Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

Cathaoirleach, brethren of the Orange Order, ambassadors Rooney and Chilcott, distinguished guests and members, today Seanad Éireann extends the hand of friendship to the grand secretary and to the order he represents and to the traditions of religious freedom and good fellowship treasured by its members. In doing so we demonstrate that the past is not some dark prison in which we are doomed to be detained forever, but a series of events to which each generation should bring its own experience.

For far too long, my traditions saw the Orange Order through the distorting prism of a poorly understood past. In 1963, President Kennedy, addressing the joint session of the Oireachtas, quoted from a poem by John Boyle O'Reilly: "The world is large when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide." It is true that neither of our two traditions tried to walk the weary leagues that separated Dublin from Belfast. In the case of my tradition, we were too long fixated by what we saw as the exclusionary elements in the ethos of the Orange Order. Accordingly, we focused only on the anti-Jacobite part of the oath in the order's constitution, which read: "I do declare that I am not, nor ever was a Roman Catholic or Papist; that I was not, am not, or ever will be, a member of the society called the "United Irishmen"." That fixation meant we missed other core messages in the constitution of the Orange Order, messages which dwelt on the dignity of religious freedom, messages which expressed the Northern Protestant fear of isolation during the era of the great Catholic empires of Europe. These were fears that were often well-founded, just as people power used the inquisition to stifle independent inquiry and religious freedom. We also, I regret to admit, paid too little heed to the Orange Institute of Ireland statement: "its principle is, to aid and assist loyal subjects of every religious persuasion, by protecting them from violence and oppression."

Happily, in recent years, as the shadow of the gunmen was lifted from the island, both traditions began to recognise that the dogmas of the past were as dead as a dodo and that we needed fresh thinking to forge a fresh friendship. Slowly but steadily, we began to see that the Orange Order was, in the terms of the great Protestant patriot, Thomas Davis, "racy of the soil" and that for generations it had been the main cultural outlet for Protestants, artisans, small farmers and shopkeepers, the very same classes who formed and staffed the three main parties of the Irish democracy in this Republic.

Today, we can see that the values which inspire the Orange Order - community, solidarity and local patriotism - are the same values that inspired the Gaelic League and the GAA, the twin pillars of Nationalist Ireland. Seanad Éireann was set up to cherish these traditions and to ensure that the new State would provide a public platform for the voices of Protestant and dissenter. This, the Upper House of the Irish legislature, was originally designed to give these cultural connections institutional form. The first Irish Senate that sat here between 1922 and 1937 made provision for 36 Catholics, 20 Protestants, three Quakers and one Jew. We can be reasonably sure that some of the 20 Protestants were Orangemen. Alas, we can also be sure that given the bigotry that bounded our thinking of the time, many members of the Orange Order in Seanad Éireann might have been slow to make their membership known.

However, at least one great Catholic writer, James Joyce, had no problem in praising the Order. In his novel Ulysses, Joyce has one of his characters challenge the tribal perceptions of his time. Being from Waterford, I probably do a Dublin accent as good as the grand secretary, but this is what Joyce's character said: "Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union 20 years before O'Connell did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue. You fenians forget some things." Indeed we do. This was Joyce's roundabout way of saying that we have had invasion after invasion in our history, that Danes, Normans, English and Scots followed earlier migrations and became part of our soil, our blood and bone and learned to love this land of ours. The Scots settlers who came and cultivated the green fields of Ulster were our latest migration.

In honouring the grand secretary today, we also honour the Scots-Ulster tradition of hard work, plain speaking and the patriotism of place - so much shared history and so much common vulnerability. However, on this happy and historic day, we join hands as good neighbours to face the future together without fear, knowing today what we did not know as children that we must respect the past, but not be ruled by it - as if past generations have said the last word about Ireland. No, they have not said the last word. Neither my ancestors nor those of the grand secretary must have the last word. We together must seize the opportunity to speak for our generation and say what is our hearts and minds. I know the grand secretary will agree that what is in all our minds is a desire for good, a desire for a decent living for our people and, above all, a profound desire for peace with our neighbours on this small island.

In conclusion, I wish to thank the Orange Order for one great gift that has been passed down through the generations. Some of the earliest translations of the Bible into Irish came from Irish Protestant pens. These Irish languages Bibles are carefully cherished by the order, and I take this opportunity to thank Mr. Nelson for that care.

It is appropriate that I should conclude with a biblical reference which offers a note of solidarity and common purpose. The apostle Paul tells us that from one spirit we are all baptised into one body, whether we be Jew or Gentile, bond or free, and where one member of that body suffers, we all suffer. That truth was stated in secular form by another powerful preacher, the great trade union leader Jim Larkin, who did so much for workers in the Belfast and Dublin, in his famous slogan, "An injury to one is the concern of all". In that spirit of solidarity , let us pledge that whatever the future holds, be they happy times or hard times, we will not be strangers to one another on this small island. In the spirit of Mr. Nelson's order and the Bible that inspires its members, let us behave like brothers or, as the grand secretary would say, like brethren. Ar son mo chomhghleacaithe i Seanad Éireann agus mar Cheannaire an Tí inniu, cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe go léir.