The Loyal Orange Institution, better known as the Orange Order, is a Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland. It has been a strong supporter of Irish unionism and has had close links with the Ulster Unionist Party, which governed Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1972. The Orange Order has lodges throughout Ireland, although it is strongest in the North. There are also branches throughout the Commonwealth (especially in Scotland and Canada), and in the United States. In the 20th century, the organisation went into sharp decline outside Northern Ireland and County Donegal. ; The Orange marches The Order has a substantial fraternal and benevolent component.Tim Pat Coogan, 1916: The Easter Rising, Phoenix, 2001, , p. 14
Background
The Orange Order arose out of the divisions between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. Sixteenth century attempts by the English to impose Protestantism on the Irish had been largely unsuccessful, and so the Irish-speaking majority in Ireland, consisting of Gaelic Irish and the descendants of medieval Hiberno-Norman settlers, remained Catholic, in contrast to the post-Reformation Planters from Britain, who were mostly Protestant. In the early seventeenth century the English, partly in response to an uprising based in Ulster, settled large numbers of English and Scottish Protestants in the province, a process known as the Plantation of Ulster.Hiram Morgan "O'Doherty, Sir Cahir" The Oxford Companion to Irish History. S.J. Connolly. Oxford University Press, 2007; Hiram Morgan "Ulster plantation" The Oxford Companion to Irish History. S.J. Connolly. Oxford University Press, 2007. This changed Ulster from the most Catholic and Gaelic of the four Irish provinces"Ulster" A Dictionary of British History. Ed. John Cannon. Oxford University Press, 2001. to the most Protestant and British, although many Catholics remained. The two communities feared and resented each other, and when James II of England was overthrown by William of Orange in 1688 most Irish Catholics (in Ulster and elsewhere) continued to support James while the Protestants supported William. After initially fleeing to France, James arrived in Ireland in 1689 with French troops and money provided by Louis XIV, who was at war with William. James' supporters (Jacobites) controlled most of Ireland, with the exception of Ulster. Here the Protestants held out for William, especially at Enniskillen and Derry, which were besieged by Jacobite forces. General Frederick Schomberg, 1st Duke of Schomberg and a small army were sent by William to Ireland, but they failed to make progress against the Jacobites. In 1690 William came to Ireland himself, and soon defeated James in the Battle of the Boyne. James fled again to France and although the Williamite War in Ireland was not resolved until the following year, William had achieved a decisive victory over James.
In England, William's overthrow of James is remembered as the Glorious Revolution, so-called because in that country there was little bloodshed, and because it established significant limits on royal power. For many years the Revolution was seen as a major turning point in English and world history,Jeremy Black "Glorious Revolution" Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. Ed. Alan Charles Kors. Oxford University Press 2003. as an important step towards democracy and against arbitrary government. In Ireland, William's victory signalled the beginning of the Protestant Ascendancy. Although the Treaty of Limerick negotiated at the end of the war was in some ways generous towards the defeated Catholics,Bruce Philip Lenman "Limerick, treaty of" The Oxford Companion to British History. Ed. John Cannon. Oxford University Press, 1997. it was not properly ratified and was repeatedly broken by the Protestant-controlled Parliament of Ireland. Ironically, the increased powers won for parliament in the Revolution meant that William was unable to prevent it from overturning the promises he had made in the Treaty.S.J. Connolly, 'The Penal Laws', in W.A. Maguire, ed., Kings in Conflict: The Revolutionary War in Ireland and its Aftermath, 1689–1750, Belfast, 1990, pp.160–1. The subsequent Penal Laws barred Irish Catholics from most aspects of public life and reduced many to poverty."penal laws" The Oxford Companion to Irish History. S. J. Connolly. Oxford University Press, 2007. Although there were no uprisings or wars in Ireland in the hundred years after the Battle of the Boyne, there continued to be tension and some conflict between the Protestant and Catholic communities.
