GLENGORMLEY AND ANTRIM.

"It be on the 12th day of July in the year of '49", is the first line of the song "Dolly's Brae" , and the 12th of July is the highlight of the Orange calendar.

 We accompany our good friends from LOL 134 as we participate in the district parade in Glengormley before heading for Antrim where the main County Antrim demonstration is taking place.

The lodge has been fortunate to have enrolled a few new members in their ranks, and hopefully they will be there for many years to come, as the lodge continues to strive to increase and retain the numbers within their ranks.

The weather was fine, and we set off at a good pace combining stirring military marches with some traditional blood and thunder tunes. There was a break in the parade at approx: the half way mark, as wreaths are laid at the War Memorial, a feature which takes place all over the country.

This is our fifth vist to Antrim, where the narrow streets within the town centre provide perfect acoustics for visiting bands, much to the delight of the locals and visitors who lined the streets to watch and listen to the various bands who were on parade.

On the playing front, 2010 has been a good year for us so far, and we have been playing to a a very good standard at all of our engagements thus far. Hopefully this level of playing will continue for the rest of the year, as we are very self - critical of our own ability and we don't like it when we put in what we would define as a sub standard performance .

The Loyalist people of Antrim have always been very supportive towards our band, and there was no exception this year, with warm applause greeting us as we marched towards the field just past the barracks.

The return route is always shorter than the inward parade, and as we board our coach, we realise that another "Twelfth" is almost finished, but our stay in Ulster most certainly isn't.