Ballynahinch to host Twelfth

Ballynahinch to host Twelfth

5 July 2017

BALLYNAHINCH is hosting this year’s Twelfth of July parade.

The market town is one of 18 venues across the Province where the Orange Institution is hosting annual demonstrations, with preparations at an advanced stage for the largest day in the parading calendar.

Thousands of Orangemen, bandsmen and their families will make their way to Ballynahinch for the annual demonstration which is being hosted by the Orange Order’s Ballynahinch District.

Brethren from the neighbouring districts of Lecale, Castlewellan, Saintfield and Comber will be on parade, accompanied by sisters from the Women’s Loyal Orange Lodges and supporting bands.

The Twelfth is held in Ballynahinch every five years and the crowds will be able to see a wide variety of bands including silver, flute, pipe and accordion. Those on parade next Wednesday will proceed under an impressive new Orange arch on the town’s Main Street which was opened and dedicated last Saturday.

Members of the Ballynahinch District are scheduled to leave Ballynahinch Orange Hall at Dromore Street at 11.15am on the Twelfth morning to parade to the assembly area at the Belfast Road adjacent to the town’s High School.

At 12.15pm, the host district will then lead the main parade back into the town centre along the Belfast Road, Main Street, High Street, Church Street, Church Road and on to the demonstration field at the Spa Road where there will be a short religious ceremony and address.

This is due to start at 2pm when the guest speaker will be Harold Henning, Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Orange of Ireland.

It is anticipated that around 70 Orange lodges will be in Ballynahinch for the Twelfth parade, alongside 40 bands, a number of whom will be travelling from Scotland for the event.

The Orange Order’s Ballynahinch District will be holding its annual church service in the town’s Free Presbyterian Church this Sunday, July 9. Brethren taking part are asked to assemble at the War Memorial at 2.45pm to parade to the church accompanied by Ballylone Flute and Albertbridge Accordion bands.

Before the Twelfth parade next week Ballynahinch got a new Orange arch in Main Street on Wednesday night — the first time in 20 years that an arch has been erected in the town.

In earlier years, Orange arches consisted of a wooden latticework crosspiece, often supported by two telegraph poles, each wedged below into a forty-gallon oil drum. More recently scaffolding-type metal structures were used. But they were always inherently fragile, and susceptible to weather, accident, or malicious attack. Such arches became uninsurable, and in Ballynahinch eventually they ceased to be erected.

The new structure is altogether a more robust affair. It is built from industrial-grade metal beams, permanently welded together. The tall uprights are footed in manholes in the pavement, and bolted to concrete foundations while the huge crosspiece weighs in at two tonnes.