THEVIRTUAL ORANGE DAY PARADE Continues... On ye go now don't be dragging behind....Miss. Please keep the little ones out of the roadway! Thanks...Ladies and Gentlemen the Parade Continues!

                     Old pretender's last fight King Billy bows out a winner in Scarva
By Gail Walke
  IT WAS, let's face it, unlikely to be a shock result.  No ringside bookies laying odds here. But that didn't stop a tidal wave of anticipation sweeping through tens of thousands of spectators at the first glimpse of the bitter arch-rivals.The centuries fell away as kings William and James, on  horse- back and resplendent in costume, slipped through the trees and into the big field for the sham fight at  Scarva.    Grouped around them for moral support during this annual re- run of the Battle of the Boyne were lieutenant generals and gun-toting foot soldiers. In the orange corner, so to speak, was Billy; in the    green corner - and looking surprisingly confident and unaware of the tragedy to come - was James.  Suddenly the first shot rang out, smoke filled the air and the crowd surged forward; in seconds we were all in  the thick of battle.  Gunfire rained thick and heavy; the green standard came  under brutal attack. To be honest, though, some of its  defenders didn't really seem to have their hearts in the  job.  Nevertheless, torn and tattered it hung on in there    anyway.   Then, just when it looked as if James was a goner, the    combatants split apart and headed up opposite sides of    the field with many of the crowd in hot pursuit.   They regrouped in front of a startled platform party where this time the Catholic monarch had no escape.    "Go on, kick his ass when you have him down on the   ground," roared one man as the defeated king staggered   and fell.  Another, swept away by the imminent victory, shouted:  "Cremate him, where you have him." One little girl,    however, was fast losing enthusiasm for the battle royal. "He's not really dead, daddy, is he?" she piped up.  Her relief was tangible when, seconds later, a  happy-looking James was hoisted to his feet.  I caught up with King Billy just after he dismounted. Wig   in hand and sweat on brow he had some devastating news to  deliver - his own abdication.  Glancing around and lowering his voice, his alter ego Trevor Whitten revealed: "That was my last one. I'll not   be back." The Scarva man admitted that, contrary to    appearances, the showdown had been a close run thing.  Indeed, it could have been history in the unmaking.  "I nearly slipped out there and it wouldn't take me to go   down.   "It's a younger man's job. I've done it more than 10   years but no more," he said, shaking his head at the  unthinkable defeat. King James, aka John Adair from Scarva, was philosophical about his trouncing: "Let's just say, after all these  years, you get used to it." Meanwhile, an international   photographer was snapping away feverishly.  "Does this make you all feel like a war correspondents?"  he asked. We all hoped he was joking. (Though it was about then that I noticed I had been  shot...in a manner of speaking. Fall-out from one of the  cartridges had singed a neat hole in my shirt.) Another   overseas visitor who relished every minute of the   spectacle was Richard Atchoe, a member of the Black  Preceptory from Ghana. "I love the whole atmosphere," he   enthused. "The unity of it all." He was poised to reply     to my question of how he became a Blackman when 77-    year-old Bert Atwell interrupted: "If a black man can't   join the Black Preceptory." I never got my answer    because they all collapsed in fits.  Mr Atwell, also a Blackman and originally from nearby   Tandragee, had travelled from Johnstone, in Scotland. "I     wouldn't miss it. Never." Some of the other 80,000  visitors yesterday hailed from the USA, New Zealand,    Toga, Scotland, England, the Republic and Australia.   They thronged the village and lined the route to the    demense at Scarva House, where the event takes place.   Many people I spoke to commented on the great carnival   atmosphere, which they felt had been missing from this   year's Twelfth.    In fact, the only near disaster came just before the    platform address. An oil painting of Lord Molyneaux being  presented by the Preceptory to its Sovereign Grand Master     to mark his elevation to the Upper House was suddenly    blown off its easel by a gust of wind.   The relief of the faces of the men who retrieved it and     discovered it was still intact was comparable only to    that of King Billy, when he regained his balance and saw    victory in his sights.- (From the Belfast Telegraph 7/15/97)

