Green and Orange, Part 2

"We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us."

L.M. Montogmery

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man,

I put childish ways behind me.  Not we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. 

Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

1 Corinthians 13:11-12

We left our story somewhere in the mid to late fifth century.  Jump forward in history about 1200 years to the 1640s.  The English Civil War was a hot mess of King Charles I being beheaded, Oliver Cromwell ruling with an iron fist, Protestant and Catholic tension, and conflict with King Louis XIV of France.  Ireland was a part of Britain, but existed as the red-headed stepchild of the British Empire – it hadn’t been treated equally during the period of history we skipped.  The Irish people had liked Charles I because he was very pro-Ireland.  After Charles was beheaded in 1649, the fact that it was populated by mostly Catholics worked against Ireland.  Cromwell was extremely anti-Catholic, and the actions he took hurt Catholic landowners.  (Apparently, to this day, “Cromwell” is a dirty word in Ireland, used in all kinds of interesting epithets.)

Charles II took the throne in 1660 after people had had their fill of Cromwell’s way of doing things.  Irish Catholics were hopeful that he would be like his father.  Under Cromwell, Catholic landowners had lost huge chunks of their land in Ireland, and they wanted those parcels back.  Charles II returned one-third of the Irish-Catholic land, stopped the persecution of Catholics, and outlawed the hunting and killing of priests.  When he died in 1685, his brother James II took the throne.  He was an even more welcome sight for Catholics because he was a devout Catholic himself.  James sent an official to Ireland who removed the Protestants from office and replaced them with Catholics.  Throughout Ireland and England, James re-integrated Catholics into the army and local government.  Obviously, this caused some restlessness among Protestants, but the real catalyst was when James’ heir was born and baptized Catholic.  At this point, the Protestants invited William of Orange to the party.  William was actually a Dutch nobleman and the husband of Mary, James’ sister.  Both were Protestants, and the Protestants of England felt he would do a better job of wrangling the Catholic population.  The two of them showed up in England in November 1688, and December saw James take off for France.  Because this transfer of power was bloodless, it became known as “The Glorious Revolution.”

Once in France, James sought out King Louis XIV.  He and Louis had been kingly allies, but William of Orange sided with the English people who were not interested in being friends with Louis and the French.  William was already in a bit of a tiff with Louis, and part of his motivation for getting involved with England’s problems was to garner money and naval resources for his personal war (The War of the Grand Alliance, 1689-1697).  After James rallied some French troops for himself, he continued on to Ireland where he gathered up his loyal Irish supporters.  With his fairly large army, James was able to lay siege on the city of Derry from December 1688 until June 1689.  Williamite ships were finally able to crash through the siege, but they bungled the operation so badly that William himself had to come to Ireland to deal with the situation.  He landed near Belfast in June 1690 and the famous Battle of the Boyne took place on July 1, 1690.  (This date is according to the pre-Gregorian calendar.  It is now recorded as July 12, 1690.)  William was victorious there, although his war with Ireland didn’t officially end until the Treaty of Limerick was signed in October of 1691.

What exactly happened at The Battle of the Boyne

A result of this victory was the Penal Laws.  These were harsh laws that were put in place to keep Catholics from being able to rile everyone up again in the future.  They were decidedly anti-Catholic and they reminded me of Jim Crow laws, to be honest.  Catholic priests and bishops were banished from Ireland; Catholics could not marry Protestants; Catholics were not allowed to carry weapons; Catholics could not teach school; Catholics couldn’t vote or hold public office; Catholics couldn’t practice their religion openly.  The list is long, and it even includes the fact that Catholics couldn’t own a horse that cost more than £5.  Perhaps the most damaging law was that while Protestants could leave their land parcels intact, with one child inheriting the entire estate, Catholics had to divide their land among all of their children.  What this meant is that as time went on (and because of their famously large families), Catholic pieces of land got smaller and smaller.  In 1641, 59% of the land in Ireland belonged to Catholics.  In 1703, just 14% was Catholic land.  This allowed Protestants to hold greater power in all areas of life in Ireland, and it is one of the many factors that contributed to “The Troubles” that have persisted between Catholics and Protestants into the present day.

To commemorate William of Orange, Northern Irish Protestants celebrate William of Orange Day with parades and general celebrations on July 12.  He was a hero to Protestants because of his bravery, but he also represented something bigger to the Protestants who started these celebrations: the defeat of the uncertainty of the seventeenth century.  I think it’s obvious that Protestants see him as a bit of a “liberator.”  He gave them a clear path to power, and that’s valuable to just about any group of people.  Plus, he was able to preserve Protestant land holdings—strengthen them, even.  He provided the Protestant people with what they needed to remain strong, and they were grateful.  It was something to celebrate…for Protestants.

