ON this side of the water it is difficult to understand what persuades thousands of Orangemen that they must embark on what is known as the marching season.

Their annual strut, wearing sashes, bowlers and carrying rolled umbrellas leaves the vast majority of people in this country completely baffled.

They are at a loss to understand the marching mentality.

But Orangemen insist that it is their right to march through the streets of Ulster recalling battles and skirmishes which took place hundreds of years ago.

They fly in the face of the mood of optimism which has prevailed in Ulster following the Stormont agreement.

There is still cause for great optimism, but there is also cause to fear that the marching season will do nothing to help establish the new Northern Ireland executive.

It was never going to be easy.

Bringing together men who in the past have refused to speak to one another, or even shake hands, is not the best recipe for harmony.

These are difficult days, when the whole delicate structure, so evenly balanced following last week's poll, could be brought crashing down by a clumsy move.

And it is difficult to imagine a more inflammatory act than an Orangemen's march, given the knife-edge situation in Northern Ireland.

There will never be peace in the province until old enmities are put to one side.

Harking back to the past and re-living tribal conflicts is not going to make life any easier.

The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland are desperate for peace. They have been sickened by a quarter of a century of murders and bombings.

It is the minority of bigots, on both sides, who seem to delight in taking to the streets to cock a snook at their neighbours, who are threatening peace.

The Orangemen's marches belong in the past. It is a crying shame that those who take part in them and orchestrate them cannot see that their out-dated tribal rituals can undermine years of hard work aimed at bring peace to Northern Ireland.

All the vast majority of people in Ulster ask is: Give peace a chance.

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