American visiting Ireland mocked for mistaking Orange Order march for ‘Irish celebration’

An American social media content creator has been widely ridiculed after sharing a video of herself “bopping along” to an Orange Order march, thinking it was an “Irish parade”.

The video, posted under the handle @LizWizdom, showed the woman, wearing an Irish tricolour bracelet, smiling and dancing as members of the Orange Order marched past playing flutes, crashing cymbals and banging drums.

She captioned the video, which has been viewed more than 1.5m times: “When you’re just trying to take a shortcut on your Ireland roadtrip but end up in the middle of an Irish parade.”

The clip sparked extensive backlash, with one X user commenting: “Cannot deal with this Yank bopping along to an Orange Order march with a tricolour bracelet and calling it an ‘Irish parade'”.

Another said in the TikTok comments: “Potentially the funniest video I’ve ever seen.”

While a third chimed in: “She’s going to be horrified she reacted like this when she finds out”.

Her political faux pas prompted her to create several follow-up videos in which she apologised and appeared to be taking novel approaches to researching Irish history.

In her apology video, the embarrassed creator said: “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that this was a controversial thing. I thought I just stumbled upon a parade out in the Irish countryside – turns out major politically divisive situation going on.”

In a third clip, the creator posted a video with the caption: “Watching Derry Girls to educate myself.”

However, users were not convinced that the hit TV drama was sufficiently detailed for her to truly grasp the political landscape. One said: “Dont watch derry girls, actually look into the places your going”.