42 Facts About Orange Order

Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots heritage.

The Orange Order was founded by Ulster Protestants in County Armagh in 1795, during a period of Protestant–Catholic sectarian conflict, as a fraternity sworn to maintain the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland.

Orange Order is a conservative, British unionist and Ulster loyalist organisation.

The Orange Order sees itself as defending Protestant civil and religious liberties, whilst critics accuse it of being sectarian, triumphalist and supremacist.

At the start the Orange Order was a "parallel organisation" to the Defenders in that it was a secret oath-bound society that used passwords and signs.

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The first Orange Order lodge was established in nearby Dyan, and its first grandmaster was James Sloan of Loughgall.

Partly as a result of this atrocity, the Orange Order quickly grew and large numbers of gentry with experience gained in the yeomanry came into the movement.

Many Catholics supported the Act, but the Orange Order saw it as a threat to the "Protestant constitution" and 36 lodges in counties Armagh and Monaghan alone passed declarations opposing the Union.

The Orange Order was heavily involved in opposition to Gladstone's first Irish Home Rule Bill 1886, and was instrumental in the formation of the Ulster Unionist Party .

Orange Order had a central place in the new state of Northern Ireland.

The Orange Order urged its members not to join these organisations, and it is only recently that some of these intra-unionist breaches have been healed.

Basis of the modern Orange Order is the promotion and propagation of "biblical Protestantism" and the principles of the Reformation.

The Orange Order has a similar system of degrees through which new members advance.

Orange Order considers important the Fourth Commandment, and that it forbids Christians to work, or engage in non-religious activity generally, on Sundays.

In March 2002, the Orange Order threatened "to take every action necessary, regardless of the consequences" to prevent the Ballymena Show being held on a Sunday.

Orange Order, from its very inception, was an overtly political organisation.

The Orange Order was the force behind the UUP no-confidence votes in reformist Prime Ministers Terence O'Neill, James Chichester-Clark, and Brian Faulkner .

At the outbreak of The Troubles in 1969, the Orange Order encouraged its members to join the Northern Ireland security forces.

Relations between the DUP and Order have healed greatly since 2001, and there are now a number of high-profile Orangemen who are DUP MPs and strategists.

In December 2009, the Orange Order held secret talks with Northern Ireland's two main unionist parties, the DUP and UUP.

Orange Order said that the Order has members "who represent all the many shades of unionism" and warned, "we will continue to dilute the union if we fight and bicker among ourselves".

Orange Order said: "Linking the Catholic community or indeed any community to terror groups is inciting weak-minded people to hatred, and surely history tells us what that has led to in the past".

One of the Orange Order's activities is teaching members and the general public about William of Orange and associated subjects.

Orange Order has been criticised for associating with loyalist paramilitary groups such as the UVF and UDA, which are classified as terrorist organisations.

An Orange Order spokesman refused to condemn McIlwaine's membership of the Order.

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Orange Order's successor as Scottish UDA commander, James Hamilton, was an Orangeman.

Portadown Orange Order Lodge said it could not stop such people from gathering, but added that it welcomed any support.

Orange Order takes as its basis the Open Bible and historical Reformed documents such as the Presbyterian Westminster Confession, Anglican 39 Articles and other Protestant creeds.

Independent Orange Institution was formed in 1903 by Thomas Sloan, who opposed the main Order's domination by Unionist Party politicians and the upper classes.

The Independent Orange Order originally had radical tendencies, especially in the area of labour relations, but this soon faded.

Recently the relationship between the two Orange Order Institutions has improved, with joint church services being held.

Some people believe that this will ultimately result in a healing of the split which led to the Independent Orange Institution breaking away from the mainstream Order.

Orange Order was brought to other parts of the English-speaking world by Ulster Protestant migrants and missionaries.

The Imperial Grand Orange Order Council is made up of representatives from all of these various Grand Lodges.

Scotland's first Orange Order lodges were founded in 1798 by soldiers returning home from Ireland, where they had helped suppress an Irish republican rebellion.

Orange Order reached England in 1807, spread by soldiers returning to the Manchester area from service in Ireland.

Since then, the English branch of the Orange Order has generally supported the Conservative and Unionist Party.

The Orange Order was an important component in the founding of the Liverpool Protestant Party in 1909, keeping an association until the party's demise in 1974.

The Orange Order Lodges were seen as community cultural centres, as they hosted numerous dances, events, parades, and even the teaching of step dancing.

Participation in the Orange Order Institution was not as large in the United States as it was in Canada.

New Zealand's first Orange Order lodge was founded in Auckland in 1842, only two years after the country became part of the British Empire, by James Carlton Hill of County Wicklow.

The New Zealand Orange Order is unusual in having mixed-gender lodges, and at one point had a female Grand Master.