THE quote "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" is often attributed to Albert Einstein.
Here in Northern Ireland we have taken that advice, dropped the top and tail of it and just ran with it. 'Doing the same thing over and over' is our motto, our favourite pastime, the words we live by, and they will continue to destroy us.
Some people here grab a controversial and damaging issue and run with it – regardless of how corrosive it is to our society. Indeed, they get themselves into some manner of weird relay race that just runs forever, down through the generations.
They run with the 'issue' baton which is, more often than not, a relic of our dark and bloody past. Other folks cheer from the stands as competitors pass the baton onto those ahead of them – while shouting half a romanticised story about what the issue was actually about. They run with it and pass it on to those ahead of them, and so on and so on and so on, times eternity.
One such relic is the Drumcree stand-off. For those not familiar, the Orange Order had held one of its marches in Portadown the Sunday before July 12 for many, many decades. Its 'traditional route' passed by predominantly Catholic areas. Residents there said they saw the march as triumphalist and protested against it: the Orange Order said they saw this as an attack on their traditions
Tensions flared throughout the 1970s and 1980s over the march and the ripple effect saw violence and protests throughout Northern Ireland.
Several years in the 1990s saw residents blocking the return parade on the Garvaghy Road and stopping the march. In other years, the security forces locked down the Catholic areas and allowed the march to pass.
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Editorial: Leave Drumcree dispute in past
For many years, it was the epicentre of a raging and violent battle that spilled out beyond the once quiet fields surrounding the church. Several people were killed – including the three young Quinn children, who were burned alive in their homes in a UVF firebomb attack – in the hate that rose up from the stand-offs.
Hundreds of police officers were injured in riots. Relations between the two communities were severely damaged.
From 1998 onwards, the march was banned from Garvaghy Road. For years afterwards, there was a large-scale stand-off which eventually fizzled out. For the last 25 years, marchers have continued to turn up on the country lane in July in protest at that decision, finding their way blocked by police each time.
A major gathering at the weekend marked 25 years since the Drumcree stand-off started, with members of the DUP calling for the ban to be lifted and the Orange Order allowed back down the Garvaghy Road. Some loyalist commentators called Drumcree 'unfinished business'.
The first time around, this dispute was profoundly damaging for Northern Irish society – there were awful, awful scenes revolving around it. The hate emanating from the memory of those tensions brings forth a raw, gnawing feeling of deep disgust from most who remember how it brought out the very worst side of Northern Ireland.
It's mind boggling how some people within our society seem so intent on handing those old relics of the past to the next generation, who deserve so much better.
We need to think about the Northern Ireland we are handing to our young people. They want and deserve to live in a progressive, functioning place where the past is left in the past and the future is theirs to carve out.
We won't be able to do that if we keep attempting to ceaselessly win and celebrate victories over one another for time eternal.