Foundation of the Order Under the influence of the United Irishmen, according to T. A. Jackson, political unity was replacing sectarian divisions in Ulster. This he says inspired "public-spirited zeal" in Catholic areas with areas like Armagh where the population had been evenly divided and the scene of sporadic violence between the Peep O'Day Boys and Catholic Defenders for years dying down to nothing under the influence of the United Irish. However, with the arrival of the new pro-Catholic Viceroy, Earl Fitzwilliam the Peep of Day boys resumed their activity after nearly a two-year absence. Jackson suggests that it is impossible to miss the connection between this fact, and the lie propagated by the Clare-Beresford faction that Fitzwilliam was there to replace the Protestant ascendancy with a Catholic one. With Defenders, again in action, he says, every successful defence against Peep of Day attack being then portrayed as a "Catholic outrage." This "artificially worked-up pogrom" would culminate in what came to be known as the Battle of the Diamond.Ireland Her Own, T. A. Jackson, Lawrence & Wishart, Fp 1947, Rp 1991, pg. 142-5 In the aftermath of the "battle" which occurred on 21 September 1795 the Orange Society was founded, with the first Orange lodge established in Dyan, County Tyrone. Its first grand master was James Sloan of Loughgall, in whose inn the victory by the Peep O'Day Boys was celebrated.A New Dictionary of Irish History from 1800, D.J. Hickey & J.E. Doherty, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin 2003, pg375
According to Robert Kee, the Peep O'Day Boys would reorganise under the name the Orange Society, which he described as a crude organisation at the time.Robert Kee, Vol I, pg.71. However, Ruth Dudley-Edwards has stated that, "The traditional belief that Peep O' Day Boys founded the Orange Order ... does not bear scrutiny."Ruth Dudley Edwards: The Faithful Tribe, page 174. Harper Collins, London, 2000. Dudley-Edwards, Mervyn Jess and Colonel Robert Hugh Wallace, a former Grand Master of the Belfast Orangemen, have suggested that the Orange BoysAfter Protestant homes were attacked in Benburb, County Tyrone, on 24 June 1794, Freemason James Wilson, asked his fellow masons to help defend vulnerable Protestants. After being refused he left the Freemasons claiming that he "would light a star .... which would eclipse them forever". He had already organised the Orange Boys at the Dyan (County Tyrone) in 1792, as is evidenced by the notice in the Belfast News Letter on 1 February 1793, which referred to a meeting of the 138 members of the Orange Boys held on 22 January 1793." The Orange Boys Wallace writes, were predominantly Presbyterian. William Blacker, Robert Hugh Wallace, The formation of the Orange Order, 1795–1798: Education Committee of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, 1994 , Pg 49 and the Volunteers seem to have been the true forerunners of the Orange Institution.Ruth Dudley Edwards: The Faithful Tribe, pages 220 and 227–228. HarperCollins, London, 2000.Mervyn Jess. The Orange Order, page 18-20. The O’Brian Press Ltd. Dublin, 2007William Blacker, Robert Hugh Wallace, The formation of the Orange Order, 1795–1798: Education Committee of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, 1994 , Pg25. Wallace states the Peep O' Day Boys were never a properly organised group and moreover continued to operate of their own accord after the formation of the Orange Institution.William Blacker, Robert Hugh Wallace, The formation of the Orange Order, 1795–1798: Education Committee of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, 1994 , Pg 126,78
James Wilson was joined by Daniel Winter and James Sloan. The infant Orange Order according to Wallace, had both Presbyterian and Anglican members.William Blacker, Robert Hugh Wallace, The formation of the Orange Order, 1795–1798: Education Committee of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, 1994 , Pg 49 The colour orange had long been a popular symbol with which to celebrate the victory of William of Orange over James II a century before. The Orange Order proper was founded in Loughgall in County Armagh 21 September 1795 in the aftermath of this Battle of the Diamond.Ireland Her Own, T. A. Jackson, Lawrence & Wishart, Fp 1947, Rp 1991, pg. 145
Many of the Orange Order's terms and language are derived from Freemasonry (e.g. lodge, grand master, and degrees.) The two movements have since grown apart; today the highest bodies in Freemasonry specifically deny any connection between the two institutions.
Early years Much of the Order's early activities involved opposition to the Society of United Irishmen, a revolutionary organisation set up to abolish sectarian distinctions and to create an independent Irish republic. It was composed of Anglicans, Dissenters (i.e., non-Anglican Protestants, mainly Presbyterian), and Roman Catholics. The United Irishmen were violently opposed by the Orange Order.
The Governor of Armagh, Lord Gosford, gave his opinion of the late 18th century disturbances to a meeting of magistrates: "It is no secret that a persecution is now raging in this country... the only crime is... profession of the Roman Catholic faith. Lawless banditti have constituted themselves judges..." According to Col. R.H. Wallace, whoever the Governor believed were the "lawless banditti" they could not have been Orangemen as there were no lodges in existence at the time of his speech.William Blacker, Robert Hugh Wallace, The formation of the Orange Order, 1795–1798: Education Committee of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, 1994 , Pg 37 Against the background of the seditious activity of the United Irishmen, the government backed the Orange Order from 1796. Thomas Knox, British military commander in Ulster, wrote in August 1796, "We must to a certain degree uphold them, for with all their licentiousness, on them we must rely for the preservation of our lives and properties should critical times occur."
The Order spread rapidly in mid-Ulster and many Orangemen found their way into the government militia and Yeomanry. For their part, the United Irishmen exacerbated Catholic fear of the Order by spreading fabricated rumours of an "Orange extermination oath" to massacre all Catholics. Nevertheless, Protestant factions did expel up to 7000 Catholics from their homes in this period and by 1797, Henry Joy McCracken, the United Irish leader, was receiving word of the "barbarities committed on the country people in Moneymore, County Londonderry, by the Yeomen and Orangemen."
Orange historians state that the first Orangemen did not sympathise with the Peep of Day Boys or "wreckers" (of Catholic homes and churches) and never allowed them to join the Orange Institution.William Blacker, Robert Hugh Wallace, The formation of the Orange Order, 1795–1798: Education Committee of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, 1994 , Pg126. Others have stated that some Peep of Day Boys might have "slipped through the net"Mervyn Jess. The Orange Order, page 20. The O'Brian Press Ltd. Dublin, 2007 but if so they found themselves in a vastly different organisation.Mervyn Jess. The Orange Order, page 18. The O'Brian Press Ltd. Dublin, 2007