Orange Cultural Performance: Band and Parades

This chapter interrogates the most public aspect of the Orange Order: their parades. In particular, it focuses on material culture and the public perception of the Orange Order as a bigoted and violent organisation. The first section outlines the large amount of legislative change that occurred in Ireland and the Orange diaspora. Often the legislation focused on either banning or controlling parades. This type of legislation also affected other fraternal organisations who wanted to parade. The section closes with an analysis of the attempts by the Irish and Scottish Orange Order to find ways to mitigate the negative publicity around their parades. The second section analyses the many reasons for the decline of Orange parades including legislative changes, falling membership, secularisation, demographic change through migration, and a falling off in anti-Catholicism. The chapter argues that images from media, particularly in Northern Ireland, and the behaviour by various band members at parades, have cemented the Orange Order’s negative image and that it is the bands participating in the Orange parades have kept parades going. This musical tradition has been a drawcard to young people but, alternatively, does not necessarily translate into membership of the Orange Order.