The Orange Lodges
Rooted in violence when founded 1795 in Ulster, these Protestant organizations are referred to variously as The Order of Orange, Loyal Order of Orange, Orange Order, Orange Society, and Orange Association. The terms "orange lodges" and "Orangeman" appear in Ulysses four times plus there's a remembrance by Stephen Dedalus of "The lodge of Diamond in Armagh." The Order of Orange currently has independent, national organizations in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and West Africa.
n/ U (Gabler) 2:270, 273074, 12:1590, 1634, 15:3984; website of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, www.goli.org.uk. The Order of Orange formed in the wake of the Battle of Diamond between the Protestant Peep O'Day Boys and the Catholic Defenders.
The Order of Orange originated in Ireland as an anti-Catholic body that descended from the Peep O'Day Boys, a terrorist Protestant organization in Ulster. It soon became an island-wide, Protestant fraternity and political organization. In 1798, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland opened its national office in Dublin. The office remained there until 1922 when upon creation of the Irish Free State it relocated to Belfast.
Today, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland's stated mission is to promote the Protestant faith and maintain the union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. It's primarily a political organization with strong links to the hardline Democratic Unionist Party. About two-thirds of Irish Orangemen regularly vote for DUP candidates and in 2019, six of the party's ten MPs were lodge members.
n/ The i, June 22, 2017 and updated at inews.co.uk, July 16, 2020; Jon Tonge, "Faithful Unionists: the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland," Political Insight 10, no. 2 (June 2019): 26-29.
All national organizations belong to the Imperial Orange Council, often called "The World Orange Council". Its officers include a president, secretary, treasurer, and an Imperial Grand Master. Delegates from the member organizations assemble every three years.
n/ Website of the Loyal Orange Institution, www.orangeusa.org.
The Order and Orangemen in Ireland on Bloomsday
Though at first opposed to Ireland's Union with Great Britain, by Bloomsday, the Order of Orange had a long history of staunch support for Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom. Orangemen were loyalists as exemplified by the Ulysses character, Garrett Deasy.
At the turn of the twentieth century, in the 26 counties that eventually constituted the Republic of Ireland, there were about 250 Orange Lodges with a total of 100,000 members. The City of Dublin had about 3,000 Orangemen, predominantly resident on the southside.
n/ Quincy Dougan in The Irish Times, July 10, 2017.
Download from Major Tweedy's Neighborhood
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Transcription of a booklet by the Loyal Orange Association in Canada which has been digitized and stored on the Internet Archive. Forms and Ritual of the Orange Order, to be Observed in Private Lodges of British North America (Cobourg, CA: 1846). Printed for the association at The Cobourg Star office. Click on the link and the document, in OrangeRitualCanada.pdf (166 kb), will open in a new browser window.
Documents on Other Websites
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Master of Lodge 550, Grand Lodge of Co. Down, Ireland, was Major James Nugent Blackwood-Price, a first cousin of Joyce's friend in Trieste, Henry Blackwood-Price. The major's father, James Charles, inherited the extensive Price lands in County Antrim and James Nugent resided at the family's manor house in Saintfield. That village is 18 kilometers southwest of Newtownards, the birthplace of Henry Blackwood-Price. James Nugent Blackwood-Price was an ardent Orangeman and served as Deputy Master of District 5 (with 21 lodges) and member of the national central committee.
The digitized file for this 41-page report is stored on the Internet Archive and may be downloaded in its entirety free of charge.
A history of Orangeism and the Orange Lodges by the Catholic Archbishop of New Zealand, H.W. Cleary (London: The Catholic Truth Society, 1913). The document is in a pdf file on the Internet Archive and may be downloaded in its entirety free of charge.
An 1898 pamphlet by a Canadian Orangeman, William Banks. Banks edited the Sentinel and Orange Protestant Advocate, a weekly newspaper that was published in Toronto. The document is in a pdf file on the website Electric Canadian which is run by Alastair McIntyre. McIntyre is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
Links to Other Websites
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Brief article by John Hunt on the Orange Lodges with respect to Ulysses. This 2012 article shows why Deasy's claim about the Orange Lodges and Union is highly misleading. Link is to a page of the on-line resource, The Joyce Project. Note that the website is optimized for viewing with mobile devices.
Incorporated in the UK as the Orange Institution. The organization's emblem, pictured on the right, features King William III (Prince of Orange) on a horse. On Bloomsday, a statute of the mounted king stood on College Green in front of Trinity College. It receives mention in Ulysses: "Where the foreleg of King Billy’s horse pawed the air Mrs Breen plucked her hastening husband back from under the hoofs of the outriders."
n/ U (Gabler) 10:1231-33.
The Dublin Corporation removed the statute after it had been damaged in an explosion at about 5:00 am on November 11, 1928, Remembrance Day for Commonwealth war dead of the Great War. A nearby statue of King George II was damaged by another explosion, but that monument was repaired by city workmen.
n/ The Times, November 12, 1928; Belfast Telegraph, November 27, 1928.
Incorporated as The Loyal Orange Association in Canada. The association "stands for democratic government, promoting and maintaining the Protestant faith, the public school concept, supporting the monarchy, supremacy of law, and a united Canada." For more on the Orange Order in Canada click here and a pdf from Major Tweedy's Neighborhood will open in a popup window.
