500,000 set to attend 2021 Twelfth of July parades

Twelfth of July parades are back today, Monday, after the main event of the Orange Order marching season could not take place in public last year.

Hundreds of thousands of Orangemen, band-members and spectators are expected to take to the streets across Northern Ireland today.

This year, the anniversary of Protestant King William of Orange’s victory over Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 coincides with Northern Irelands centenary year.

However, this year's parades will be smaller and more localised in a bid to host some 500,000 people while mitigating the risks of covid-19.

The normal 18 main events have been replaced by more than 100 local parades, and gatherings in “the field” afterwards for speeches and prayers will not be allowed.

A senior Orangeman has told Downtown Cool FM news “it feels great” to be back.

“The membership didn’t have a traditional Twelfth last year, it was the Twelfth at home and thankfully everybody bought into that,” said Grand Secretary at the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, Rev. Mervyn Gibson.

“It’s good to get back out on the streets again – now not to our normal Twelfth – because this year we’re having it near home.

“There’ll be at least 100 parades across Northern Ireland that people can go and see.

“The simple reason for that is, there are hundreds of thousands of people who attend the Twelfth and we need to spread those crowds across NI to prevent the community transmission of covid.”

The Grand Secretary said that although the event is about commemorating the events of 1690, it is also the anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland this year.

For nationalists however, the centenary is not cause for celebration, but instead marks 100 years of partition of the island of Ireland.

Rev. Gibson said: “This year it’s the centennial of Northern Ireland. We’ve 100 years to commemorate and because of covid in the first half of the year there wasn’t much happening but now people are getting into the centennial mode as well.”

“So the Twelfth will have a double meaning for us this year."

Where and when are the parades this year?

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• Twelfth July
• parades