Green v Orange: let’s try an exchange of colours
For what purpose, and for whose benefit? There is a certain self-righteousness that amounts to a kind of bigotry in the willingness of politicians and commentators to identify the combatants in the Irish conflict as ‘sectarian bigots’ or ‘murderous thugs’.
The struggle between unionists and nationalists (or republicans) in the Six Counties has been one of the most protracted and bitter in the annals of European history. I have little doubt that, unchecked by decisive action of some kind, it has the potential to continue to the day of judgment.
There must be much more to such a conflict than mere bigotry and thuggery. On both sides there are men and women of principle prepared to sacrifice their lives for a cause they hold sacred. On both sides there is long-lasting sorrow and a deep sense of injustice (and indeed the reality of injustice). What right have we from our ivory towers in Dublin and Westminster to condemn the people of both communities in Northern Ireland who continue to experience the horrors of civil conflict?
The condition of peace is more, much more, than ceasefires. It is the extending of the hand of friendship to those who have been our deadly enemies. It requires the active force of Christian forgiveness and compassion.
What good has the banning of parades done for us over the years? Surely we need to transform the nature of parades into moments of shared communal celebration (somewhat in the manner of the Notting Hill Carnival after the race riots).
To seek to deny access to the Orange marchers to their traditional routes is surely to extend the principle of partition to the village and the street and in effect to deny to Orangemen their very sense of Irishness. Is this really what we want to do? If so, it is a contradiction of the very symbolism of the Tricolour which holds the Green and Orange together in peaceful celebration.
Let us try to look at the matter afresh in the light of friendship rather than of hostility and alienation. Let us abandon the language of vilification that has done so much harm in Irish history (as, for example, to the reputations of Parnell and Redmond).
Let us (if it is at all possible) have the mother and father of an Orange parade in which the orange of Armagh (champions of Ulster) may be seen alongside the Williamite orange.
If we find such a juxtaposition impossible to conceive, then we have given up on the possibility of true peace and reconciliation in Ireland.
But I hope that we shall never yield to such a counsel of despair.
Dr Gerald Morgan
School of English
Trinity College
Dublin 2
