Stewart Neville (who participates as “Conduit” in the blogalogue at various writerly sites) is an Irishman with a hard-boiled fictional voice and a voice of sweet reason — or at least reason, period — when not constrained by a “Once upon a time… The End” frame.
His post yesterday offers up a case in point.
Here in the USA — which at least used to be an open-minded melting pot (maybe not in these days of fences and quotas and such) — we of course celebrate, for good or ill, a handful of ethnicity-inspired holidays: St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day, Kwaanza, Bastille Day. But the Twelfth of July? Here’s Stuart:
One day in the Northern Irish calendar is more divisive than any other. A few words of explanation for my American friends: The 12th of July is a national holiday in Northern Ireland that commemorates the victory of the Protestant King William of Orange over the Catholic forces of King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
Yep, more than three hundred years have passed, and we still haven’t let it go.
The day is marked by parades throughout Northern Ireland, organised by Orange Lodges, featuring marching bands, much flag waving, and general bluster. When I was a little boy, the Twelfth was one of the highlights of the year, bettered only by Christmas and Easter. It’s hard to describe the feeling of a big bass drum being hammered to within an inch of destruction, the way it pounds your chest, along with the crackle of side drums, and the piercing melodies of dozens of not-quite-in-tune flutes. If you’re walking along, you can’t help but fall into step with the music.
What I don’t know about Irish history could fit in a stadium. (Think about it.) But there was something very familiar to me in this description of parades from Stuart’s childhood.
