TRANSPLANTED IRISH INSTITUTIONS - University of Canterbury

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march through main streets, besides the practical aspect of reaching a specific destination,
also had the added effect of highlighting the Irish Catholic community's right to use public
space.
In this sense the local community and the Orange Institution were forced to
recognize their existence even though recognition did not mean acceptance. Movement in
a public space by both Irish Catholics and Irish Protestant groups signified their existence
as separate groups in the community which had their own beliefs and culture.
The parades of the predominantly Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant institutions
promoted the solidarity of the participants but not the community, or simply "solidarity
without consensus. "25 Unlike the example of an American parade that involved the local
community in which the costs of the parade were met by the local authority, parades by
Orangemen or collective marches by Irish Catholics were exclusive events. 26 Steven Lukes
commented on the effects of an Orange parade in Northern Ireland- "In this case, collective
effervescences serve not to unite the community but to strengthen the dominant groups
within it. Ritual here exacerbates social conflict and works against (some aspects of) social
integration. "27
A similar conclusion could be drawn from the New Zealand experience
where these groups of Irish were continuing to hold on to their traditions in the face of a
'British' culture that in theory saw no distinction between Irish and English.
Generally
'British' really meant English, which saw British culture as superior whilst the Irish culture
and tradition were derided, (as depicted in the Victorian cartoons in the nineteenth century,
which showed the Irish as being ape-like in appearance).28
The Irish Catholics were seen as being on the outer of society and so their
integration into the general community was not always successful. Although on the surface
the very content of the parades by Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants had an air of
25~.:_£iL Kertzer, p. 67.
26For an analysis of the nature and meaning of American parades see Mary Ryan, The American Parade:
Representatives of the Nineteenth-Century Social Order', in Lynn Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural History,
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989. Also, Susan O. Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theatre
in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia, Philadelphia. Temple University Press, 1986.
27QQ.,...9!. Lukes, p. 300.
28See L. Perry Curtis Jr., Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature. Washington,
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971.