How much do you know about the Orange Order?
Here are 25 facts you might not be aware of:
1 The Order was founded in 1795 by Daniel Winter, James Sloane and James Wilson following a clash in Co Armagh between the Protestant Peep o’ Day Boys and the Catholic Defenders, which ended in the Battle of the Diamond and the death of 30 Catholics. Dan Winter’s house near Loughgall, where the meeting to form the Orange Order took place after the battle as Protestants tried to protect their properties, has been restored and can be visited.
2 The Order’s name comes from the Protestant King William of Orange who defeated the Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690. Orange refers to the region of south-east France that was among William’s family domains.
3 The first Orange Order marches took place on 12 July 1796 in Gosford, outside Markethill, County Armagh.
4 William of Orange was an asthmatic, and though not a hunchback, he walked with the appearance of one.
5 On 20 February 1702, William rode Sorrel, a new horse, in the park at Hampton Court. As the horse began to gallop, it tripped over a molehill and fell, throwing William, who broke his collarbone, with fatal consequences. A few days later the bone broke again when he was in a carriage. He developed a fever and died on March 8.
6 King Billy’s horse at the Battle of the Boyne was not white as described, but brown. A white horse would make him an easy target.
7 William was one of the first to use the media. He arrived in England in 1688 at the invitation of British politicians who wanted to rid the nation of the Catholic King James II, armed with a printing press, producing 60,000 copies of his declaration, which criticized the king and tried to convince the English that he is a friend, not an invader.
8 The name Lambeg Drum literally means “small church drum”, which is quite inappropriate for one of the largest and loudest instruments in the world.
9 William’s father (William II, Prince of Orange) died two weeks before he was born, and his mother (Mary, eldest daughter of King Charles I of England) when he was 10 years old.
10 Malahide Castle, near Dublin, is the ancestral home of the Talbot family. You can still visit the Great Hall where 14 members of the Talbot family sat down to breakfast on the morning of July 12, 1690. They were all dead that evening.
11 An estimated 50,000 took part in the Battle of the Boyne. Surprisingly most survived, the casualty list is estimated at around 2,000 killed. The fight lasted about four hours.
12 William of Orange was both son-in-law and nephew of King James II, whom he defeated at the Battle of the Boyne. The battle was to prevent James from handing over power in Ireland to the Catholics. The bulk of William’s army was militia of Dutch and Danish nationality and they had landed at Carrickfergus before moving south. Joined by France, James II was warned by King Louis XIV not to face William’s army and instead burn Dublin and retreat west of the River Shannon and hold his positions there to regroup. He refused. He lost.
13 William of Orange narrowly escaped at the Boyne. He was nearly killed when he was struck in the leg and shoulder by a ricocheting piece of cannon while (according to legend) enjoying a picnic and surveying the battlefield on July 11th. He was also nearly struck down by musket fire during the battle from one of his own soldiers during the confusion of the battle.
14 While the Battle of the Boyne was won by William of Orange, it did not win the war. This came to a decisive conclusion exactly one year later at Aughrim on July 12, 1691.
15 The original celebrations of the twelfth of July were to commemorate the Battle of Aughrim, not the Battle of the Boyne.
16 The Battle of the Boyne, according to the old Julian calendar in use in Ireland at the time, actually took place on 1 July. It was only in 1752 that the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Ireland, when the date July 12 became relevant. But even after that date “The Twelfth” continues to be noted in Aughrim. In fact, 1690 and the Boyne only became significant in the late 18th century, when the two battles were combined into one commemoration.
17 In the 1960s, the Orange Order boasted almost 100,000 members. Today there are fewer than 30,000.
18 The first meeting of the Grand Lodge of Ireland is held in Dublin. Dublin, as the administrative capital of the Island, was the natural seat of the Orange Institution and remained so until the headquarters buildings, Fowler Memorial Hall in Rutland Square, were badly damaged during the Irish Civil War.
19 William’s wife, Queen Mary, was devoted to him, and he to her. After the shock of her unexpected death in 1694, William became very withdrawn. After her death, he always carried with him a gold ring and a lock of Mary’s hair. William was buried in Westminster Abbey next to Mary on Sunday 12 April.
20 New Zealand’s first Orange Lodge was founded in Auckland in 1842, just two years after the country became part of the British Empire, by James Carlton Hill of Co Wicklow.
21 Ghana, Nigeria and Togo are among the African countries that have adopted Organism. All have their own orange huts.
22 A stall in the ‘field’ sells all the usual goods such as toy drums, band music CDs, mugs and printed t-shirts. Only recently have some entrepreneurs been more inventive. These days you can ride Lego Orangemen and Terry’s Chocolate Orangemen.
23 The headquarters of the Orange Order in Northern Ireland is based at Schomberg House – taking its name from Frederick Schomberg (originally Friedrich Hermann von Schoenberg), appointed William of…
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