The decline in the Protestant population in parts of Northern
Ireland has been well documented and it has been reflected
by the closure of a number of churches and schools.
Intimidation has played a big part in this movement of population
and the violence or threat of it continues. In the past month,
petrol bomb attacks have continued in Londonderry on the Fountain
estate, the last remaining Protestant enclave on the west
bank of the Foyle.
There have been other reasons of course, including the drift
of Protestants from towns where they are in the minority to
places where their co-religionists form the majority.
This drift has resulted in a number of Orange Halls having
to be sold because the numbers are no longer there.
Downpatrick is one such town, where only one Orange Lodge
exists, where once there were four Lodges. The Orange Hall
in Downpatrick was sold a few months ago.
The latest Orange Hall to be placed on the open market is
that at Portaferry on the Ards Peninsula, and as in the case
of Downpatrick, this is due to falling numbers.
It's a sad situation as there are many years of tradition
firmly embedded in all Orange Halls, but sometimes the inevitable
has to be faced and the brethren cannot be blamed for facing
up to the facts, however unpalatable these might be.
The brethren south of the border have faced this situation
for generations, and throughout many parts of the Republic
former Orange Halls lie abandoned, or used for other purposes.
The Fowler Hall in Dublin, once the headquarters of the Grand
Orange Lodge of Ireland, was seized by the anti-Treaty IRA
in 1922 and many important records and documents were destroyed.
The Orange Order was forced to move its headquarters north,
first to Portadown, and then a year later to Belfast. Once
flourishing Lodges in the South were forced to close because
members were intimidated out of the country.
An 'Orange Standard' reader revealed a few years ago, how
he visited the town of Bandon in Co. Cork, once a place with
a great Orange tradition, and stood outside the Allin Institute.
That's where the Ldoges of Bandon once met, and it has not
been used for that purpose since 1922 when many local Protestants
were murdered and hundreds of others forced to flee to Britain.
So the closure of Orange Halls is nothing new, but on a more
optimistic note, new Halls have been built in Northern Ireland
to serve new suburbs, and other Halls have been extended and
modernised.
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