Monday, May 18, 2020

Harry Dorrian (b. 1895) and the "Protestant Fenians of Greyabbey / The Green Lodge of Gray'ba""


During the current coronavirus period there have been many examples I've seen on social media of cross-community co-operation and good neighbourliness, folk I know personally being supportive of each other. One of them every week posts positively about all of the places of worship in the locality, and he posts four photos from the Greyabbey and Kircubbin area - of a Church of Ireland building, a Presbyterian building, a Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Building and the Catholic chapel -  as he puts it "we are all looking out for each other and thinking of each other". He's well-known and well-respected man of the older generation, has a small family business, and he's an Orangeman. He's a good neighbour to all, which is reflected in the comments that folk post.

He sent me the attached article a while ago, which I hope is legible here, from 1977. It's a biographical interview with Harry Dorrian who was then aged 82. He was raised in Greyabbey and had fond memories of his childhood in the village, and of what we today would call community relations. He's listed in the 1911 Census of Ireland as Henry Dorrian, aged 15, a 'shop boy'. Interestingly it reveals that his mother Mary Jane was from Scotland.

There has not only ever been conflict. Be suspicious of people who claim there has.
Cui bono? Those making those claims usually do.



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