This is the point where the two holidays converged for me.  St. Patrick’s Day is really about a man who gave his life to bring Christianity to Ireland.  He is a hero of the faith; no one can really deny that who reads his history.  Whether Christianity is a person’s faith or not, I believe any historian can see why St. Patrick was important.  His arrival (and the faith he brought) was the harbinger of learning and literature, a path out of the Dark Ages, and an open door to Ireland’s “Golden Age.”

Good ol' St. Pat, giving marching orders to those snakes

Pair that line of thinking with the fact that William of Orange Day is really about a man who helped bring some stability to the life of Protestants in Ireland and England.  He’s a hero to them because he was a brave and noble person, and because his actions helped to settle down some of the problems that Protestants had been having with Catholics.  His coronation to the English throne brought a constitutional monarchy and some peace and quiet to England.

I wonder if he fought The Battle of the Boyne with that wig on

But is it really that simple?

I couldn’t help thinking about all of these things as I stood in a tent at the Old Shillelagh on March 17 and observed people’s behavior.  (Which is part of why I’m glad to be writing this after the fact.)  At one point, I thought to myself (slightly horrified by what I was seeing), “What would St. Patrick think if he could come down and hang out in this tent today?  What would his reaction be?”  As I’ve already said, I love St. Pat’s.  It’s one of my favorite holidays.  But how is it that I am celebrating what amounts to a sacred holiday with beer, Shamrock Shakes, more beer, and corned beef sandwiches?

On the other hand, as I read more and more about William of Orange, I sort of felt bad for insisting I wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day.  Catholics don’t like William of Orange.  In fact, I think he’s probably viewed as a conqueror or destroyer.  Wearing orange on St. Patrick’s Day (considering that it’s technically a Catholic holiday) is a bit of a slap in the face.  Inappropriate, even.  I would have fit right in during the 1600s.

The two-sided nature of history fascinates me.  With St. Patrick, he’s a holy man who is celebrated in unholy ways; his story is both myth and truth; and to teach the “Irish heathens” (his words, not mine), he had to find a mix of sacred and secular.  With William of Orange, he’s a hero to some and a subjugator to others; his actions were helpful to the English, the Protestants, and the Dutch but harmful to the Irish, the Catholics, and the French.  I believe that any historical happening can be viewed this way.  There are always winners and losers…never one without the other.  I had always viewed William of Orange as a “good guy” because I only heard part of his story.  Now, having pulled back and read the whole account, I’m not so sure.  At the same time, is he automatically a “bad guy” because he was doing what he thought was best for the people he represented?  I don’t think so either.  I’ve left out whole sections of Irish history leading up to the cruel reign of Cromwell when the Catholics had been fighting tooth and nail (literally) for power.  Maybe because of the circumstances, William of Orange was justified in his actions.  Even in the case of St. Patrick, I’m sure some of those Druid priests he unseated were pretty angry at the loss of their former lives because of the dawn of Christianity in Ireland. 

I think we’re very quick to label history as “bad” or “good.”  Don’t get me wrong.  There are some u-g-l-y-you-ain’t-got-no-alibi parts of human history.  We can all name them.  I'm not interested in trying to turn instances of hardship, war, or conflict into a garden party.  However, let’s consider this issue on a smaller scale for a moment.  I would venture to guess that most people have similar "good"/"bad" labels for the things that have happened in their own personal histories.  Ask any therapist how to get over the past and I think you’ll hear them say, “Start dealing with it and getting over it.”  A therapist once told me: “If you’re sitting in a room with a dead horse, you take the horse out.  You don’t continue to sit there with the dead horse.”  Let’s return to the bigger picture.  In human history, as in personal history, what happened in the past is something that is.  It cannot be changed or erased, and yet some people insist on opening old wounds again and again.  Or some people insist on continuing to pour salt into that old wound.  Groups who have been wronged by some of the greatest atrocities and injustices can choose to sit with their dead horse or they can pick up that carcass piece by piece and take it to the garbage, vowing to learn from the experience.  While some might argue that the victims in a situation shouldn't have to do the work to take the dead horse out, I disagree.  Whether a person has been wronged or has done the wronging, work must be done in order to move on.  That rotting carcass isn't going to move itself.

