Ballyclare 12th July and East Belfast return parade

The band was back in Ballyclare with our dear friends from New Mossley 134 for the 12th celebrations.
 It has been a few years since the band last paraded in Ballyclare due to the yearly rotation of venues.
 Despite being down at Kilkeel the night before for the Schomberg parade and the Ulster Scots Celebrations,The band was unusually fresh and prepared for today’s parade, This might be due to the fact that the younger generation of the band were hoodwinked by the band leader into traveling straight back up to Belfast after the Kilkeel parade without any refreshments or such! “Ah Such silly boys”
The parade day was hot and dry, unlike most of our other outings recently, (Honestly some of the guys have webbed feet!) The weather, as it does, can make or break a parade but with this fine weather, the crowds have flocked to Ballyclare to watch the festivities and enjoy the sights and sounds of the banners and bands. The parade route was bunged from start to finish, the town centre was a no go area if you wanted to follow a particular band round! There was just no room to walk and try and keep up with the marchers.
After the first part of the parade the bands and lodges leave the field and go to a venue for a bite to eat and light refreshment, normally this equates to us having to walk the whole route back, {drawing Mr. Oliver daggers all the way!}, to get to some obscure place miles out of town. Or we even play find the bus! i.e. we hunt about for our bus, in roads filled with hundreds of them! Well not this year, the boys from New Mossley must have seen that the joke was wearing thin! OR EVEN MORE TRUE “WE WERE NOT”! and took pity on us, as they booked the first establishment right outside the gates of the parade field!! AHH sweet. Well our friends from LOL134 could not have done better. The lads were taken to a fantastic Chinese restaurant for a meal and some drinks and a wee rest before the return parade. The hospitality we receive from our friends in New Mossley is 1st rate, this coupled with the crack between the guys in the band and the lodge members, always makes for a fantastic trip and memorable occasion, It means a lot for the members of Black Skull to parade with our brothers in LOL134 the comradeship and friendships built up over many years augmented by our common heritage and shared bonds and beliefs means we will be always at hand to support New Mossley in what ever venture they trial.
After the break the parade back was a short walk out of town to our bus to take us back to New Mossley. Here we change instruments and places and Jazz up the return parade through new Mossley with Flautists taking to the drum and vice versa. After the completion of the New Mossely parade, the band is back on the bus to head back up to Belfast to see if we can catch the East Belfast parade coming out of the city centre. At the end of the East Belfast parade we have a permit to allow us to join in at the end of the East Belfast return parade from the clips attached you can see why this is one of the highlights of the 12th weekend. Well another year is complete and we look forward to next year when we will return to New Mossley to join with our friends to remember our proud history and culture.