The Twelfth of July reminds me that I am a Northern Irish Protestant, just in case I forgot…
It is not politically correct to be Northern Irish Protestant and Unionist so it is probably not best to write about it yet for me it is not writing about it, it is writing about my early life experiences which happened to be Northern Irish Protestant and Unionist.
Tonight I was speaking to a friend on the phone and he is far from being political yet as he spoke he talked as I have talked about the bonfires and somehow the eleventh night continuing to have a presence years after the experience, so too is ‘The Twelfth’. Whether we like it or not, in our childhoods and teenage years it was simply part of our lives to deny it and its influence it to deny a part of ourselves.
As children, we were not aware of the political connotations we sensed only that something different was in the air, a holiday, bands, music and Orangemen marching.
If I hush for a moment I can hear the voice of a neighbour speaking to my mother 40 odd years ago, “Well here I better go and making Sammy’s sandwiches for the morning as his lodge are up from six.”
It was an event and most of the community in which I lived was involved in it. The odd family opted out and took their holiday in Spain leaving us all to think that perhaps they were Jehovah Witnesses.
The music was good and certainly cheered up our usually grey and mundane streets. To this day I can hear a drum from miles away and my childhood self wants to run, as I did as a child, until I find it.
It was years later that I struggled with the anti-catholic sentiment that was attached to the orange part of my identity. It was so much part of my childhood that if I were to dismiss it I would lose years of my life and ignore its influence in shaping who I am today.
I am a Protestant that is why I protest.
g.
