Sir, – With regard to the recent article featuring the Orange Order ("Orangemen parade at Rossnowlagh ahead of July 12th", July 7th), it should be pointed out to your readers that, although the movement may have been founded for good reasons, it went on to become the thread that united working-class unionists with their landed gentry masters against a Catholic minority. The Orange Order propped up a state based on a sectarian head count. All unionist MPs and prime ministers were members. There was even a lodge in RUC. No Catholic can join the order, and no member can marry a Catholic.
The sugar-coated article of July 7th alludes to the “victorious William III laying the foundations for constitutional democracy in Britain”. Unfortunately, these principles were ignored when Ireland was partitioned, with those foundations being undermined by the Orange Order. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL CAREY,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Might the environment be the common ground where the rubber meets the road for nationalist and unionist alike? Good to see a change of climate for once. – Yours, etc,
ULTAN Ó BROIN,
Florence.
Sir, – As I look at your excellent photograph by Liam McBurney of the pyramid of pallets in Larne, I can visualise the plumes of smoke later blackening the skies. Then I notice the solar panels on the houses nearby – the energy of the future against that of the past.
Surely planting orange lilies would do more for the environment? – Yours, etc,
HILARY CARR,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.