A lifelong principle of mine has been that anything that discourages young people from developing an interest in sport is a major benefit to society. Yet even an athlemophobe (it’s a real word) like me was startled by an Orange lodge in Comber objecting to a handful of kids taking part in an event organised by North Down Cricket Club because they were part of a children’s Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) team. The cricket club withdrew the invitation in the face of an implied threat behind the objections. The kids’ GAA club has been the target of frequent sectarian attacks.

In the six counties Gaelic games are mainly played by people from a Catholic background and migrant kids who live in nationalist areas. Soccer is a shared enthusiasm even if there would be very few Rangers fans in a Falls Road pub when they are playing Celtic. Cricket would be seen as a posh Protestant sport with a few Taig social climbers probably joining in occasionally. This might all sound a bit peculiar to people unfamiliar with the place.

The Moygashel bonfire with its burning effigies of migrants outraged a whole new audience who aren’t familiar with the loyalist songs about being up to their neck in Fenian blood and the banners which say “kill all Taigs”. One exception was The Spectator which argued that it was a good thing because “it demonstrates the increasing prevalence of the backlash against illegal migration in the Northern Irish social and political firmament.”

What is interesting is the dogs who don’t bark. John Mann, Lisa Nandy, Margaret Hodge, Kemi Badenoch, Starmer and every journalist on the BBC and in the right leaning press do not have a word to say about this despite their claim the six counties are part of the British state. These are people who have so weaponised slanderous and false allegations of antisemitism in a now disintegrating campaign against the left and opponents of genocide, that they have almost made it useless as a means of identifying real prejudice against Jews.

As we say in Ulster Scots

To return to the cricketers of North Down. The Orange Lodge which objected put out a statement saying “This issue is not about opposition to sport, but about ensuring that all organisations operating in shared spaces demonstrate respect for all traditions and work proactively towards reconciliation and mutual understanding.” That is Ulster Scots for “we don’t want any Fenian kids round here”.

On July 12^th the Orange Order had no problem parading with men carrying banners commemorating loyalist sectarian killers in its annual display of a cargo cult understanding of Britishness. Gorman McMullan is frequently named as being involved in the sectarian murder of six people and is permitted to cos play a 1914 Tommy, commenting with the sort of detail which will give most readers an erotic frisson “We even wear long johns underwear, so we are melted in the heat.”

If the Orange Order can welcome unapologetic suspects in mass killings at its events, the only plausible reason for not wanting a bunch of school kids playing sport in their is naked sectarianism. Anti-Catholicism is something of a proxy for a hatred of Irish nationalism, but we can imagine the hysterical reactions of Laura Kuennsberg, Yvette Cooper and all those MPs in Labour Friends of Israel if an amended version of “kill all Taigs” was on a bonfire along with effigies of Israeli soldiers.