{"id":544062,"date":"2026-07-11T07:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T07:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544062\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T07:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T07:05:11","slug":"we-were-torn-apart-border-protestants-still-reeling-from-abuse-of-heather-humphreys-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544062\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We were torn apart\u2019: Border Protestants still reeling from abuse of Heather Humphreys \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Angela Graham is not given to emotional responses, but she looks back on the St Andrew\u2019s Sunflower Meadow Festival in Scotshouse, Co Monaghan<\/a>, last August as the moment before a dark past returned.<\/p>\n

For years, Graham, a figurehead in her community, has played a leading role in the Drum Accordion Band, formed in the Border village of the same name, with fewer than 200 souls.<\/p>\n

Drum, Co Monaghan, is a village often described as the most Protestant place in the Republic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere we were \u2013 in our uniforms, playing for everyone, all comers, to raise funds for Cavan-Monaghan Palliative Care, Crocus Cancer Support Group in Monaghan and Scotshouse Community Childcare,\u201d she recalls of the festival last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut among the sunflowers, it was beautiful. One of our loveliest experiences, where we were welcomed, wanted and applauded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, the presidential campaign of local woman, Fine Gael\u2019s<\/a> Heather Humphreys<\/a>, was quickly mired in the Daily Mail\u2019s focus on her husband Eric and his membership of the Orange Order<\/a> in the years before the Troubles.<\/p>\n

Within hours, vicious social trolling began: Humphreys was portrayed as \u201can Orange bitch\u201d and unworthy of being the State\u2019s first citizen because of her background.<\/p>\n

\"HeatherHeather Humphreys poses at the Ulster Canal in Clones, Co Monaghan, on the day her nomination for last year’s presidential election was confirmed. Photograph: Lorraine Teevan Photographers <\/p>\n

But it was not just Humphreys who was targeted. <\/p>\n

So was Drum\u2019s accordion band, which organises the village\u2019s picnic every July around the time of the Twelfth, the Ulster Protestant holiday celebrated on July 12th that commemorates the 1690 victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne. <\/p>\n

The picnic attracts Protestant bands from Cavan<\/a> and Monaghan. Each year, hundreds \u2013 mostly families \u2013 come and are fed by tea and the fruits of weeks of cake baking. <\/p>\n

It is no closed shop. Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s<\/a> \u00c9amon \u00d3 Cu\u00edv<\/a> came during his time in Cabinet, speaking to those gathered from a farm trailer.<\/p>\n

Graham is no stranger to difficult situations as for years she was the manager of Clones Family Resource Centre, which offers mediation, family support, counselling for people in difficulties in north Monaghan.<\/p>\n

One year on from the controversy over Humphreys and her family\u2019s ties to the Orange Order \u2013 and on the eve of this year\u2019s Twelfth celebrations \u2013 Graham remains shocked by the abuse directed at Drum, the village\u2019s band and Border Protestants in general.<\/p>\n

During The Troubles, many Protestants living on the southern side lost loved ones from northern branches of their families who had joined the RUC or British Army in the same way that \u201clads in Cork joined the guards\u201d, she says. <\/p>\n

In those years of conflict when loose words cost lives, she and others remained silent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe say nothing. Because we know that storms will pass,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"AngelaAngela Graham laments the general lack of knowledge in the Republic about Border Protestants. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

The response of some to the Humphreys campaign has cast Drum back to that past where people feel they have to watch what they say.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year has left a lot of pain. We thought we had left all of that behind, we really did. Unfortunately, we were targeted,\u201d Graham says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we are culturally Orange and Protestant, we were torn apart, that\u2019s the truth of it,\u201d says Graham, who received cross-community applause after she stepped down as the head of the family resource centre in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could not take it in,\u201d she tells The Irish Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were shocked to the core. We were horrified. We felt the blatant sectarianism, and it hurt so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

The silence of the past has returned. Graham is the only villager prepared to speak with the media a year on. <\/p>\n

Within days of last year\u2019s controversy surrounding Humphreys and her Orange connections, they had agreed to say nothing, to respond to nothing. For all bar Graham, so it remains.<\/p>\n

