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chapter eleven! the orange parade ─── ✞ ───
"Already? It's started already?" Mary panicled, nervously looking round her family as she dragged the big suitcase further into the living room.
Aoife groaned as she paced around the Quinn home, the crying two-year old on her hip. The loud music coming from outside really wasn't helping with Mary's panic around the weekend, and definitely was making the crying Imogen worse.
The orange order had decided that they would practice all of the previous night and started again in the early hours of the morning. Eileen had sent Aoife, d Imogen straight over to her sister's first thing that morning before the orange order started back up again with their practice. Caoimhe had left Derry with her friend's family instead of her cousins and siblings this year. Orin and Connor had offered to help out during the lock-in at the pub Seamus and Eileen had planned. The whole Quinn-McCool family seemed to be on edge as they prepared to go on their holiday. That they undertook every year the weekend of the parade.
"I think it's just a rehearsal, love," Gerry tried to soothe his wife lifting Anna from the high chair.
"They've been playing the same song since 1795, what do they need rehearsal for?" Mary snapped, looking around her to check she had everything she needed, "Aoife, where's your stuff?"
"They're in the hall, Aunt Mary," Aoife answered, walking over to the dinning table and sitting down beside Orla.
"Well, practice makes perfect, Aunt Mary. You know that is why they are so cracker," Orla spoke up, drumming two wooden spoons on her knee.
"I'm sorry? Did you just call the orange order 'cracker'?" Aoife asked, her eyebrows scrunching as she stopped in her tracks at her cousin's comment.
"I'm considering joining," Orla nodded, gently drumming the large knife and wooden spoons against her bare knees.
"I don't think they accept Catholics, Orla, or you know, acknowledge our right to exist," Erin sighed, shifting her gaze between her other cousins who looked just as shocked.
"Give us a hand here, Gerry. This'll not close," Mary begged her husband, watching as he put Anna into her travel cot, "We need to shift ourselves! We're the last Fenians standing."
"Poor mam and da' they can't even leave Derry," Aoife shook her head.
"Relax, love, we've got a good two or three hours before the rioting starts," Joe unsuccessfully tried to calm his daughter down, placing his tea back onto the table.
