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NI parade statistics, 1920-1998: where are they?

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  • 15-03-2018 12:00am
    #1
    gaiscioch
    Registered Users Posts: 1,530 ✭✭✭


    Does anybody know where I could find statistics on the number of Orange Order, Apprentice Boys of Derry, Royal Black and AOH parades per annum in the North from 1920 until prior to the formation of the Parades Commission in 1998? Surely some authority authorised each parade before then also? Membership of each organisation would also be useful, as would location of members - e.g. I read here that there were three times as many OO members in areas like Fermanagh with more nationalists than than there were in unionist-majority counties like Antrim.

    CAIN is usually the best online resource for NI historical info but it's coming up short for me on this issue (it's a huge website so I could have overlooked it)

    For 2007, I can get the following information from the Parades Commission on Wikipedia:
    According to the Parades Commission, the Apprentice Boys held 231 parades in Northern Ireland in 2007. Of these, 116 were Relief of Derry parades, and 115 were Closing of the Gates parades. The main December parade in Derry was expected to include 1500 marchers and 28 bands, while the main August parade was estimated at 10,000 marchers and 127 bands.[13] In 2009/2010 32 marches took place in Glasgow, Scotland.[14]

    Where can I get similar statistics for before 1998?


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    #2
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,056 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    With great difficulty, I would imagine.

    You say "Surely some authority authorised each parade before [1998] also?" SFAIK parades were, and still are, organised locally. The fraternal organisations are very decentralised; lodges act independently, or they co-operate with neighbouring lodges, but there is no central authority that organises or authorises parades.

    Goos statistics are available since 1998 because, under the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 (the legislation which set up the Parades Commission) there's an obligation to give advance notice of parades to the police. Based on these notifications, the PSNI produces the fairly solid statistics. Prior to 1998 I don't there there was any uniform system for doing this. Local parade operators would generally co-operate with the police, but the information gleaned from this wasn't centralised, still less published.


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    #3
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,670 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    There simply aren't any stats pre Parades Commission. Membership figures are going to be closely guarded particularly as I imagine they're all falling these days.


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