ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
An Irishman who recently arrived in our cosmopolitan desert community has been left scratching his head as to why men dressed head-to-toe in orange are up on the roof of a local house.
In addition to that, Nollaig Ó Meadhra told The Advocate he saw them cutting up fallen trees and helping themselves to the contents of cars washed down stormwater drains and crushed by falling lumber.
The 26-year-old working holidaymaker explained to our reporter that he understands, however.
“I know, wherever there’s trouble like, there’s Orangemen,” he said.
“But I didn’t realize that they were so poor in Australia that they have to scavenge like that. Climbing up on people’s roofs like that to steal tiles or tin or what have you. They’re cutting up that tree over there and taking the wood home. I saw a car down the road there washed up in a drain, and you’ve got the Orangemen down there pulling it out. In Ireland, they just make noise and block traffic while the kids throw rocks at them,”
“What does anyone want with a flooded car? Surely they’re not going to try and rebirth it? Are they going to tear it down for parts? Surely they’re not. That’d be a disgrace, it would, like. Are the Orangemen here Travellers? Like, I’m not sure if you know what they’re like back home, but yeah, they’d sell you an alternator out of a flooded Vauxhall, that’s for sure,”
“Surely not.”
The Advocate did confirm to Mr. Ó Meadhra that they were, in fact, a band of local Protestant men and women who appear after natural disasters to clean up.
“Christ,” he said.
“I thought it was grand here.”
More to come.
