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'The Sash My Father Wore' is widely regarded in Northern Ireland as being one of the most provocative of Orange songs. After an examination of the cultural, historical and political contexts of Orange music, it is suggested that the text of 'The Sash My Father Wore' is but one of a series of politically charged variants of the comic music-hall song 'The Hat My Father Wore'. It is proposed that the song's melody has taken on a power of signification independent from the text, and the nature of this by no means unique phenomenon is considered.
On 31 May 1999 a leading Scottish QC and defence lawyer felt obliged to resign as vice-chairman of Glasgow Rangers Football Club for an act of 'serious misjudgement' and 'conduct [which] was not acceptable'.1 His transgression, according to a piece written by Gillian Harris in The Times the following day, had been to sing a number of Orange party songs, including 'The Sash My Father Wore', at a private celebration after the Scottish Cup final.2 Harris notes that the QC 'has been known to describe chants with anti-Catholic lyrics as "folk songs'", the quotation marks around the final two words presumably implying that partisan political songs are not deemed acceptable in the domain of traditional music. Such an idealistic view is certainly congruent with that of some collectors, including Bartok, for whom traditional songs expressed a kind of non-political nationalism, devoid of chauvinism and competition, tor 'where politics begin, art and science come to an end, equity and good faith cease to exist'.3
Orange music is increasingly marketed by loyalists in Northern Ireland as traditional music, however. The Ulster Society, whose remit is to 'promote an awareness and appreciation of our distinctive Ulster-British culture and heritage in all its rich and varied forms', and whose chairman from its inception in 1985 until 1990 was David Trimble, the Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, explicitly describes the content of the CDs and songbooks it merchandises as 'Ulster Orange Folk Songs'. This need to invoke the terms 'folk' or 'traditional' may reflect a certain insecurity on the part of the Protestant majority and be indicative of the equivocal position of their community's...