What is the orange order?
William lll of England was known as William of Orange because of his Dutch ancestry. He was a protestant and defeated the Catholic forces in Ireland at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Since then he has been revered as a hero by protestant Ulstermen the world over. They have masonic-style organizations called lodges under the general rubric of “order.” They are to Northern Ireland what the IRA is or was to the Republican South. I have no truck with either side. However, William is interesting in that he married Mary, the daughter of James ll, who would have become queen in her own right. Thus William and Mary were the first and only joint monarchs in English history. The university in Williamsburg, Va took its name from them.
Beginnings The Orange Order – as it presently exists – came into existence after the Battle of the Diamond, near Loughgall, on 21st September 1795. This ‘Battle’ was instigated by a Roman Catholic revolutionary brotherhood known as the ‘defenders’ who were part of the ‘ethnic cleansing’ programme of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the attempt was to remove the Protestant witness from the Island of Ireland. The purpose of the Orange Order was to bring together the ‘Protestants’ of various denominations – Episcopalian – Presbyterian – Independents – Huguenots – Quakers – into one homogenous grouping to maintain their Protestant religion and way of life and as a distinctive affirmation that they intended to hold fast to the FREEDOM of religion won at such a high cost at the Reformation. Growth: The Orange Institution became an INTERNATIONAL Organisation as the benefits of a religious and fraternal organisation became obvious. Military Warrants were issued from the earliest
