Review: The Faithful Tribe - Ruth Dudley Edwards

The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions

What I find intriguing is that the author, Ruth Dudley Edwards, is a Dublin-born, Roman Catholic. The expected response from her time with the Orange Order would be an exultant disparagement, what we get however is a sympathetic journey by a Roman Catholic writer who shows how the Protestant Orange Order has been ill-served by their leaders, is often misrepresented in the Press, but at its heart is not violently anti-catholic and they are certainly not as one review writes:

"nothing more than 1000 Ian Paisley clones marching down the street."

This is the confusion that all Protestants are Orangemen and that all Orangemen and Protestants believe the same as one man.

She quotes the Worshipful Master of one Lodge:

“The Orange Order is not bigoted... It is a religious order there to protect the beliefs of Protestant people. In the opening pages you pray for your Roman Catholic Brethren. I don't dictate to the Catholic man where he should go to church . . . I'll not condemn any man's religion except Paisley for he's divided everybody.”

Whether they are bigoted or not - she points to the disputes regarding the parades and suggests that had it not been for the Republican and Nationalist PR machine presenting them in the light of violent sectarian bigotry, the parades would have continued on the road they were heading down - becoming smaller and more centred on the band concerts and family day out with a picnic.

This may be contentious, but when she also highlights the fact that the Parades Commission took no action against the Gaelic Athletic Association parades, with its nationalist and republican political background, waving the Irish flag and playing equally provocative music, you can at least understand the reaction of the Orange Order. Unlike the IRA and Sinn Fein who embraced the use of PR, Orangemen foolishly didn’t, and as a result they have consistently suffered in the media, so this book goes someway to redressing their demonisation.

Whilst the author covers the pressures that have brought a reaction in which militant and violent people have come into the organisation and who serve the republican cause by their behaviour, I do not feel she address this problem or the unease felt about them. We are, however, taken past the cartoon image and into a culture that feels frustrated, betrayed, and at worst, under siege.