The Orange Order - A Tradition Betrayed (Hardcover)

As Orangemen marched in west Belfast in September of 2005, Protestant paramilitaries fired on army and police in the worst street riots seen in Belfast for 10 years and Northern Ireland's Chief Constable squarely blamed the Orange Order. Now, with publication timed to coincide with the start of the 2006 marching season, an extraordinary book opens the lid on this secretive, powerful and beleaguered organisation whose future is inextricably tied to that of the United Kingdom itself. Established in Ireland in 1795, the Orange Order aimed to promote Protestantism and celebrate the memory of William of Orange. But religious and political allegiances became inseparable.Today, the Order is reduced to around 30,000 active members, increasingly publicly identified with an unyielding, bigoted Unionism expressed in the thousands of marches it stages each year, all too often the flashpoint for violence.