Irish Protestants wear Orange on St. Pat's Day in Protest?

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yellowbird

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So I’m decked out in my green in honor of St. Patrick’s Day today :irish3: and a co-worker tells me that her family is Irish, but proudly Protestant so they don’t wear green to celebrate becuase that’s for the Catholics… they wear orange instead. I said, “I’ve not heard of that?” And she said… well of course you haven’t - you’re Catholic.

So I’m wondering if anyone else has heard of that? Orange on St. Patrick’s Day? Orange beer? Do they protest the corned beef & cabbage also? Just curious.
 
I grew up hearing that from my dad because we are Irish.

Catholic’s flag is green [South] and the North is green and orange.
The whole [war forever] thing going on in Ireland.
Shame - i wish that would end.
 
I remember my mom telling me that when I was a kid and innocently wanted to wear my orange sweatshirt on St. Patrick’s day… She neversaid much more than, “don’t do it”. 🤷
 
The color green is for Catholics and the color orange is for Protestants. There is an organization called the Orangemen which is protestant. They often march against Catholics.

When my daughter was a senior at a Baptist high school, she was told that she could wear orange for St. Patrick’s day, but no green.

Corned beef and cabbage is an American innovation. In Ireland, bacon with cabbage, roast beef, or fish is usually eaten. The ban on eating meat during Lent is temporarily lifted for St. Patrick’s day.

This is the little bit I know.

Jean
 
Well, the flag of the Republic of Ireland has green and orange, with white in the middle. I believe the white is supposed to represent peace between Catholics (green) and Protestants (orange).

When I was a kid (and fully Protestant), I always thought green was prettier.
 
LOL, good for them.

On Ash Wednesday, Catholics can recognize each other through the ashes.

On St. Patrick’s Day, Irish Protestants could tell their members by who’s wearing orange!

Don’t know why they picked that color though. :rotfl:

http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/rockytalklive/archives/prisoncrowdingrtl.jpg

By the way, since many Protestants don’t drink, I don’t think they would be drinking orange beer, maybe orange soda.

http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/yhst-70692116284386_2043_54515606
 
Gosh, I am sorry to hear that it’s true. I suppose I’m happy though knowing that since so many people wore green today even though they weren’t Irish, apparently they are pretending to be the Catholic variety?! :kissme:
 
Regarding the wearing of orange by Protestants in Ireland, Wikipedia has this to say:

William III (14 November 1650 – 8 March 1702) was a Prince of Orange by birth. From 1672 onwards, he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. In addition, from 1689 onwards, he reigned as King William III over England and Ireland, and as King William II over Scotland. He is informally known in Northern Ireland and Scotland as “King Billy”. A member of the House of Orange-Nassau, William won the English, Scottish and Irish crowns following the Glorious Revolution, in which his uncle and father-in-law, James II, was deposed. In England, Scotland and Ireland, William ruled jointly with his wife, Mary II, until her death on 28 December 1694.

William and Mary were Protestants and ruthlessly put down the Catholics of Ireland.
 
I never heard of it before, I just wear Green to avoid being pinched by exceedingly silly people… 😃
 
I grew up Roman Catholic, but often wore orange on St Patrick’s Day, (red on St Josephs’ day). I still have a nice orange dress shirt handy for whenever I might need it.

My ancestry were Orangemen…Scot-Irish. So that’s what I wore, it wasn’t a religious symbol to me, just an ethnic one. I wasn’t going to wear green just because I was a Roman Catholic, and I feel the same way now, so many years later. We can’t change our ancestry as easily as we can change a shirt.

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JPUSC said:
By the way, since many Protestants don’t drink, I don’t think they would be drinking orange beer, maybe orange soda.

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Having lived in the Bible Belt for a number of years, trust me when I say they drink. It may be preached against but that doesn’t stop a lot of people…

just saying… 🤷
 
Ahem… its;
Green White and Gold - not Green White and Orange.
Bacon* and Cabbage - not Corned Beef and Cabbage. *(The Bacon meant for this Irish recipe is probably closest to what Americans may call Country Ham, native to the American South )
Orangemen are silly. (They rarely marched until they discovered how annoying it was)
The Ppresident id Irish, 's a blackman.
Greeen beer ish not too bad, though I would’nt drinck it myshelf at all at all.
Leprechaunsh do I hrar…
And hope you’ve had a happy St.Patricks Day…:kiss4you:
 
Orange is a sectarian color in Europe.

Jharek, I’m going to compound the misbehavior of this digression with a stereotype I’ll ascribe to you (until you correct me otherwise): I will assume that you as an Irishman must be a soccer fanatic and so do you know if the Dutch national team wears orange as a reflection of the country’s protestant identity? Or is it just a coincidence?
 
Well, then it should be Gold. Orange does’nt mean anything.

From a little known eircom popular history extract;
"There is some debate as to the true colours of the flag. The usual symbolism is the green stands for the Catholics, the orange for the Protestants and white for peace between them. Some say that the flag is gold as opposed to orange, from the gold harp on the original Green Flag.

This confusion arose in the 1916-22 period when the tricolour (the current national flag and ensign), which had previously been quite a marginal and little-known flag, was supplanting the Green Flag (the current jack) as the principal national emblem. Green and gold, the colours of the Green Flag, were regarded as the national colours throughout the nineteenth century and some of the home-made tricolours from the 1916-22 period were in fact green, white and gold."
 
Wasn’t there also a fascist movement in Ireland prior to WWII known as the “blue-shirts”?
 
Yet they somehow made it over to Spain to defend the Church and aid Franco. So they had good intentions at least. I wish Hollywood would make a movie about O’Duffy’s life. He appears to have been a complex individual.
 
yellowbird said:
I was doing a search to see if there were more Catholics or Protestants in Ireland and I found this website that said the Catholic Church in Ireland no longer requires Catholics who marry Protestants to raise their children Catholic. Is that true? :eek: I thought that was a non-negotiable?

wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/protestants_1861_1991.html
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I rather doubt the church in Ireland has the authority do make up their own rules about that sort of thing. That website is most likely in error.

P.S. There are more Catholics than Protestants in Ireland. In Nothern Ireland they’re approximately 45-55.
 
tomarin said:
I rather doubt the church in Ireland has the authority do make up their own rules about that sort of thing. That website is most likely in error.

P.S. There are more Catholics than Protestants in Ireland. In Nothern Ireland they’re approximately 45-55.
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Yes, I think you are probably right. The website also stated that the Catholic Church had “misgivings” about contraception use. I’d call it a bit more than that… :rolleyes:

So please excuse my total ignorance… Catholics mainly live in Southern Ireland, and in Northern Ireland Catholics make up a little more than 1/2 as well? And we don’t hear much about the fighting anymore… is it much more peaceful now?
 
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