster House is as appropriate a place as any to receive the grandmaster of the Orange Order Edward Stevenson at noon today.

IF, ON first meeting him, you did not know his background, you could easily imagine Chris Thackaberry strolling down O’Connell Street in a Celtic jersey or coming home from Hill 16 on a summer Sunday having seen the Dubs lose from a winning lead for the umpteenth time.

TODAY may be July 12 but the only Orange march in the Republic has already taken place — and the organisation aims to open lodges as far south as Bandon in west Cork.

PEOPLE who compare the Orange Order to the Ku Klux Klan - as they have done in your correspondence columns recently - are 3,000 miles off course geographically and a million miles politically.