Seminar to look at UUP and Orange Order history

Two leading political scientists are to shed new light on years of turmoil that have led to current fissures in Unionist politics, at a University of Ulster seminar in Jordanstown this Friday.

Entitled “Simply British? The Ulster Unionist Party and Devolution from Craig to Trimble”, the University of Ulster seminar will look at the continuing relationship between the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Orange Order at a time when the UUP has lost its position as the dominant party in the Unionist community.

Professor Henry Patterson of the UU School of Economics and Politics and Dr Eric Kaufmann of the Department of Politics, Birkbeck College, London will also unveil results of in-depth research into archives of the UUP and the Orange Order.

“Some of our research findings will be presented at the seminar,” Professor Patterson said. “Our research will challenge existing accounts of the Party and the Orange Order, which have sought to locate the basis of pro-Agreement Unionism in the emergence of new, ‘civic unionist’ thinking.”

The seminar, which is part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s “Devolution and Constitutional Change” programme, is to be held at the Boardroom UU Jordanstown from 10.00am - 4.30am.

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