Jane Pearson & Bill Wheeler J T Pearson Outdoor Training 12 Mountfort Street Outram New Zealand Tel. 643 486 1363 jtpoutdoor@xtra.co.nz ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kimberley Walters" <walterskk@hotmail.com> To: <IRL-CAVAN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 6:11 PM Subject: Re: [IRL-CAVAN] Orangemen > Hi, > > > > For those who are truly interested in understanding the historical events > and the political, social, and religious atmosphere our ancestors survived > through, and an awareness of the Orange Order from the organization itself, > I would highly recommend a lengthy visit to the following website: > http://www.orangenet.org/ > This site is rich with details and emotion that many of our history books > lack. If anyone knows of a similiar site that could enlighten us on > perspectives from the Catholic side it would be helpful to us all to be > aware of it. Roddy Doyle has a novel , "The Times of Henry King " or some such (I never remember titles) about a young recruit to the IRA during the 1916 rising which is a good read. > > It is a sad reminder of Ireland's difficult and war-torn past that people > who love her still do battle with not just bullets and blades but emotion > and words as well. I pray that those of us that have descended from the > labor and sacrifice and strength and grit of these people will make them > proud by finding another way. Faith will always be with us, politics will > most likely be with us just as long, but learning from those who have gone > before is what enbles us to rise above and make the future better. We may > look back on the things that have been done and be saddened by them, but if > we try to interpret them through the eyes of the current generation I think > we will fail to understand what our grandfathers and our great-grandmothers > were truly like. To be tolerant of those who practice of their faith > differs from our own is only possible for us today because of the world (or > perhaps I should day nations) we are blessed to live in. We do not face > being burned alive before our families because we are Protestant, we do not > have to choose between our form of worship and our right to own property > because we are Catholic, and we do not live in a time when our very lives > risk being turned inside out because one King died and his opposite takes > his place. Ours is a different world and we owe it to our forefathers to > truly try to understand theirs. I think if we do we will find them amazing > people, all of them. Well said, wish I could put it so well. But we need to remember that our cushy lives are not the experience of everyone in the world today and that there is still so much hatred out there which festers away until it errupts in violence, Rwanda and Yugoslavia spring to mind. So we do have modern parallels which can maybe give us clues to the past and where things went wrong. I wonder how many of our ancestors felt the way we do about it but were too scared or too apathetic to speak out, of course the ones that did got short shrift.How I wonder would we react today if our world was full of violence and persecution of other people was the norm. How many of us would have the courage to try and do something about it or would we go our ways because did not affect us directly. Here is much of the problem I feel with modern Ireland, people have got used to living with it and so they cope with the daily violence. > > My great-grandfather, James Drury, emigrated with his parents and siblings > from Bailieborough, Cavan at the end of the 1800's. He was an Orangeman, as > were his brothers, and they marched every July 12th in the parade in > Melfort, Saskatchewan. I have old photos and newspaper clippings of them in > kilts and banners, one playing the drums and my g-grandfather playing his > fife. They were not violent, they were not angry, they were celebrating > what it meant to be proud to love their homeland, to be willing to stand up > for their faith (as all people of faith should), and to gather together in a > sense of oneness that only those displaced from their home can share. My > g-grandfather may not have wanted his daughter to marry a Catholic, but he > never taught his family hatred and he didn't desire bigotry. For his sake I > speak out, not to defend Protestantism or Orangemen, but to defend our > ancestors rights to feel powerfully about the events that had such an impact > on their lives. > And that is how it should be, rememberance but a party for all. It is unfortunate that some people in Ireland look upon these events as a chance to lord it over another community and to intimidate them with the reminder of who is the boss and who beat who in a battle hundreds of years ago. I feel that although the times are ancestors were in may have been different , their thoughts and feelings were not so different from our own, most of them wanted a quiet, healthy life and the chance to bring up their children in peace and prosperity. it's just a pity that so often the way to attain those ideals seems to have involved trampling the other guy into the mud! Sorry I'm so cynical, but why does the human race NEVER learn? I blame the politicians:-) jane > > > > > >