Following an exchange of letters printed in The Impartial Reporter between Mr. Sam Foster and Ulster Unionist M.P, Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson, after Mr. Foster criticised Mr. Donaldson and other unionists for attacking David Trimble from Twelfth platforms and politicising the Orange Order, the historian said she supported Mr. Foster’s views that the Orange Order should not be indulging in politics. In fact she “Couldn’t agree with him more.”

    Ms. Dudley Edwards, who wrote a reflection on the Orange Order, ‘The Faithful Tribe’ in 1999, was in the Clogher Valley this week for the William Carleton Summer School. She was asked for her views on the controversy within the Ulster Unionist Party and on the Orange Order’s unionist politics.

    She said: “I believe the Orange Order’s involvement in Unionist politics is ill-judged and divisive. It is helping to destroy both Unionism and Orangeism.”

    The Orange Order, she said, “offers nothing to young people and its membership is rapidly depleting. Its only hope is to concentrate on its religious and cultural mission, otherwise Orangeism is doomed.”

    Ms Dudley Edwards said Unionism would also be fatally weakened if the Ulster Unionist Party could not pull itself together.

    “Dissenting is a noble tradition but if it extends to refusing to accept majority decisions in a political party then it is fatally divisive. If the minority in the U.U.P cannot accept the majority democratic vote in the party then there’s no hope for the Ulster Unionists,” she said.

    Ms Dudley Edwards added, “Since the Joint Declaration, the actions of Burnside, Donaldson, Smyth and Molyneaux have taken everyone’s eye off Sinn Fein and on to Unionism and Sinn Fein have exploited that brilliantly to their advantage.”

    “With, no doubt, the very best of intentions, Jeffrey Donaldson and Orange Head Quarters have given much joy to Sinn Fein,” she said.