The history of the Orange Order; the facts that are not often brought to light, but are still facts, need to come out as well. I hadn't read Conrad's thread when I posted it. I did that out in 'Word, and cut and pasted it in. I had no idea of how much space it would take off. I started in 1795 and I took in 200 years.

There are many who will say that less is best, or whatever, and I agree with them, to an extent. Even if I wanted to, though, I couldn't have put all of that into a screen sized frame.

There's an amazing amount of reasons and theories abounding, and what I said to Wolfgang up there, is not wrong. History has a tendency to be created by whoever is it's guardian. Why can that same premise be at least considered when we speak of an organisation that defined the practice of Freemasonry

And I take Spaw's point. It should have been on a website. But my literacy, alas, does not take me down the avenue that leads to web page publishing. At least not in the short term. I think I would find it less of a hassle were I to do the same again except with the Eleven Years Tyranny as the subject matter.

But I wanted people to at least consiider it as being from a person who is from the place, and knows the inner workings of that town from a first hand level. I am (was born) a Catholic, but I grew up on the other side of town. So it is not necessarily my story

It is not 'A' story, however. It is a history. And as Spaw has graciously pointed out, I replayed a lot of that pain, and pent-up frustration, but I had to try to be objective about the whole thing as much as possible.

What is at the very nub of the debate about the Garvaghy Road, the Lower Ormeau Road, in Belfast, and other flashpoints, is the rights of the minority.

The rights of the minority to live in peace. They don't want to fight. They want to be left alone. They are not banging on the door of the Chief Constable demanding their right to march right in to the middle of Protestant Portadown.

Had any of you lived in such a situation, you may be able to understand this. When my father used to screw the wooden window shutters that were lined with Plate Steel to the inside of our windows at night - not one night in the year - 365 of them, block up the letter-box and triple lock the Front Door, we thought this as normal.

That's the reality of the situation, and it has been, as I have noted already on this page continuing since long before the Orange Order came about.

The reason for it's length?

A man's gotta say what a man's gotta say, I guess

B.