Fine Gael presidential candidate Heather Humphreys was forced to confirm yesterday that her husband was a member of the controversial Orange Order during the Troubles in the North.
Answering a question from Extra.ie, she initially said her husband Eric is not a member of the Unionist order – but asked if he ever had been, she replied curtly: ‘You would have to ask him that’.
She also appeared to evade a question about her attendance at Orange marches, a change in position since this publication first reported her regular attendance at the Orange march in Drum, Co. Monaghan in 2014.
The bizarre answers overshadowed her official campaign launch, with Fine Gael apparatchiks spending the day – and multiple phone calls – attempting to get to the bottom of the simple question.
Heather Humphreys. Pic: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie
The day of drama began when Ms Humphreys denied at a press conference in the Peace Centre in Monaghan Town that her husband, renowned cattle breeder Eric Humphreys, was currently a member of the pro-Union order.
Ms Humphreys also did not say whether she supported a plan to commemorate members of the British-sponsored Black and Tans at Glasnevin National Cemetery that her Government had initially backed in 2020.
Initially, Ms Humphreys, who is a Presbyterian, attempted to portray her background in a light-hearted manner, proudly alluding to the fact that her grandfather had signed the Ulster Covenant in 1912, which sought to violently resist Home Rule and keep Ireland under British Rule.
But the wheels began to fall off the wagon when the former Cabinet minister – and replacement presidential candidate whose father was also in the Orange Order – admitted she attended Orange parades as a child, but intimated that she had stopped when the Troubles started.
Fine Gael presidential candidate Heather Humphreys was forced to confirm yesterday that her husband was a member of the controversial Orange Order during the Troubles in the North. Pic: Eamonn Farrell/© RollingNews.ie
Despite making this distinction, when Extra asked Ms Humphreys: ‘Can you tell us whether your husband is a member of the Orange Order?’ she gave the first of a number of strange answers: ‘Not that, no, not that I’m aware of.’
Ms Humphreys was then asked to clarify whether he had ever been in the Order and she replied, sighing: ‘You’d have to ask him that.’
As they have been married since 1987, Extra asked if it had not been a topic of discussion during their marriage and if Ms Humphreys would be better asking her farmer husband.
She repeated in the present tense: ‘No, he is not a member.’ After the press conference concluded, Extra followed Ms Humphreys’s suggestion and asked her husband Eric directly whether he had been a member of the Orange Order.
Mr Humphreys, attending his wife’s presidential launch, had stopped to speak politely. But upon hearing our question, he walked quickly into a unisex toilet and closed the door.
Extra.ie took that as a ‘no comment’, and asked party press handlers to clarify their candidate’s unusual responses.
What followed was a day of phone calls and text messages from three separate senior Fine Gael party officials attempting to ascertain the editorial line Extra.ie and its sister publication The Mail on Sunday were taking with our line of questioning.
Eventually, over four-and-a-half hours after the end of the press conference, Extra finally received an on-the-record response from a spokesman for Ms Humphreys.
It read: ‘Eric is not a member of the Orange Order. He has not been a member for almost 50 years since before he ever met Heather. Heather’s campaign will focus on inclusivity; building bridges; and reaching out the hand of friendship. Heather supports a United Ireland. If we are ever to achieve a United Ireland, there must be respect for all traditions on this island.’
Heather Humphreys
Asked to clarify what almost 50 years ago meant, the spokesman was unable to obtain a definite date from his candidate or her husband, and could only say that the couple first met in 1979, and that at that stage he was not a member.
Fifty years ago would put his membership around 1975, at the height of the Troubles in the North – a time when Ms Humphreys suggested she stopped attending Orange parades.
She had earlier told the press conference of her childhood attendances at Orange parades.
‘Well, when we were children, I attended parades with my parents, and it was a family day out. It was a cultural day. And when the Troubles started, you know, people were concerned and that, I didn’t go then after that, but I am glad to think things have moved on a lot.
‘I’ve been in St Patrick’s Day in Cootehill and here in Monaghan, when Orange bands from Northern Ireland took part in those parades. And I think that’s a sign of where we are now.’
However, this reporter attended an Orange Parade in Drum, Co. Monaghan in July 2014, just after Ms Humphreys received a Cabinet promotion. There we spoke to Mervyn Reilly, bandmaster of the Drum Accordion Band who told Extra that Ms Humphreys attended the parade ‘most years’.
‘We hope she will be here tonight but she may be busy in her new job,’ he said.
The Drum Accordion Band, established in 1958, is connected to the local Orange Lodge in Drum.
A statement from a department spokesman at the time also appears to contradict the timeline Ms Humphreys presented yesterday.
Fine Gael leader Simon Harris with Heather Humphreys speaking to the media Pic: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ie
Speaking in 2014, a spokesman said: ‘The minister wasn’t at the Drum event last night. She attended it in the past, when her diary allowed.’
Ms Humphreys also failed to clarify whether she ever supported or still supported a plan by the Government – of which she was a senior member – to commemorate the Black and Tans on a wall at Glasnevin Cemetery. She stressed she had moved from the position of minister with direct responsibility for commemorations.
In his recent autobiography, former Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar conceded that a plan to commemorate the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan police had damaged them in the election.
Ms Humphreys said she would now vote for unity and she was an example to Unionists in the North of Irish ‘tolerance and inclusivity’.
Ms Humphreys said the Good Friday Agreement was the basis for any discussion about Irish unity.
She said: ‘I certainly want to see a United Ireland, I definitely do, I have committed to that, but only through working with people and bringing them together.
‘I think when people from the unionist background look at me, for example, I can honestly say to them this country has given me everything I have, it has made me what I am.
‘I am an example of a tolerant, inclusive Ireland that can accommodate different traditions and different viewpoints.’ Ms Humphreys would not put a timeline on when she believed a unity referendum would take place.
She said: ‘We don’t want to end up in a situation like we had with a referendum in the UK on Brexit and 51% said no and 49% said yes.
‘That is not going to solve problems. ‘It is about moving it along, building the trust. I’m committed to spending my time trying to do that.’
Speaking at the launch, Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris described his candidate as a ‘Presbyterian Republican showing us all what true republicanism means’ .
He added: ‘Seeking to unite instead of divide, giving us a shared past instead of a contested one.’