Northern Ireland:The Orange Order has become a fashionable subject of study. Ruth Dudley Edwards, Brian Kennaway, Dominic Bryan, Neil Jarman, David Fitzpatrick and Henry Patterson have all done valuable recent work on this enduring institution, and these two new books by Eric Kaufmann and Mervyn Jess join an already well-stocked shelf.
Indeed, while Kaufmann rightly notes that many people find the Order to be an "incomprehensible organisation", there is increasingly little excuse for their doing so. His own book studies the Orange story in depth from the 1920s onwards and it does so impressively on the basis of thorough and original research. There is detailed discussion of intra-Orange argument and debate (not always the most glamorous of topics), and friction predictably forms the backdrop to much of the text. There is the lengthy and adversarial tension between the Order and Ian Paisley; there is Orange approval of the (disastrous) policy of internment in Northern Ireland in the early and turbulent 1970s; the Order mobilises angrily against Sunningdale in the 1970s and against the Anglo-Irish Agreement just over a decade later; there are the 1990s battles of Drumcree; and there is public Orange Order hostility towards the 1998 Belfast Agreement.
For the Northern Ireland Troubles form the political and painful context for the institution's latter-day history. The Orange Order lost 500 men to the conflict, and vulnerability is a major part of the story which Kaufmann tells. He cites one Fermanagh Lodge circulating its members in 1980 to poignant effect: "During the present terrorist campaign our hall was vandalised by republican elements. Two farmhouses in the area were also attacked by republicans and one farmer was burnt out of his homestead. The Protestant school in the village of Rosslea was destroyed by a large proxy bomb, which was left outside the RUC station. The school has now been closed and the pupils have been transferred to another school. The last remaining Protestant businessman in the village was shot dead in his supermarket by the Provos".
VULNERABILITY LAY ON all sides, of course. But it is interesting, against the setting of the bloody Troubles, to read Kaufmann's measured analysis of the Order's approach to paramilitary violence. He notes that some paramilitaries were Orangemen and he rightly identifies instances of paramilitary activity by members of the Order. But he repeatedly and rightly makes the point that the Orange Order has overwhelmingly opposed the use of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland. It has been very keen to sideline paramilitary elements and has argued strongly against the use of such methods. "The Orange Order and much of popular Unionism were repulsed by paramilitarism", Kaufmann points out; there was a "very real stand taken by the Institution against paramilitary violence".
The Orange story is one marked by great change, whether in terms of Orange attitudes towards drink, and attendance at Catholic funerals, or in terms of the more substantial matter of a decline in Orange political influence once direct rule from Britain had replaced Stormont government in 1972. The Order's social profile has also changed, with a collapse of the squirearchy that once predominated. And the 1990s parade-related conflict has seen a combination of nationalist resident opposition and RUC-backed parading restrictions bring about a change in power relations, with a limiting of Orange power. No parades have taken place at Drumcree, for example, since 1997.
What do these changes imply for the future of the Order? Kaufmann argues that it "will continue to have a cultural role as custodian of the Ulster-Protestant collective memory even if Northern Ireland's political situation normalises", and he notes that the Order is younger in composition than some might assume: 20 per cent of members are under 30, and only 25 per cent are over 60 years of age. But there has been a problem of declining membership, a result of difficulty with recruitment rather than with an exodus of existing members. Mobility, in particular, has tended adversely to affect levels of Orange membership, the expansion of road networks damaging the Order's numbers.
Kaufmann argues that "Orangeism thrives best when local Protestants feel under siege, but not defeated"; "Orange participation is especially strong in Nationalist areas like South Down, South Armagh, Derry, and West Belfast". This suggests that it is indeed likely to have a role in the new Northern Ireland, with the institution's convivial, symbolic and political functions alike continuing to have value to sections of the Protestant population.
This book is not without its flaws. The author at one point refers to the IRA's "1995 ceasefire"; at another he confuses Roy with Robert Bradford; he has Billy Wright as a "UVF paramilitary leader" in 1997; and he misdates the referendum on the Belfast Agreement. But the work remains a scholarly and valuable addition to the literature on this important subject.
WELCOME TOO IS Mervyn Jess's new book on the same topic. The author is a senior BBC journalist in Northern Ireland and he knows his subject well, having covered it for many years. His own father was an Orangeman and the book reflects an impressive understanding of the nature and culture of the institution.
Jess deals with the Order's long history, from its 18th-century foundation; he observes that the institution "has never been far from conflict"; he notes the different outlooks respectively characterising rural and urban lodges; and he does not ignore the darker aspects of his subject, including events surrounding Drumcree.
The great strengths of the book are its attractive readability and its wealth of interview quotation, from Orangemen and opponents alike. In letting these voices be heard, Jess has produced a fresh and vivid account that valuably complements Kaufmann's more scholarly study.
Richard English is professor of politics at Queen's University, Belfast. His book, Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism, in Ireland won the Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize for 2007
The Orange Order: A Contemporary Northern Irish History By Eric P Kaufmann Oxford University Press, 373pp. £30 The Orange Order By Mervyn Jess The O'Brien Press, 279pp. €11.95