S: On the 12th of July the Orangemen a/k/a the Protestant Boys of Northern Ireland annually celebrate their ongoing colonial status by walking through the streets of Belfast and Derry, banging big drums, setting fires, and flaunting the Union Jack flag. (Roman Catholics – 41% of the population – are no more offended by the sight of the Union Jack than are African Americans by the sight of the Confederate Stars and Bars.)
The invaluable Index to the Wake provides two Joycean references to these peculiar folk:
“like a rudd yellan gruebleen orangeman in his violet indigonation” (FW 23 1, 2)
“We think its a gorsedd shame, these godoms. A lark of limonladies! A lurk of orangetawneymen!” (FW 361. 23, 24).
sum mer de le wake 