For anyone who doesn't know, July 12th is the day that Northern Irish Protestants put on their orange sashes and their bowler hats and go out and parade in the streets to 'celebrate' their political beliefs and former 'victories' against the Catholics. They usually march through the republic too. I hate it so much. This is the kind of shit they come up with: http://www.iloi.org/ (Click to enter main site) In a state desperate for peace, why should this be allowed? Oh, and I love this quote from the 'Orange Constitution': "An Orangeman should.....strenuously oppose the fatal errors and doctrines of the Church of Rome, and scrupulously avoid countenancing (by his presence or otherwise) any act of ceremony of Popish worship;He should, by all lawful means, resist the ascendancy of that Church, its encroachments, and the extension of its power, ever abstaining from all charitable words, actions or sentiments, towards his Roman Catholic brethren;..." Run a google search for images of the orange parade, by the way, and you can see what a load of pompous bastards they are. (Please let me note I am NOT having a go at the Protestant faith in any way, and am in no way prejudiced against any Protestants outside of the island of Ireland.)
It is obviously a provocation and should be disposed of in the interest of reconciliation. It is not necessary to rub salt in a 400 year old wound every year. It was obviously a tool used to oppress catholics(remind them that they were a conquered people) in the past but todays Ireland is not like it was in the past and these marches no longer serve any real purpose apart from rabble rousing.
We have KKK and the skinheads here. Also, people drive around with the confederate flag on their vehicles. Here you have freedom of speech and the freedom to be an arrogant ignorant ass. Would they have the parade if no one showed up to protest it?
Sectarianism isn't going to stop any time soon, sadly. The quote you picked out seems pretty reasonable to me. I'm not a great fan of catholicism. When I say that, I mean I don't like the religion, not that I don't like catholics. It's ingrained in society. Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland will always have problems. Walk into the wrong place wearing the wrong colour top and it could go horribly wrong. They're small-minded bastards on both sides, but neither is going to step down. What can we do about it apart from try to teach, integrate and try to get along?
Grab a Guinness or Kilkenny and drink. You know you need your Irish juice. Pompous? Nah it's more pride of heritage and just a tradition that they carried over. It's really no different than going to support a football team playing away from home. There's bad eggs and hooligans in every crowd that just makes it looks worst than it is. Just put up with it ne and try to get along indeed as the fella above me said. If anything Americans playing a real version of counterstrike elsewhere around the world like Afghan and Iraq is much more pompous if you ask me.
ouch. That's what the KKK and the confederate flag flying idiots say. From what I've seen in my father, it had a lot to do with hate and superiority. He was a protestant, but was incredibly Orange.
There's a bit of difference between hooligan parade and racism. That's unless a hooligan parade promotes racism directly I suppose...
