Orangemen
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a secret society of Protestant Irishmen. The first lodge was organized in County Armagh, Ireland, September 21, 1795. A member was required to be over eighteen years of age, a Protestant, and of known loyalty to the British crown. The society was named in honor of William III, Prince of Orange, who ascended the English throne in 1689. The Catholic peasantry of the day were organized similarly in lodges of what were known as Ribbonmen. Feeling between the two societies ran high. A fight with shillalahs was to be expected at every county fair. Not infrequently disturbances rose to the dignity of general riots in which life was lost. As it was impossible to induce the members of either society to testify against their fellows, convictions were impossible and disorder existed for half a century. In 1808 lodges were established in England. Later, Manchester became the seat of a grand lodge of Orangemen. In 1828 it was reckoned that there were 200,000 members, including many persons of wealth and influence. Even members of the royal family joined. Politically, the Orangemen did not favor the relief of the Catholics of Ireland. They were opposed to the bill that permitted Catholics to become members of Parliament. They opposed the passage of the bill which relieved the taxpayers of Ireland from supporting the Episcopal church . There are many lodges in the United States and Canada. The American membership in 1861 was reported at 150,000, but it has fallen off considerably since. The chief demonstration of the year is held on July 12th, the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne. See Boyne ; Ireland
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Aiton's wrote this in 1910 the Orange Order was a force in an undivided Ireland under the crown; eleven years later the island was partitioned, and the Order became closely bound up with the new Northern Ireland state, holding a formal seat on the Ulster Unionist Party's governing council until it severed that link in 2005. The Ribbonmen the entry describes had faded in the nineteenth century, but sectarian conflict resurfaced far more violently in the Troubles of 1968-1998, and Orange marching routes became a flashpoint in their own right — the Drumcree standoffs at Portadown from 1995 drew police and army in numbers, and since 1998 a statutory Parades Commission has ruled on contested routes. The Twelfth of July is still the great day, now a public holiday in Northern Ireland and promoted in Belfast as a tourist festival, though membership has fallen steeply from the mass figures quoted for the nineteenth century, and the Order is a public, not a secret, body with published rules.
Written for this edition, 2026.