It is only since May that the Northern Ireland Assembly, established under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, has been able to resume meeting at Stormont Castle near Belfast. The Orange Order is in a make or break situation. Additional elements such as the paramilitaries have now got involved. Like the Orangemen, they too are feeling marginalized. The Rev. William Laverty, an Irish Methodist minister and member of the Orange Order himself, agreed.
People feel they have lost a lot and have given a lot, on both sides.
Now it's down to just one. This is not just a walk down the road for the Orangemen. Rae said his congregation faces another marching season with understandable dread. They want to completely and utterly distance themselves from it all but don't know how. They are afraid of intimidation and abuse if they do.