Ulster Day would be decidedly preferable for me

Though since we currently get more bank holidays than the rest of the UK (I think, getting 2 days for the twelfth in exchange for the May bank holiday)

Steven, you’re really not doing the OO any favours with your rants about the evil Vatican. Never mind replacing a Catholic King with a Protestant one, what about the elimination of the divine Right of Kings and the establishment of the supremacy of Parliament? If you want to promote the positives that came forth from the Williamite Wars that should be top of the list!

PS Steven, if you’re going to talk with the grown ups go and learn what sectarian actually means.

This situation cannot be changed in the short term and we will have have to face up to years of either subvention or high unemployment as we will not create the jobs necessary to correct the imbalance in less than 20 years .

As to your point about the meaning of sectarian: yes, all religious clergy are sectarian by their very definition, surely that is obvious?

And as Jeff says your attempted defence of a decidedly unhepful institution does show the need for what you call his “rant”: someone needs to be that “voice in the wilderness” calling for change, maybe you’ll even listen to him and “see the light”, as it were.

It was part of a greater battle in which the Pope himself sponsered William to defeat James, and the forces of Louis xiv.

Thats not the discussion here.

The principle is the English Parlaiment invited William over so he could remove a King (James) who swore un questionable Loyalty to the Pope, and forced this loyalty onto every english citizen. By removing this Catholic King, and replacing him with a Protestant one, we had a more open state. Without this continuation of the Great Revolution the Pope would have continued his rediculous Papal rule over England and later Britain. We celebrate this being stopped, as no one can say the vatican would have been a preferrable ruler to William.

and as for your comment about the OO and sectarianism, you proved my point, the OO is “de facto, sectarian”

Meaning you need to go looking for it to be sectarian.

Using this concept all religious clergy are sectarian as only members of their own faith can seek employment there.

The comments above - Why is the Conservative Party so anti-orange? can be answered simply. The conservatives are not, however Jeff Peel is. This is in the last year, your 3rd un political, un policy based, rant against the OO, and there is no need for it

However, your historical analysis is also somewhat flawed. The following - taken from Wikipedia - might put the Battle of the Boyne into a better historical context for you and help you realise that your 12th of July celebrations are also, by definition, nonsensical. As for the “Britishness” of the celebrations I’m at a loss to know why a “festival” celebrated here, and only here, and in no part of Britain, makes this a celebration of Britishness.

Here’s the Wikipedia extract re. the Battle of the Boyne…

“Recent analyses have played down the religious aspect of the conflict. In fact, both armies were religiously mixed; William of Orange’s own elite force — the Dutch Blue Guards — had the papal banner with them on that day, many of them being Dutch Catholics. They were part of the League of Augsburg, a cross-Christian alliance designed to stop a French conquest of Europe, supported by the Vatican. The war in Ireland was also the beginning of a long-running but ultimately unsuccessful campaign by James’ Jacobite supporters to restore the Stuarts to the British thrones. While most Jacobites in Ireland were indeed Catholics hoping to have their seized lands given back to them, many English and Scottish Jacobites were Protestants and were motivated by loyalty to the principle of monarchy (considering James to have been illegally deposed in a coup) or to the Stuart dynasty in particular, rather than by religion. A handful of British Jacobites fought with James at the Boyne. In addition, some of the French regiments fighting with the Jacobites were composed of German Protestants. In a European context, therefore, the battle was not a religiously motivated one, but part of a complicated political, dynastic and strategic conflict.”

The OO (intends to) celebrate on the 12th of July, the continuation of the Reformed faith growing throughout europe and removing the tyrannical rule of the Pope.

Something extremely modernly British.

Without Williams removal of James (at the invitation of Parlaiment - example of a dictator being removed ) in 1690 Britain today would be a couple of hundred years in the past, struggling with Papal infalibility and religious control.

I know that the 12th celebrations are today (mainly in Belfast) sectarian drinking parties, however the OO itself, demonstrating outside of Belfast still aims to celebrate the heritage and proud British History of the Glorious Revolution.