Читать книгу The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions - Ruth Edwards Dudley - Страница 25

The Apprentice Boys, though Protestant, are essentially secular and their club meetings therefore are primarily social. ‘I’m not a member of the Orange,’ said one. ‘But we get called “Orange bastards” anyway.

‘I joined for traditional reasons. My father was in it and my son’s in it. It is a city-based organization with the headquarters here in Londonderry. People join to keep up tradition. Most Protestants in Londonderry are now Apprentice Boys, though the business and professional people have mostly opted out over the last thirty or forty years. It’s now mainly working class. People with a shop wouldn’t want to be seen as one tradition only and perhaps lose custom from the majority of the citizens who are about 70 per cent nationalists.

‘The ABs believe that the siege was one of the most historic events in the British Isles and all citizens should be proud of it. We see ourselves as keepers of the true tradition of that siege, because no one else has bothered down through the years. And in that remembrance, what basically we’re doing is remembering the triumph of spirit and the supreme sacrifice made by up to 10,000 of those defenders. The tercentenary of that event in 1989 was really basically only celebrated here although it should have been celebrated all over the British Isles.’

There are no masonic overtones among the Apprentice Boys, no secret signs or grips. Essentially, it is historically rather than religiously driven, with its activities centred on its two main parades in August and December. With about an eighth of the number of members of the Orange Order, it means that the vast majority of Apprentice Boys would be Orangemen, but many Orangemen would not be Apprentice Boys. ‘We think we’re more unique than the Orange,’ observed a senior Apprentice Boy. ‘Wherever you live, you can only be initiated as a full member in Derry. And we believe that we have more companionship and are that wee bit more special than the Orange.’