Meanwhile back at the Seanad… July 9, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Northern Ireland.trackback
Interesting stuff that the address by Drew Nelson, Grand Secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland to the Seanad, included, and worth a read.
Anyone know anything about the claim as regards Séan O’Casey in the paragraph below?
I thank the Cathaoirleach for giving me an opportunity to respond to Senators. I realised this morning that the Oireachtas has three Houses, the third of which is Áras an Uachtaráin. We have received at least 14 previous invitations to visit Áras an Uachtaráin, but this is the first time we have been invited to Leinster House. I want to pay tribute to the efforts of President McAleese and Senator McAleese in issuing those invitations, which started to open the lines of communication in a formal way and led to what is happening today. The two university representatives who spoke are welcome to inspect our membership books for Trinity College LOL. One of the signatures in the books shows that Isaac Butt was a member. Senators might be surprised to learn that Seán O’Casey was a member of the Orange institution for some time. Perhaps most of them knew that already. Maybe none of them knew.
I like the last couple of sentences, he’s clearly managed to adopt the curious inflections and sentence construction that one hears there in the Seanad… and all in the space of an hour or two. Kudos to that man.
I wonder is this the first time “LOL” has been uttered in the Seanad. Now taking bets on LMAO and ROFL.
Well, now you mention it…
How does his membership of a Loyal Orange Lodge square with him being a member of the IRB?
Sean O’Casey, that is.
The only way I can explain it is that when he was very young he joined the LOL.
Desmond Greaves’ biography mentions that the church and associated school that O’Casey attended until he was a young man, St Barnabas, had a link with Orangeism but that O’Casey himself was never a member.
According to one biographer of Seán O’Casey, Christopher Murray, the playwright denied he was ever a member : http://books.google.ie/books?id=oozbw4RuwocC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=%22O%27Casey%22+%22Member%22+%22Orange+order%22&source=bl&ots=xmMwdVVwlO&sig=fn5PC0VinyB3OvNXA65SY7DrzSc&hl=en
Now that’s interesting Ciarán and John. I wonder if anyone will bother correcting our public reps?
Ex Senator E Harris?
[...] Orange Grand Master Drew Nelson Puts a Sash on Seán O’Casey [...]
The Orangemen did raise the issue of the Dept of Education’s vendetta against minorities’ schools – if there was any reaction to that from Ruairi Quinn, I didn’t notice it.
Does anyone suspect that the warm welcome extended to the Orange Order by politicians from the main parties may have been strengthened by certain spiteful feelings engendered by Sinn Fein’s rise in the polls?
Meanwhile the tourist industry down here will receive its customary little bonanza as Catholics get out of the North for the Twelfth. Presumably they’re afraid of suffering an overdose of aesthetic bliss on witnessing the fine stirring spectacle on their streets.
I was so moved by Mr. Nelson’s fine address that, in an effort to show my ‘maturity,’ I applied to join the fine uncontentious liberal body which he represents. But apparently I don’t qualify for some reason or other.
Nice to see that when the Order are trying to bulldoze a way through Ardoyne, Crumlin and other such areas that they will feel encouraged by their warm reception in the Republic.