It took me eighten years to come back for ‘The Tweltfth’.  After leaving for university on the mainland (really just to get my head showered) at 19, I finally got the energy to come home for the 12th July this year.
 
Ulsters “national” holiday, it is a time – a whopping, economy-bashing two weeks – when our now temporary little Western European statelet comes pretyy much to a standstill.  Time reverts to an obscure Battle of 1689, when “our” (he was actually hired from Holland) glorious King Billy came and conquered “their” Catholic pretender, James II.  The merits of the battle are dubious and it was even fought on what is to Protestants very much foreign soil.
 
Not so foreign now.
 
In 1998 post-Paisleyite Ulster saw the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, (GFA) peace accord, which gave both elected Irish republicans and Eire itself a direct say in our affairs for the first time. This led to a series of progressive measures from our own loyalist community, starting with a halt to murdering innicent Catholics, and recently culminating in the (supposed) decommissioning of loyalist paramiliatary weaponry.
 
So I thought it was time, at the ripe old age of 37, to head home and see what all the fuss was about. How have things changed and what do our Orange and Green folk each think of the modern 12th fortnight?
 
“I cuddin give two f*** ” was the first reply from one of my RC frineds. “United Ireland, 30 til 40 years, then its ours. Youse uns ll be f*****”, he reassured me.
 
My ‘Orangey’ friends certainly wont be so happy then.  Howevert the GFA carefully set out a blueprint guaranteeing the security of the current RC minority now, and in the future (whenever that may be) that of the P minority. There will be none of our alleged triumphalism on the 12th day then, that’s for sure.
 
It is the ‘11th night’, when us loyalists burn bonfires and sing about our victory some 300 years ago.  I try to translate my Catholic friend’s realism of an impending United Ireland to my fellow Proddies:
 
“F*** it, wu’ll gee and live un Scotland” says an optimistic must-be-nearing 100 year old woman drinking a bottle of cider at our local ’bonie’.  Her accent seems to have adapatedto her future homeland already, or maybe its the cider.
 
With rave music blasting out (until 3am) from a hired PA, many loyalists dont seem to know (or care) that all these fires and flutes now need to take a serious shift in direction  And shifting it is.  Driving over to our fellow peace-loving loyalists on the Shankill Road, I found a bonfire unlike one Id ever seen, here or in England on 5 November. How could an Orange bonfire be green as well?
 
“Wu gat rid ‘o le tyres years ago, our kid” says a proud loyalist leader, a new ‘community worker’ who has ensured a festival feel to his own area’s bonfire this year.  “We’d still stick a Fenian on tap’ p if the’ whe cud, like”.   The rain hammers down on the singing loyalists.
 
Somethings never change, and its time to go home for a packet of Tayto cheese n onion and a warm, lightly shaded Orange duvet.  This is what our Protestant/loyalist/Orange etc clture is now about, and we yearn the day when the Norn Iron football team have a ground where both RC and Ps and watch the team without fear, munching away together.
 
The future at least looks brigher if not so Orange, for our Glorious, laborious Ulster.