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Cavan, like its neighbour Monaghan, has a long and proud
Orange history, and many of the most ardent members of the
Order have hailed from those counties, which still witness
bravely for the Orange cause in the Irish Republic. Happily,
there is a far more tolerant attitude towards the Orange Order
in these counties, and in counties Donegal and Leitrim than
there was in the early 1920s. A few years ago the writer had
the privilege of attending a large Orange church parade and
service in the heart of Co. Cavan.
It was a hot summer's night, and some 300 Orangemen from
counties Cavan, Monaghan and Leitrim gathered at a crossroads,
where they were joined by about 100 brethren from Northern
Ireland.
Before the parade set off, I spoke to a Garda sergeant and
constable who were present, just to supervise traffic control,
and they spoke highly of the Orangemen and their families.
"If all the folk in this county were of the same calibre
as the Orangemen of Cavan there would be no crime and very
little trouble," the sergeant told me.
The Orangemen paraded to the church service, and afterwards
to a Church of Ireland hall where we had a very enjoyable
evening, with people from a wide area, including women and
children partaking of an excellent meal served by the ladies
of the lodges.
In such circumstances, it is difficult to envisage the desperate
situation which faced the Cavan and Monaghan Orangemen back
in the early 1920s. Like their Donegal brethren, and those
of many other Southern counties, they faced the reality of
becoming citizens of an Irish Free State, and losing their
cherished British citizenship.
Most would have been prepared to stay on and being good citizens,
do their best to adjust to the new circumstances. Alas, rampant
and jubilant republicanism was not prepared to allow these
good folk to settle easily into the new State.
The representatives of the new Irish Free State were determined
to put Protestants especially those of the Orange ilk, in
their place, and it was made clear to them that the 26 would
be a really "cold house" for those with any British
leanings. Further South, the Orangemen of Bandon in Co. Cork,
and many in Dublin and Wicklow were forced out of the country
altogether and their halls either destroyed, requisitioned,
or left as empty hulks, a silent witness to the days when
Orangeism had flourished in most of Ireland.
In Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, the strength of Orange numbers
and the proximity of the border meant that a sizeable number
stayed on in the new Irish Free State, even though they faced
daunting prejudice and trials.
It is very difficult to produce exact numbers, but Orange
sources in Cavan and Monaghan have estimated that well over
half their members left for Northern Ireland, mainland Britain,
or Canada in the early 1920s.
The Northern Ireland newspapers of the time bear testimony
to the exodus and to the distress faced by many Protestant
families from these counties and other parts of the South.
Ulster Unionist MPs at Westminster raised the plight of these
homeless Protestants, many of them living in the most dire
circumstances in London and other parts of England.
Those who moved to Northern Ireland fared a lot better, because
the Orange Order pulled out all the stops to accommodate the
refugees. Many moved to Belfast, and others to large towns
like Portadown, Lisburn, and Banbridge, while others moved
across the border to Fermanagh.
Many of those who settled in Belfast kept the memory of their
home counties alive by forming Orange Lodges and Black preceptories
which bore the names of Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal. Others
simply transferred to Lodges in Northern Ireland and played
a leading role in the Order north of the border.
The Orange Order played a leading role in helping to find
housing and employment for many of those refugees forced out
of Cavan and Monaghan.
Portadown District, for example, pulled out all the stops
to alleviate the plight of scores of Monaghan and Cavan people
who moved to Protestant stronghold in the years 1921 and 1922.
Some families were accommodated for a period in Carleton
Street Orange Hall until houses could be found for them, and
this period was recalled in a book published a few years ago
by the cultural and heritage committee of Portadown District
L.O.L. No.1.
It mentioned the fact that people from Cavan and Monaghan
had been housed in empty houses in streets in the town until
they could decide what to do.
One large family was housed in Mill Avenue close to the Garvaghy
Road area, and the children attended Park Road Primary School
for a few years until the family moved to Belfast.
Another lady and her husband lived in the Armagh Road area,
and another Cavan women married a Portadown man and settled
in the Annagh area.
One of the most staunch Protestants from Cavan who settled
in Portadown was the late Mrs Martha Jackson, a stalwart in
the Orange and Unionist ranks for many years.
Mrs Jackson was a young girl when her family were forced
out of Cavan town because she had brothers serving in the
British Army.
Ironically, her house was to come under attack from republicans
a few years before she died - she was living in the lower
Garvaghy Road area, then being ethnically cleansed of Protestants.
Mrs Jackson, a remarkable lady in many respects, had a cheery
and extremely friendly personality, but as she told the writer
in an interview shortly before her passing, the experience
of being forced from their home wa something the family never
forgot. She couldn't understand the complacent and apathetic
attitude of so many Northern Ireland Protestants, especially
those living in 'safe' areas in the east of the Province.
Mrs Jackson warned that if Ulster Protestants were, through
apathy or ignorance, to allow Northern Ireland to lose its
British identity, the Protestants here would experience the
same persecution and intimidation as their co-religionists
in Cavan and Monaghan did in the 1920s.
It's a sobering thought, but the fact is that the 350,000
Protestant population of the 26 Southern Irish counties in
1920 was reduced within a few years of partition to just over
100,000. A proportion of the 250,000 may have been connected
with the Army and the Civil Service then evacuating Southern
Ireland, but the vast majority were just ordinary rank-and-file
Protestants who did not find the climate in the new Irish
Free State to their liking. Parity of esteem certainly did
not apply to them, and they soon found that their faces did
not fit.
Living in their new surroundings in Northern Ireland, mainland
Britain, or far away in Canada, these good people must have
reflected sadly on the betrayal by a British Government which
sold them out to the IRA at a time when the terrorists were
losing to the Army, Auxiliaries and Black and Tans. But they
must also have recalled with bitterness how former friends
and neighbours of the majority Roman Catholic population turned
against them, making it clear they were not welcome in the
new 'independent Ireland'.
In circumstances such as this, one has to marvel at the courage
and the resilience of the Protestants, especially the Orangemen,
who remained in the Irish Free State.
It would have been easy, and understandable, had they followed
their brethren who moved to more tolerant places. Instead,
they stayed on and witnessed for the Reformed faith. However,
many of the great traditions were removed from them and this
included the right to walk the streets of their towns and
villages on July 12 to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne.
The Cavan and Monaghan Orangemen battled on courageously
until 1932 when the IRA forced the abandonment of the Twelfth
in Newbliss that year.
Since then the Orangemen of the three 'lost counties' have
crossed the border each Twelfth to join with the Northern
Ireland brethren at demonstrations in counties Armagh and
Fermanagh.
The only Orange parade in the South, apart from church parades,
is the highly successful annual demonstration at Rossnowlagh
in Co. Donegal, held annually on the Saturday before the Twelfth.
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