Catholic goatskins on Protestant drums
Oh, the shame of it! On the Glorious Twelfth
too. Innocent, God-fearing Orangemen marching
to the beat of Lambeg drums made with the
skins of goats bred by Catholic farmers.
What is the world coming to?
And they say the Queen will soon visit demon
Dublin, on a state visit no less. Och, it's
more than anyone can bear. The disgrace!
They must be laughing in the Vatican tonight!!
After expressing the pious hope that this
website would never have to deal with the
topic of goats again, here they come skipping
in once more. How so? Not hard to answer.
You have heard of the cats of Kilkenny-they
fought each other until only their tails
were left. Now it's the goats of Kilkenny.
Valuable kid goats. Goats worth hundreds
of euros apiece. Stolen.
Their owner, Hugh Daniels, who runs a dairy
enterprise near Piltown, on the Kilkenny-Waterford
border, discovered eight of his pedigree
goats had been stolen in early June, and
reported their loss to the local Gardai.
(For some reason, goats, Gardai, and in England,
police, have figured in every story on the
ruminants featured within the past year).
Mr. Daniels, a registered goat farmer, supplies
milk to several cheese makers, and has said
it would it would be nearly impossible to
find high quality stock to replace the goats
that were stolen.
Similar thefts have occurred in Wexford
and Cork in recent months.
Now to the Lambeg drums, and here there
is no connection with the stolen goats of
Kilkenny. Kid skins are much, much too small
to make big drums. It is just that annually
in the month of July, Orangemen, both in
the Wee Six and the Twenty-Six counties of
Ireland, march in processions to the beating
of drums.
Canadian Michael Ignatieff in his book,
"Blood & Belonging" (Penguin
Books Canada) published in 1993, at pages
173-177 treats with the significance of the
Lambeg Drum to the Orange fraternity, and
describes how they are made. The following
is to be found at page 175:
"
.takes me out for a
drive in his red Renault 4 van, which he
calls the goat wagon because he uses it
to scour the countryside in search of goats
big enough to give him a 37-inch drum skin.
He gets some of his goats from Catholic
fellows around but he always makes sure
to call ahead
That way his goat wagon
won't be held up by the 'bandits'."
Bandits in Armagh. Rustlers in Kilkenny.
The goats didn't ask for this.
--30--
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