“Don’t worry about policing most of us, just the inevitable few…” Nobody asks why an event with 4,500 marchers and 4,000 spectators needs 3,000 stewards. In one dazzling sentence he seemed to take the police to task for putting too many officers at the scene, before ending up in the same place we visit every year: “We have over 3000 stewards trained at this moment in time which allows the police perhaps to reduce their numbers and concentrate on any disorder that may arise from the followers of our parade.” Eddie Hyde, the Order’s general secretary, managed to plumb new depths of insincerity and callousness.
This time a 12 year old girl was struck by a glass bottle (take a second, and think how it comes to be that someone at an organised event, with stewards and policing, could throw a glass bottle in the presence of a child). It’s enough to make anyone thankful for being out of the city on the weekend it takes place. And, in the mid-afternoon, once the crowd is appropriately liquored-up you can take in the spectacle of Catholic churches being circled, the music and slogans now overtly sectarian and violent. Later, a walk to the shops might be made more difficult by the throng of people, enough already visibly drunk at 11am to put you off sticking around too long. It might start with one of their bands tuning up the martial obviousness of their flute sections being undercut by the ominous thud of a marching drum. It made headlines this year, again, for its associations with what we now call ‘anti-social behaviour’ but might better be called “anti-society behaviour.” Anyone familiar with the West of the Central Belt, and regrettably some other areas too, will be familiar with the Orange Order’s presence. Which was fortunate as it turns out, for back home in Glasgow the Orange Order were holding 12 th of July marches, lurching through Glasgow Green and other parts of the city’s centre. The sun was shining, the sea at its glistening azure best and a warmth in the air that didn’t threaten to dissipate at the first sign of clouds. And why not? It’s not like there was a reason not to be. What were you doing on Saturday afternoon? I was in Rothesay, milling around the town centre. 12 year old Kellsie Lynch, hit by a bottle in the face at Saturday’s Orange Order march, (photo Wullie Marr/Deadline News)
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