Orange march roils some in Dublin

By Andrew Bushe

DUBLIN — Dublin’s lord mayor and the manager of the small Dublin Wicklow Orange Lodge, who are planning the first parade by the Order in Dublin in 63 years, have been receiving abusive calls since plans for the May 28 march were revealed last week.

The plan by the 37-member Loyal Orange Lodge No. 1313 to mark the founding of the Grand Lodge of Ireland on Dawson Street two centuries ago is being opposed by Sinn Fein. It has launched a debate about tolerance of different traditions south of the border.

Several hundred Orangemen from the Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain have been invited for the historic parade. Organizer and Lodge manager Ian Cox, 25, warned that extreme elements in the Order have been told they will not be welcome. The Lodge has already sharply curtailed the original route it had planned through Dublin.

"We are going out of our way to make the parade non-contentious and simply a celebration of our identity," Cox said. "There will be no union jacks and no suggestion of triumphalism. It will be a dignified march."

Cox, who tried to set up a branch on the Unionist Party south of the border at the start of the peace process to contest Dail elections, has been planning the parade to celebrate the founding of the Order on 52 Dawson St. on April 8, 1798.

House numbers on the street have changed since and, on Lord Mayor Mary Freehill’s proposal, the Corporation agreed to a commemorative plaque. It is expected to be put on the footpath outside what is now No. 52, a new office block.

Cox approached Freehill about the unveiling of the plaque and a parade last year. The Lodge then proposed to march from their Northumberland Road premises down Harcourt Street past the house were Edward Carson, leader of the Unionist Party from 1910 to 1921, was born.

"We have had discussions with the Garda and the traffic authorities and have decided against that as there are a lot of people living in Harcourt Street and we might have given offense," Cox said. "It will now probably be just a symbolic parade in Dawson Street."

It had been the tradition for Orangemen to march from their Rutland Square (now Parnell Square) headquarters in Dublin to Amiens Street station to catch specially chartered trains to the North every year for the Twelfth of July parades. The last time this happened was in 1937. "They were attacked in Talbot Street and basically had to run for it to the train," Cox said.

Sinn Fein’s Dublin councilors have been most vociferous in their criticism. Larry O’Toole described allowing the Order to come to Dublin as being akin to the state governor of Alabama inviting the Ku Klux Klan.

"This is a PR exercise on behalf of the Orange Order," he said. "This can’t be taken in isolation of what goes on during the marching season in Northern Ireland."

The party’s only TD, Cavan-Monaghan’s Caoimhghin O Caolain, was more measured in his opposition.

It was only right and proper there was a protest about the Garvaghy Road, but "it certainly isn’t in opposition to the Orange Order’s march per se."

Belfast-based George Patton, executive officer of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, he hoped a Dublin parade could become an annual event.