Orange Leaders meet

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Saturday February 20, 2010 14:20

by Peter Mulholland - none

Grand Master orders dissolution of Orange Order.

After finally being forced to accept that Orange parades have kept up ‘an exclusive society in civil and military life, exciting one portion of the people against the other... [leading to] breaches of the peace and bloodshed’ the Grand Master of the Orange Order in Ireland met with ‘several influential members’ to arrange for the immediate dissolution of that sectarian organization.

The meeting took place in response to the findings of a Parliamentary Select Committee investigation into decades of violent parades and demonstrations of paramilitary strength.

When the Select Committee’s report was published a Cabinet council was held at the Foreign Office for the purpose of agreeing the terms of the resolutions which were to be submitted to the House of Commons by Lord John Russell, Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the 23rd of Feb. 1836. That resolution stated:

That it is the opinion of this house that the existence of any political society in Ireland
consisting exclusively of persons preferring one religious faith, using secret signs and
symbols, and acting by means of affiliated branches, tend to injure the peace of society - to
derogate from the authority of the Crown, to weaken the supremacy of the law, and to impair
the religious freedom of his majesty's subjects in that part of the United Kingdom. That an
humble address be presented to his majesty, laying before him the foregoing resolution, and
praying that his majesty will take such steps for the discouragement of all such societies as
may seem to his majesty most desirable.

Lord Russell read the King's reply in the House of Commons on Thursday 25th of Feb. 1836:

William Rex - I willing assert to the prayer of my faithful Commons, that I will be pleased to
take such measures as shall seem advisable for the effectual discouragement of Orange
Lodges, and generally of all political societies excluding persons of a different religious
persuasion using signs and symbols, and acting by means of associated lodges. It is my
firm intention to discourage all such societies, and I rely with confidence upon the fidelity of
my loyal subjects to support me in my determination.

The following day in the Commons, Lord Russell read the response of the Grand Master of the Orange Order, the Duke of Cumberland. The Grand Master said he had:

already taken steps, with several influential members, to recommend their immediate
dissolution. In conformity with the wish expressed by his majesty, I shall take all legal steps
to dissolve Orange Lodges.

The Grand Lodge of Ireland met in Dublin on April 13th 1836 and voted in favour of the dissolution of the Orange Order.

However, despite the 'Loyal Orders'' frequent protestations of fidelity to the Crown, subsequent events suggest that loyalty was not what motivated Orangmen in Portadown - where the violent sectarian organization was founded after a 'Chruch parade' to Drumcree in July 1795.
See: http://orangecitadel.blogspot.com/