The village remembers those who came to Drum after the 1998 Belfast Agreement<\/a> that underpins the Northern Ireland<\/a> peace process, intrigued by the Protestant village \u201con the wrong side of the Border\u201d by an accident of geography.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had scores from universities, politicians, community organisations \u2013 you name it \u2013 from anywhere and everywhere, They were welcomed with open arms; we were delighted to have them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they kept silent,\u201d she says, in response to the attacks.<\/p>\n

The community was \u201cvery disappointed\u201d that others, including Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, former president Michael D Higgins<\/a> and his successor, Catherine Connolly<\/a>, did not speak out in support of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould they have made some effort to come and speak to us, to offer us some support and comfort for the way we were treated. But we\u2019ve had absolute zero, and it is regrettable,\u201d Graham says.<\/p>\n

She remembers a visit to the \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in during Mary McAleese\u2019s term of office: it was \u201cwonderful\u201d to be \u201cinvited as part of the Orange family\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a time that needed leadership, to put the hand of welcome out, she gave it. She was amazing. So I don\u2019t expect to get invited [to the \u00c1ras] anytime soon.\u201d <\/p>\n

Graham is bemused at the ineptness of Fine Gael\u2019s campaign for Humphreys, who never hid her family\u2019s background, including her grandfather\u2019s membership of the Ulster Volunteers a century ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow foolish was that? They could have done something,\u201d she says, also saying that Humphreys was quite open about her family\u2019s heritage. Graham says the party could have been more upfront about it and talked about it as part of the campaign.<\/p>\n

For decades, membership of the Orange Order for Border Protestants was no more remarkable than GAA membership for Catholics, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re just same farming families around here; there was nothing unusual about it. It was the norm.\u201d <\/p>\n

While Graham accepts last year\u2019s abuse came from a minority, it was still, she feels, left unchallenged, except for some neighbours who \u201chad the courage to speak up for us\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey got a kicking, but we\u2019re grateful to them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Graham knows most people in the Republic have forgotten last year\u2019s controversy and were \u201cutterly unaware\u201d of its impact on Drum. She laments the general lack of knowledge in the South about Border Protestants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe further you get away from the Border, the less understanding there is of Border life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different life lived in Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal<\/a>. They couldn\u2019t have had an understanding. They wouldn\u2019t really have understood Orange culture or marching bands.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Drum band was formed in 1956, using button accordions and drums because they were affordable in a village ravaged, like others, by emigration.<\/p>\n

\u201cPicnics are unique to Cavan and Monaghan. They were run back when my mother was growing up, by local churches. From when I was 12 or 13, they were run by the local bands, not the churches or the Orange Order,\u201d says Graham, who is a Free Presbyterian.<\/p>\n

Graham is unsure whether last year\u2019s controversy will make more local people attend or stay away from the annual Drum band parade taking place on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows? But we\u2019ll do it the same way,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll say it with food, we say it with the music: you\u2019re welcome.\u201d <\/p>\n

Still, last year\u2019s events have a cast a shadow on a community\u2019s sense of itself \u2013 a Protestant community living along the Border \u2013 in broader Irish society.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe it\u2019ll make people more cautious. People like me, who were open to a conversation about a united Ireland, would now not be interested in having that conversation,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could we say to our unionist neighbour or friends that this is a very welcoming place to live faced with a minority who engage in this terrible racist and sectarian behaviour and stirring up hate?\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angela Graham is not given to emotional responses, but she looks back on the St Andrew\u2019s Sunflower Meadow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24987,3656,15218,9686,1485,41286,895,3775,2044,61,60,977,3773,43,2443,18254,978],"class_list":["post-544062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-belfast-agreement","tag-catherine-connolly","tag-cavan","tag-common-ground","tag-donegal","tag-eamon-o-cuiv","tag-fianna-fail","tag-fine-gael","tag-heather-humphreys","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michael-d-higgins","tag-monaghan","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-orange-order","tag-presidential-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}