“I remember music. The Glorious Twelfth is celebrated in July as a grand march in Belfast to mark the occasion when King Billy of Orange (the Dutch prince who became the Protestant King William III of England, Scotland and Ireland) rousted the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

We lived at a house on Marguerite Park, just off the Upper Lisburn Road where the bands from the Orange Order lodges would parade wearing their dark suits, orange sashes, and white gloves, with their big Lambeg drums beating out the rhythm of The Sash My Father Wore. My mother would play hostess bringing chairs for the family to sit on the crowded sidewalks and watch the marchers with their colorful banners of orange, green and white and pictures of William of Orange proudly displayed. We watched as my father marched by with his lodge and sash, and I remember the music.”

“The word orange,” according to author John McPhee “evolved from Sanskrit.” Originally a Chinese fruit, the orange traveled west through India and into Persia where it became naranj then finally orange in France. An old Roman city in the south of France had a name which sounded somewhat like the local word for orange – auranja – similar to the Spanish word for the fruit. The city eventually came to be known as Orange, and the prince of the city, Philibert of Orange, provided certain services to the Holy Roman Emperor of the time for which he “…was awarded a good part of the Netherlands…The Prince had no immediate heir, and his possessions and titles eventually passed to a German nephew. This was William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, who founded the Dutch Republic and the House of Orange.”(1) It was that subsequent holder of the title Prince of Orange who became William III. The Protestants in England were afraid of a Catholic resurgence and invited William to “invade” on a usual pretext in 1688 and depose James II. Thus, the orange was introduced to Ireland.

So sure I’m an Ulster Orangeman, from Erin’s isle I came,
To see my British brethren all of honour and of fame,
And to tell them of my forefathers who fought in days of yore,
That I might have the right to wear the sash my father wore!

It is old but it is beautiful, and its colours they are fine
It was worn at Derry, Aughrim, Enniskillen and the Boyne.
My father wore it as a youth in bygone days of yore,
And on the Twelfth, I love to wear the sash my father wore.

For those brave men who crossed the Boyne have not fought or died in vain
Our Unity, Religion, Laws, and Freedom to maintain,
If the call should come we’ll follow the drum, and cross that river once more
That tomorrow’s Ulsterman may wear the sash my father wore!

It is old but it is beautiful, and its colours they are fine
It was worn at Derry, Aughrim, Enniskillen and the Boyne.
My father wore it as a youth in bygone days of yore,
And on the Twelfth, I love to wear the sash my father wore.

And when some day, across the sea to Antrim’s shore you come,
We’ll welcome you in royal style, to the sound of flute and drum
And Ulster’s hills shall echo still, from Rathlin to Dromore
As we sing again the loyal strain of the sash my father wore!

(1) Oranges, John McPhee, pages 64-65. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2000.