[Ed Shacklee]

I've been reading a bit about the marching season in Northern Ireland, in particular the Orange walks like the Protestant parade through the mostly Catholic neighborhood of Ardoyne in Belfast. However, I haven't yet stumbled across any good poems about the marching season, which is what I would really like to read. Suggestions, anyone?

Thanks,

Ed

[Matt Q]

Orange Drums, Tyrone, 1966
Seamus Heaney

The lambeg balloons at his belly, weighs
Him back on his haunches, lodging thunder
Grossly there between his chin and his knees.
He is raised up by what he buckles under.

Each arm extended by a seasoned rod,
He parades behind it. And though the drummers
Are granted passage through the nodding crowd
It is the drums preside, like giant tumours.

To every cocked ear, expert in its greed,
His battered signature subscribes ‘No Pope’.
The pigskin’s scourged until his knuckles bleed.
The air is pounding like a stethoscope.

[Mark Blaeuer]

John Hewitt:
“The Twelfth of July”
“The Eleventh Night”

Patrick Kavanagh:
https://www.tcd.ie/English/patrickka...hetwelfth.html

Louis MacNeice:
Part XVI of “Autumn Journal”

[John Whitworth]

If you want to hear smething really stirring, look up 'The Bold Orange Heroes of Comber'.

[Ed Shacklee]

Thank you Matt, Mark, and John, this is very helpful. I'd never heard of John Hewitt or "The Bold Orange Heroes of Comber" before, a mark of ignorance against me I'm sure, that I'll now erase.

Best,

Ed

[Gail White]

Perhaps not a marching song, but my favorite Irish Protestant song is "The Old Orange Flute."

[David Anthony]

I think perhaps the most popular Orange marching tune is The Sash my Father Wore:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmi2xJn76NE

I lived in Dublin during the worst of the Troubles. One evening I was out with Irish Catholic friends with a guitar singing rebel and traditional Irish songs. Drink having been taken, I thought it appropriate to sing my rendition of The Sash. There was a surprised pause for a moment, then everybody joined in.

[Ann Drysdale]

For a long time the BBC used Lilliburlero as a signature tune for the World Service broadcasts. Then suddenly they didn't any more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4BZrSj2VU4

Or, in a clearer context...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SISjSXsb1xU

And a more up-to-date one...

http://orangesongbook.blogspot.co.uk...liburlero.html

.

[David Anthony]

Yes, that's a fine marching tune, Annie, though the lyrics are not great.
In some ways it reminds me of Custer's Garryowen.

[David Anthony]

Yes, well, deleted.