Orange on St. Patricks day?

[Miss Jasmine]

I didn't want to hijack the original thread this was posted on...so I pulled it out. I really am curious and not trying to stir the pot. This was from the thread about green food for lunch...

at our house I'd have to pack a all orange lunch because were the Orange men....................... from N. Ireland......I have heard some stories about aunts and uncles going to school with orange on instead of green.................

You know...I never understood this. I mean I know St. Patrick's day is REALLY a Catholic "holiday", but why do the Northern Ireland Protestants go out of their way to be different on this day? I have always been curious about this. Well heck, I have always been curious about the Catholic-Protestant thing anyway...how a fight over land is a fight over religion and so on...

Anyway, when I packed to visit my MIL in Ireland, I was told not to pack any orange clothes. Yikes, it's just a color. Turns out orange wasn't really a problem for me, but my olive skin was, but that's another thread for another day.

 

[Princess Dot]

Without getting too deep into this, it is basically an England vs Ireland thing with the English being the Protestants and the Irish being the Catholics. It is not a fight about religion, but the religion that identifies you with one side or the other.

Not a very in depth explaination, but this is not really the place to go into the entire history of the troubles.