Sounds of battle echo through ages in N. Ireland

By Staff
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BOYNE VALLEY, Ireland, July 11: It was not one of history's headline battles it was brief and casualties were relatively light but for Northern Ireland's Protestants, the Battle of the Boyne is the cradle of their cultural identity.

Described by one historian as little more than ''dawn to dusk skirmishing through cornfields'', the 1690 battle is commemorated by Protestants each July, and for years those celebrations and the protests around them became bywords for the sectarian passions and hatreds that tore the province apart.

Members of the Protestant Orange Order, wearing orange sashes and black bowler hats, still march each year under bright banners to the thunderous sound of drums and pipes.

For Northern Ireland's Roman Catholic minority, the parades are a triumphalist display. The marches often spark violence in the British-ruled province where 3,600 people were killed in three decades of conflict before a 1998 peace deal.

Since the Good Friday accord, the violence has dwindled but the parades retain their significance.

Historians say the battle, fought in the Boyne valley in what is now the Irish Republic and commemorated on July 12, helped define Protestants' still fragile sense of themselves.

The battle was between the army of England's deposed Catholic King James II and forces led by his Dutch Protestant son-in-law William of Orange.

William's victory, after a day of clashes among 60,000 troops across the rolling countryside around the Boyne river, ended Catholic rule in England and secured Protestant ascendancy in Britain and Ireland.

For Protestants in Ireland -- mainly settlers from England and Scotland planted' on confiscated land in the early 17th century -- the outcome was hugely important.

''It was so significant because of Ulster Protestants' position in Ireland as a minority within the island as a whole but as a dominant political elite,'' said Neil Jarman, director of the Institute of Conflict Research in Belfast.

''The battle is seen as the origin myth for Protestants in the north of Ireland where the Plantation had been most successful in establishing them.''

''CELEBRATION OF SURVIVAL''

The annual parades, says Orange Order archivist Cecil Kilpatrick, represent the Protestant community marking the establishment of its rights and liberties.

''To some extent the Twelfth is a celebration of survival the Ulster Protestant community has always been beleaguered, besieged and bewildered and they've survived another year, so it's a kind of defence mechanism,'' he told Reuters.

''We tend to feel we're surrounded and circling the wagons, as it were, and it's been like that since the Plantation.'' The power-sharing peace deal between majority Protestants dedicated to links with Britain and a Catholic minority in favour of a united Ireland, did not end those feelings and it is now on ice because feuding politicians cannot agree on a decision-making executive.

Last September, Protestant rioters hurled petrol bombs and fired shots at police in the worst unrest for years, and analysts said the riots reflected insecurity among a community which sees itself as sidelined by the British government. Before the peace deal, the Orange Order's July parades were lightning rods for such tensions on both sides especially because the marches often followed traditional routes through what had become Catholic-dominated areas.

''If you talk to the average Catholic on the street in Belfast and ask them what Orange parades are about they'll say 'it's stupid and it's about annoying us','' said Malachi O'Doherty, a Belfast-based writer and broadcaster.

''They perhaps might not understand the complexities of it but I think it's seen surely as about marking out territory and also about retaining territory that was lost, because the Catholic population has been expanding.'' Many nationalists also regard the Battle of the Boyne as a crucial step towards the institution of full British rule in Ireland up until the early 20th century.

In 1923, the Irish Republican Army guerrilla group blew up a large monument on the Boyne site, and six years later destroyed a statue of William of Orange outside Dublin's Trinity College.

RECONCILIATION

While the Battle of the Boyne finds its greatest resonance in Northern Ireland, it was not just a local row the result affected dynastic and political structures across Europe.

William was affiliated to a pan-European alliance of countries dedicated to resisting Catholic King Louis XIV of France's would-be expansionism across the continent.

Ironically, because the Vatican was also part of this alliance known as the League of Augsburg some of William's soldiers marched under Papal banners. His adversary James was backed by English, Belgian and French contingents.

The site of the battle which already attracts up to 20,000 visitors each year was bought by the Irish government in 2000 to encourage reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

A Georgian mansion on the Boyne estate is to be converted into a high-tech multimedia and interpretative centre. A walled peace garden will also be built to remember those who died.

Announcing 15 million euros (19.2 million dollars) in funding last year, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said the government recognised the significance of the battle for Protestants.

He noted that while William's victory was a point of pride for one religious tradition, it was associated with political loss and marginalisation by the other.

''What is undisputed,'' he said, ''is that the outcome of the battle had a major influence on the long-term political development of Ireland.''

REUTERS

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