In my own life, some of the worst things that have happened to me have also helped me get to a better place.  I’m appreciative to those “bad” things for the role they played in helping me navigate my way.  Even the ones I don’t completely understand, I take great comfort in the fact that they are over and (hopefully) won’t be repeated.  Every so often, I do take a trip down memory lane, and it can be hard.  It sometimes makes me angry.  But I usually end up back at that place of acceptance – “It happened, it’s over, keep walking.”  I've learned that once that carcass is in the garbage, it's gone.  The smell may linger.  There may be stains on the carpet.  I'll deal with those problems as they arise, but no reminder or provocation can make that dead horse come back.  After reading about William of Orange (and feeling a little bad for wearing orange), I can see why Catholics despised (and may still despise) him.  But I also see that it happened 400 years ago and it’s done.  It’s a part of the bigger picture of history at this point.  I think these are risky questions, but I’m going to ask them anyways:  If Catholics and Protestants, hundreds of years ago, had made a conscious effort to put away their past and find common bridges toward the future, would “The Troubles” have wreaked as much havoc as they have?  Because there are always winners and losers in history, what would have happened if the Irish Catholics and Protestants had accepted both defeat and victory, knowing that at some point their fate would change?  I don't ask these questions to be insensitive to the Irish people and their history.  It's part of my family's history.  I ask them because I honestly want to know if we as a people can move past some of those ugly history stains.

Sometimes that process of moving forward means re-naming the past rather than dealing with it outright.  This is where St. Patrick's Day reconnects with this topic.  Maybe I’m naïve, but I’d like to think that if you asked an average bar-goer on St. Pat’s how they’d celebrate a hero of the Christian church, most of them would not respond with: “Booze and sex!”  In order to sleep at night after partying all day in the name of a Christian saint, society has just re-named what the holiday is about.  Now, it’s more about celebrating Irish heritage or culture than it is about St. Patrick himself.  The more I thought about this, the more I realized how many people celebrating St. Patrick’s Day have NO CLUE who he was or what he stood for.  By re-naming a sacred historical day, we’re slowly losing the true story of the holiday.

This leads me to my final point, and in many ways, it’s the most crucial step in accepting the past.  No one can deal with their past until they know exactly what happened.  Ignorance of history leads to the destruction of truth.  In this politically-correct-history obsessed world, I have to believe that some of the truth about what really happened in the past is being lost.  While I’d be the first in line to encourage people to move on, I would not even be close to the line that encourages people to pretend it never happened.  For example, history book writers are so concerned about making sure that students know the “real” story of Columbus as a culture-ruiner and disease-bringer that they down-play his tremendous discovery of the New World which changed the course of history.  It must have been truly awful for the Native Americans who died from exposure to new diseases and I know the loss of loved ones negatively impacted the families who were left behind.  But I’m also thankful Columbus found my eventual home.  I believe there has to be a balance.  Both sides of the story must be told because that is the whole story.  However, to over-emphasize one side or the other is dangerous.  We are in the process of re-naming so many parts of history that what actually occurred and how the story came together is muddied beyond recognition.  We cling to the extremes rather than finding that healthy place in the middle.  The fact alone that there are people who believe the Holocaust never happened proves my point.  Who wants to believe in the mass murder of millions of Jews when you can believe it’s a misprint?  It would never do to admit the tragedy of what happened and then agree as fellow members of the human race to move forward together, vowing never to allow something like that to happen again.  (Talk about two sentences that could be completely taken out of context.  Perhaps this proves my point yet again?)

In closing, I think about the clash of past and present like a big painting.  While examining one small part of the painting, you might see a person who is sleeping, an animal in a corner, or an object on a table.  It’s easy to consider one thing at a time.  Once you take a few steps back, though, and start to see all the other facets of the painting, it takes on new meaning.  You know from looking at the big picture that the person is actually dead.  The animal is being beaten.  The object is about to be broken.  You then have two choices.  Choice one is to see the painting in its entirety, to study how it all works together, and to acknowledge that your understanding as a viewer (and not the artist) is possible only once you’ve analyzed the painting as a whole.  Choice two is to return to looking at one piece of the painting at a time, to avoid the truth in the whole painting (except your own), and to purposely reject a geniune understanding of the painting’s meaning by thinking about the author's intent.  Does looking at the whole painting mean the person is dead?  It sure does.  But it also means that you start to see why, you start to see how, and you start to understand.

It means there is truth.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to the following authors for helping me write both this post and the last one:

Philip Freeman, St. Patrick of Ireland, A Biography

Maymie Richardson Krythe, All About American Holidays

Robert J. Myers, A Complete Book of American Holidays

Sonja Massie, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Irish History

Ann Tompert, Saint Patrick

Lelia Ruckenstein & James O'Malley, Everything Irish

Madden Finbar, Teach Yourself the History of Ireland

Mike Cronin, Irish History for Dummies

Sean Duffy, The Macmillan Atlas of Irish History