Time Marches On

For three thousand days they have protested. Three thousand days of holding a grudge. Three thousand days of feeling put upon.

On Saturday night, the Portadown Orange Order had their march, to let the world know that they have suffered these last three thousand days. For three thousand days, they have been prevented from marching through the Catholic neighborhoods, to show them who's the boss, and they turned out on Saturday to show their displeasure. Yes, they turned out in their thousands....strike that. They turned out in their hundreds. All five hundred of them.

The Drumcree parade went past St. John's Catholic Church on the Garvaghy Road, past the Drumcree Church of Ireland and on to the bridge that they have not been allowed to march across. How unfair that they cannot parade further along the Garvaghy Road, with their bands and banners and sashes. How hysterically funny that these bowler-hatted dinosaurs think that anyone much cares anymore about them and their petty upset.

There was taunting by the few nationalists who came out to watch the protest. Ha, ha, they sneered, two-nil. It was the score of an afternoon soccer match, with Celtic defeating the Rangers. Not to be outdone, the loyalists threw back their own taunts -- mocking the murder of Michael McIlveen. That pretty much describes the vast gulf between the two camps.

Even the parade's organizers had to concede that Drumcree is not the hot button issue it used to be. Then again, the IRA is not what it used to be since they swore off violence and disarmed. It has recently been demonstrated with piles of facts and figures that Protestants in the north of Ireland aren't anywhere near as disadvantaged as Catholics, and the Catholics are still getting the short end of the stick when it comes to jobs and public aid. Everything that the Orangemen insisted was true has been shown to be false.

The world has kept on spinning while the Orangemen stood still. Now the world has passed them by. Ah yes, the dinosaurs.