Orange Order showed it isn’t just words

He correctly quotes me as saying what happened in Crumlin on the 12th helped the Orange to ‘regain a lot of the ground many thought they had lost around the early days of Drumcree’. He then says the Orange Order had no need ‘to apologise or grovel in order to walk the Queen’s Highway’.

So perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. No-one should have to grovel to walk legally. My point was that the slow response to the arrival of troublemakers who had nothing to do with the Order and who simply used Drumcree as an excuse for violence had damaged the institution.

Surely the lesson that should have been learned above all others over the past 40 years is that allowing those with violent intent to piggyback on fair and legitimate causes is a recipe for disaster.

What happened in Crumlin showed that when the Orange Order says it believes in civil and religious liberty for all, those aren’t just words - they’re backed up by deeds.

Observer