Digital Commons Network^™

Orange Alba: The Civil Religion Of Loyalism In The Southwestern Lowlands Of Scotland Since 1798, Ronnie Michael Booker Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

This study introduces the idea that, taken together, the major institutional frameworks of the ultra-Protestant culture of loyalism in the southwestern lowlands of Scotland can be conceived as a civil religion. I argue that loyalist civil religion in lowland Scotland was comprised of a distinct set of institutions including the Orange Order, Glasgow Rangers Football Club, loyalist street gangs and paramilitaries and loyalist flute bands. The elements that informed each of these loyalist groups were not unrelated, but part of a multidimensional and interactive civil religious movement. Each institution appealed to a wide range of viewpoints within the loyalist community …