Polymorphous Playboys: Irish–Caribbean Shadow Dancing

Abstract

On the Twelfth of July, 2003, I took an unusually empty train from Dublin to Belfast to attend one of the biggest and most contentious Orange Parades in Northern Ireland’s Loyalist Marching Season.1 That day, I stood among the crowds on the sidewalks who were waving their Union Jack flags while wearing Union Jack jester hats, watching the Orangemen parade down the street. In order to not draw attention to myself or appear as a cynical cultural tourist, I opted to forgo taking photographs that day and instead collected newspapers and other ephemera from the event. That evening’s edition of the Belfast Telegraph held two remarkably contrasting images on its front page. Above the headline, which read, “Sunshine Greets Twelfth Marchers,” were two circular images, in opposite corners, previewing articles inside the paper. The image in the top right-hand corner showed members of various Orange Order lodges marching in their bowler hats and orange sashes, but it was the image in the opposite corner that drew my attention. In this image – rendered as a watercolor painting – a single boat on blue water and underneath a cloudless sky – was flagged with the message “Nine Hours to Paradise: A Holiday to the Caribbean.” While this is hardly an unusual representation of the Caribbean, which is packaged for tourists who wish to get away from their lived reality and spend a vacation in a land often considered outside of time, I found its placement in this particular edition of the Belfast Telegraph to be more than a bit ironic.