The Orange Lodges, originally a powerful agency for the defence of loyalist and protestant interest in Ireland, have flourished as fraternal societies in the British Army in nearly every part of the English-speaking world. Although founded by Irish protestant peasants, they soon attracted sections of the upper and middle classes who, at time, found Orangemen useful politically, but embarrassing and difficult to control. This study, originally published in 1966, deals with the founding of the movement in County Armagh just prior to the rebellion of 1798, and traces its history through the first forty years of its existence.
Part 1: The Background and Origin of the Orange Lodges Part 2. The Growth of Orangeism Amongst the Peasantry, 1795-6 1. The Castle and Its Enemies 2. The Armagh Outrages 3. The Dungannon Plan 4. The United Irish Movement Spreads to the South Part 3: Gentry Support of Orangeism, 1796-7 1. United Irish Military Strength 2. Crown Forces 3. The Raising of the Yeomanry, 1796-7 4. The disarming of Ulster 1797 5. Military Incidents 6. Dublin Lodge Supported by Protestant Party Part 4: The Rebellion of 1798 1. The Orange Bogey 2. Grand Lodge Effort to Control the Orangemen 4. The Suppression of the Rebellion 5. The Cornwallis Administration Part 5: Union with Great Britain, 1799-1801 Part 6: The Consolidation of the Orange Movement, 1800-3 Part 7: British Orange Lodges, 1798-1822 Part 8: Orangeism in Ireland, 1803-25 1. The War Years 2. The Ebb-Tide of Orangeism 3. The Wellesley Administration 4. O’Connell and the Catholic Association Part 9: Orange Resistance to Catholic Emancipation, 1825-9 Part 10. Repeal, Parliamentary Reform, and the Tithe War, 1830-4 Part 11: Orange Conspiracy, 1831-6 Part 12: In Retrospect.
Biography
Hereward Senior was Professor of History at McGill University.
Original review of Orangeism in Ireland and Britain:
‘…the study may be described as a useful and dispassionate account of the first forty years of Orangeism in the British Isles. Making good use of the Rebellion Papers and other collections in the Public Record Office, Dublin, and the select committee report of 1835, the author reconstructs the complicated relations between Orangemen and successive British governments up to the formal dissolution of the lodges in 1836 L.P. Curtis, Jr. The Journal of Modern History, Vol 40, No. 4 (1968).
‘Mr Hereward Senior has provided us with a valuable and much-needed dispassionate history of the background and origin of the Orange Institution.’ Brian A. Kennedy, Studia Hibernica, No. 8 (1968)
