Word: lambegs
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Even if the more sinister sectarian rituals are still strong, some of the other traditions of fanatic Orangeism are dying out. One of the true traditions of the Orange parade, the lambeg drum--weighing about 40 pounds and fabricated from oak, ash and goatskin (only the skin of the she-goat will do)--is just about extinct. A lambeg drummer used canes instead of drumsticks and during the course of a single parade, he'd break more than ten of them. That's because the drummer hits the drum as hard as he can. In the process, he hits...
There were cheers from thousands, and Orangemen toasted their Queen's coming in gallons of frothy stout, the national elixir. The Queen and husband Philip spent the night at Government House, watched the traditional lambeg drummers lambasting their three-foot drums with ferocious, stout-filled glee. Eventually, they gave Elizabeth a headache, and Sir Basil Brooke, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, popped his head outside to ask them to desist. They did, but said goodnight by playfully clouting him with their caps...
...heads at all were broken as the Orange parade swung through Belfast. Some blood, however, was shed. The main noise in an Orange parade is made by the Lambeg drummers, who wallop their four-foot-high Lambegs with cane whips 30 inches long. The noise, they say, is like that an elephant makes-but an elephant cannot make it staccato. A Lambeg drummer isn't doing anything at all until his wrists begin to bleed from smacking against the drum; when they see that Orange blood, the crowd, thinking of the Battle, always cheers...
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