The Glorious 12th of July

1248

Tremendous scenes on GB News there as reporter Dougie Beattie and Coronation Street’s Jim McDonald aka Charles Lawson are on the street at Sandy Row as the Belfast Parade proceeds.

Lawson has sourced a group of young Scottish women who have come over for the big day.

“Gaw the feerry from Cairnryan laust neeh…” They don’t say much else but appear to be enjoying the festivities.

Standing in the vicinity of Dougie and Charlie are two gentlemen in Rangers jerseys who are definitely enjoying the festivities.

One of them staggers into the camera shot and shakes Dougie’s hand. Dougie looks scared, and tries to explain to the very large, stout gentleman that he is live on air for GB News.

The gentleman in the Rangers jersey loudly says in a Scottish accent: “Aw, fawckin greeh, ah fawckin love youse, ah fawckin watchee all the time!”

Dougie apologises for the language.

7 Likes
1249

You can hear the scumbags roaring in the background.

1250

Very windy and rainy in Belfast and some of the banners are threatening to blow off from their scaffolding. It’s a bit like when towels get wrapped around a washing line on a windy day.

It looks like a case of long to rain over us in Belfast.

2 Likes
1251

Conditions in Belfast now reminiscent of that Kerry v Galway All-Ireland football quarter-final in 2008.

But the very British weather is not affecting the brethren in the slightest.

1 Like
1252

so much for the blue skies of ooooolster

1253

It’s the good Lords way of thanking them
A hot day would be uncomfortable for marching

The loyal sons of Ulster match on

1 Like
1254

A few mobility scooters in the parade that passed the house here this morning. Looking at the age profile they might be as well off just having the band march in future, with all other participants in one of them novelty trains you get for going around wildlife parks.

11 Likes
1255

If the 12th was a public holiday would many non participants in the 12th celebrations travel south ? Or would they be afraid to leave their homes for fear they were wrecked ?

1256

A lot leave their homes anyway I always thought?

1257

I wouldn’t know.

1258

This is always Ballybunions busiest week of the year, flooded with yellow reg plates.

1 Like
1259

I was working in Dublin Airport the morning of Sunday July 10th, 2005. It was a very hot and sunny morning and the place was festooned with people wearing Armagh and Tyrone jerseys, all of them on their way off the island, rather than joining me in going to Croke Park later that day, where Armagh and Tyrone were contesting the Ulster final.

1260

image
image900×506 75.8 KB

1261

Belfast and Ballymena are the only places which hold annual Twelfth demonstrations.

I’m fascinated by the “rotations” of venues for The Twelfth, particularly the Co. Armagh demonstration - the biggest and best Orange demonstration in the world.

Co. Armagh works on an 11 year rotation. This year’s venue Lurgan last hosted in 2010, - it was due to host in 2021 but had to wait, given the two pandemic affected years.

The full rotation has been:
2010: Lurgan
2011: Killylea
2012: Keady
2013: Newtownhamilton
2014: Markethill
2015: Bessbrook
2016: Portadown
2017: Richhill
2018: Loughgall
2019: Tandragee
2022: Armagh
2023: Lurgan

Killylea next year should be epic. I’d strongly advise everybody to go around Killylea on Google Street View. It makes Clones look like New York. Imagine 40,000 people converging on Killylea for the demonstration, down to the field, the speeches, the religious service, and then the parade back. A special experience.

The Mid-Ulster/South Tyrone demonstration works on a seven year rotation, this year it’s Dungannon - other venues are Benburb (2015), Coagh (2016), Cookstown (2017), Stewartstown (2018), Pomeroy (2019) and Castlecaulfield (2022). So next year we’ll be back to Benburb.

Then at the other end of the scale you have the “Triangle” demonstration, which works on a three year rotation between Portglenone, Cullybackey and Ahoghill.

I’d fucking love to attend a 12th of July parade in Ahoghill. The dourness would be intoxicating. Fancy it next year, @mickee321?

4 Likes
1262

Huge amount of yellow regs at the M1 toll heading southbound one July 11th evening before when I hit it. The racetrack here has their ladies day on today as they know there’s a huge amount of people down from the north.

1263

I get great joy reading through all those northern place names & associating them with different things/events before moving onto the next one & repeating the drill.

The association could be anything from a stop-off for a choc ice when attending a Wexford game in Derry/Londonderry, to a Stephen Watson motorcycling race report on BBC NI Sport, a massacre during the Troubles, the home place of a great Irish gael (e.g. Adrian Cush, Cookstown, or Willie Frazer RIP, Markethill) and so on.

Sometimes my lack of knowledge about my fellow Irish & British neighbours in the northern part of the island shames me. I fully support Patrick Costello(e) TD’s call for July 12th to become a national holiday for the entire 32 counties.

2 Likes
1264

1 Like
1265

Adrian Cush is from Donaghmore.

Mugsy is from Cookstown though.

My favourite place names from the Wee Six are Ahoghill, Cullybackey, Donemana (spelled by local Taigs such as Brian Dooher as Dunnamanagh) and Rasharkin. I don’t even know where Rasharkin is, but it sounds very Protestant.

The sort of places you’d be afraid to venture into, and if you did, you’d do a quick scan, and get the fuck out of. And yet you’d like to stay around for a while if you could, just not be noticed, because your face screams “Southern Catholic”.

There’s something about Protestant NI that evokes smells in the same way that these dirt track places on British Lions tours to South Africa evoke smells, feelings.

You can nearly smell the champ and soda farls off these place names. You can hear the cries of “Fred, there’s no bread” and “Fairhill, it’s a big shappin’ centre in Ballehmena”. You can visualise the ads for Nambarrie tea bags and Richardsons fertilisers and Dale Farm ice cream and Stewarts’ supermarkets, and the hockey pitch where they’d show highlights at 5:05pm on a Saturday on BBC1, and the faces of NI television luminaries such as Pamela Ballantyne, Julian Simmons, Rose Neill and Linda Bryans, and politicians such as Willie Ross, James Molyneaux, Lord John Kilclooney (is he still tweeting?) and of course the big man himself.

There’s something about the middle class Protestant commuter belt around Belfast that fascinates me. These places with their arches, and their outward properness masking deeper currents. Saintfield, Moira, Randalstown, Ballyclare, Comber, Newt’naaaurds.

My auntie’s partner’s brother (who I’ve never met) lives in Newt’naaaurds. He’s a big Dubs fan and comes down for the games. I wonder when he’s driving down does he pull in at Sprucefield to reveal his colours, and then pull in again on the way back to cover them up.

My oul’ fella once went to an Orange march for the hell of it. It was in 1969 and it was in Markethill. His oul’ fella, then in the latter stages of terminal cancer, inquired that night where he had been all day, and then when he found out, hit the roof. “You fucking idiot, are you trying to get yourself killed?” The eyewitness report said the marchers had faces like burst tomatoes. But if you kept your head down, 'twas grand.

8 Likes
1266

I stopped in a little village between Strabane and Derry for 20 smokes one time on the way up to the in laws. They accepted euros so i handed in a 20 note and they gave me some uk change. I immediately thought they were pulling a fast one so queried my change. ‘You’re in the north now pal’. From the tone I immediately sensed I wasn’t their pal at all and made haste out the door.

9 Likes
1267

Yous lads are about as realistic, believable and clued in as the average big windy blowy American

3 Likes