Lets listen in as an older Orangeman is talking to his teen age grandsons about what the 12th  means to him: Harold Rutherford Alexander is an Ulster-American who
was born in Belfast.  He emigrated to the USA in 1963.   He holds
degrees from Queen's University, Belfast, Trinity College, Dublin,
and Columbia University, New York.  He is President of the American
Association of   Orange Societies and has served as Grand Master of the
Loyal Orange   Institution of the USA.  Here is what he had to say:

"The Twelfth of July is one among the many national
holidays of the  western world.  In the United States we celebrate our
independence on  the Fourth of July, in France the fall of the Bastille
on July 14 is the focus of national rejoicing, and in Mexico the
Cinco de Mayo evokes patriotic and national sentiment.  The list
goes on but these few examples will suffice.  The people of Ulster, both
at home and throughout the world, celebrate the Twelfth.  These
national holidays are occasions of remembrance, thanksgiving, and
reaffirmation.  They are marked by military and other parades, religious
processions, fireworks displays, and dancing in the streets.  Our
celebration of the Twelfth has all of these.  However, the Twelfth
has for many a more private and personal meaning.

In 1690 the Glorious Revolution had taken root in
England, but in Ireland this was not so.  James II, the deposed King
of England, had gone to Ireland as a step toward reclaiming the
throne.  He was welcomed by the Gaelic chieftains who saw the
possibility of completing the genocide that had almost succeeded in
the 1640s.  If the Battle of the Boyne on the Twelfth of July, 1690,
had gone differently, I would not be here today.  It is often
said that the Battle of the Boyne was a minor skirmish in a major
European war, and that the forces arrayed against James, and his patron
Louis XIV of  France, would have eventually prevailed even if the
Boyne had been lost.  However, it was a major event for the small
farmers and settlers in Ulster.  If the outcome at the Boyne had
been different, the Irish tribes, reinforced by the professional
armies of France, would have had months or even years to uproot the
Ulster plantation, to kill the settlers or drive them into the sea.  If
that had happened, neither I nor my wife would exist today.

I mean that quite literally.  Even if our forebears
had managed to escape death, the complex web of relationships, which
has produced me as a unique person, would have been ruptured again and
again.  In Ulster, after the Boyne, the small farmer, tradesman,
or artisan could go to bed at night and be reasonably sure that he and
his family would not be murdered nor harried from their homes before
dawn.  The Ulster community could now develop its own unique national
character and it  would later provide the United States and other
countries with the  flow of settlers, pioneers and immigrants which
continues to this day. In the history of the United States the Scotch-Irish
are recognized as a distinct national group whose imprint is evident on
all the institutions of the nation.  Without the Scotch-Irish
(the name by   which Ulster-Americans or Orange-Americans are known)
the United States would have evolved quite differently.

The Scotch-Irish were the first to defy the British ban on settlement west of the Appalachians
by setting up the Republic of Transylvania in what is now Kentucky and Tennessee.  They were the
first to declare independence from Great Britain at Mecklenbury, North
Carolina, in May  1775, more than a year before the Declaration in
Philadelphia in July1776.  In 1836, they prevailed against another empire  when they
rebelled against Mexican tyranny to found the Republic
of Texas.  The climactic moment of this struggle was the massacre of
the Scotch-Irish defenders at the fall of the Alamo.  In my heart I
know that the pioneers who died at the Alamo were inspired by folk
memories of the Siege of Derry.

These are some of the things upon which I reflect when
I assemble with my brethren on a bright summer morning in July.  Above
all I revere  the memory of that small, chronically ill figure,
Prince William of Orange, and I am awed by his miraculous escape from
death at the Boyne when the cannon-ball inflicted a wound that was less
than mortal.  I give thanks for the Divine Providence that saved his
life, thereby setting in motion the tide of history that has
sustained and prospered the Ulster people until today."
 
 
 
 

A Horrible reminder of the intollerance which still meets the Orange order as it peacefully parades and goes about its business is the act of arson which consumed the Moree Orange Lodge.