All during my early childhood, my mother and father took all the family to Donegal during the 'Twelfth Fortnight'.

The misery that that march left in its wake every year; the fear that the frenzy they wound themselves up in, could at any time come crashing through your windows, and set your house on fire was very real and very imminent.

I helped my father put up shutters on our windows every night I was in the house... for 12 years.

All because of their 'Traditional Route', and the fact that being a Catholic in the middle of a Protestant area conflicted with their idea of an 'ethnically clean' housing estate.

It's the ones who died trying to protect their homes that I remember, and I hope to God that all marches through Nationalist areas cease forthwith.

But then again, we're talking abou the Orange Order. They preach segregation.

'Weary old heroes of a forgotten war'
(Bogle)

B.