BOWLER-HATTED Orangemen will be marching to the beat of the Lambeg drum on the streets of Cork on St Patrick’s Day.

The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland has expressed its “delight” at being invited to take part in the city’s Patrick’s Day festival during Cork’s year as European city of culture. The lodge begin this week making preparations for its day out in the southern city.

“Nothing moves that fast in the order so what exactly will be happening has yet to be decided upon,” said a spokesman yesterday. “We will be taking part in a cultural festival and it will be different from the order’s traditional marches in Northern Ireland, but we are very happy that such an invitation has been extended to us.”

The prospect of a loyal order demonstration has been given a guarded welcome in the south. Finian McGrath, an independent TD and member of the Irish National Congress, a group which has opposed Orange parades in the south, said: “The Orange Order is riddled with sectarianism and this cannot be tolerated in Irish society.

“There is a difference between celebrating your culture and stuffing it down someone’s neck. I hope they do not abuse this invitation.”

The invitation has been criticised by Sinn Fein councillors in Belfast, who have complained about the prospect of their council funding the Orange trip south.

Under a Lagan to Lee cultural partnership between Belfast and Cork, city funds are made available to cultural groups. Sinn Fein says a request for funding from St Patrick’s Day carnival organisers was recently rejected. They wanted to stage a free outdoor concert on March 17.

Jean Carney, a spokeswoman for the Cork’s St Patrick’s Day Festival, said: “The theme of the three-day festival is identity. We are using the fact that Cork is the European city of culture this year as a reason to exhibit all the diverse cultures that are present on the island.”

The invitation marks a huge change in southern attitudes. In the 1930s the few remaining Orange Order marches in the republic were whittled down to one annual event in Raphoe, Co Donegal. Nowhere was the exclusion of Orange and Protestant culture and people more marked than in parts of Cork in the early 1920s.

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