Mr Stevenson joined the orange order when he was 17, just like his father before him, and his father before him, in a long line of family tradition.
I asked if he thought the Northern Ireland of today was more tolerant towards the Orange Order. Mr Stevenson replied: “No, there are still elements within society that are not at all tolerant. As far as we're concerned, things have not really moved on in us seeing any more tolerance being shown to us.”
I was curious as to why he might think this. Mr Stevenson said that he thinks “some folk object to us through ignorance: they don't realise what our core principles are, and what we are about, they just think we are an anti-catholic organisation. Which is not the case.”
He explained that the Orange Order celebrates the protestant reformed evangelical faith, which he said “proclaims civil and religious liberty for everyone.”
With this in mind, he felt that the same should be reciprocated to his group: “Others should give us more space and more tolerance as well.”
Mr Stevenson admitted that the Orange Order's input into the peace process was “none, none whatsoever.” He did, however, acknowledge some of the positive aspects of the changes in Northern life.
“There is no doubt that we are happy that the killing has stopped, but it is still a very uneasy peace yet. There is still an … intolerance of all things orange, basically,” he said.
Declining membership
Mr Stevenson feels that the Orange Order has not changed much over the past 38 years of his membership. “The core principals of the Orange Order are still exactly the same,” said Mr Stevenson. Membership, however, has fallen off over that period. Mr Stevenson took the opportunity to note that other fraternal organisations have disappeared altogether during that time, but he insisted that “we are still going strong, we wouldn't have as big a membership as we had. We are probably the largest fraternal organisation in Europe, if not the whole world.”
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