t, as through every town and village of Orange Ulster, ending
up with a vast meeting at which the glories of William of Orange
and the reverses of James II. are celebrated in song.... Each
'lodge' sends its delegation to the procession with banners and
drums. On the flags are various devices: 'Diamond Heroes,' 'True
Blues,' 'No Pope.' The participants give themselves over to
character dances, shouting out their favourite songs: 'The Boyne
Water' and 'Croppies Lie Down.' The chief part is played by the
drummers, the giants of each 'lodge,' who with bared arms beat
their drums with holy fury, their fists running with blood, until
the first drum breaks and many more after it, until in the evening
they fall half-dead in an excess of frenzy."

Such is the laboratory in which the mind of Orange Ulster is prepared to
face the tasks of the twentieth century. Barbaric music, the ordinary
allowance of drum to fife being three to one, ritual dances, King
William on his white horse, the Scarlet Woman on her seven hills, a
grand parade of dead ideas and irrelevant ghosts called up in wild
speeches by clergymen and politicians--such is Orangeism in its full
heat of action. Can we, with this key to its intellectual history, be
really astonished that Shankhill Road should move all its life in a red
mist of superstition. The North of Ireland abounds in instances, trivial
and tragic, of this obsession. Here it is the case of the women of a
certain town who, in order to prevent their children from playing in a
dangerous swamp close by, have taught them that there are "wee Popes" in
it. There it is a case of man picked up, maimed and all but unconscious
after an accident, screwing up his lips to utter one last "To Hell with
the Pope!" before he dies. I remember listening in Court to the
examination of an old Orangeman who had been called as a witness to the
peaceable disposition of a friend of his. "What sort of man," asked the
counsel, "would you say Jamie Williamson is?" "A quiet, decent man." "Is
he the sort of man that would be likely to be breaking windows?" "No man
less likely." "Is he the sort of man that you would expect to find at
the head of a mob shouting, 'To Hell with the Pope'?" Witness, with
great emphasis: "No. Certainly not. Jamie was never any ways a
_religious_ man." These bewildering corruptions of sense and sanity
overwhelm you at every turn. Ask your neighbour offh