Orange Parades: The Politics of Ritual, Tradition and Control

Annotation In the first major study of the Protestant Loyalist Orange Order in Northern Ireland - which grabbed international headlines in 1998 at the standoff in Drumcree -, Dominic Bryan provides a detailed ethnographic and historical study of Orange Order parades. He analyzes the present dispute over the right to march to the structure and development of Orangeism in Northern Ireland. Bryan looks at how the rituals have been exploited and co-opted by specific groups and politicians at different periods of time. He examines the Orange Order throughout history, looking at the development of the parades, the history of disputes over the parades, the structure and politics of the Orange Order, the development of loyalist bands, the role of social class in Unionist politics, and the anthropology of ritual itself. The result is a major addition to the general literature on ritual that will be of interest to anthropologists, those working in peace and conflict studies departments, and anyone interested in contemporary Irish history and politics.