TRANSPLANTED IRISH INSTITUTIONS - University of Canterbury

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lodges were responsible to one Irish Grand Lodge. The time had come when "the secret
society of a small Armagh village had become national. "27 The Orange yeomanry played
an important part in quelling the rebellion of the United Irishmen in 1798. Houston and
Smyth note that the Orange Institution "achieved within the government a reputation of
credence and respectability, among the protestant community the position of vigilant
defender, but in the eyes of catholics and republicans a notorious image of butchery ."28 It
is in the role of vigilant defender that the essence of Orangeism is captured.
Following the Battle of the Diamond the Protestant peasantry were keen to press
home their victory over the Defenders. They organized a series of night raids in an attempt
to drive away Catholic tenants. Many cottages occupied by Catholics had notices plastered
on them telling the occupants to go 'to hell or Connaught.' If this message was ignored by
the tenants the raiders would then destroy their furniture and weaving looms. The number
of Catholic families affected by these raids has ranged from 180 to 1400 families. 29 The
number was subject to some controversy as it really depended on whether it was reported by
someone who wanted to downplay or exaggerate the 'Armagh Outrages.' Peter Gibbon has
suggested that the Protestant weavers who made up these raiders were essentially trying to
remove the Catholic weavers from the labour market. 30 Attacks by the Protestant weavers
continued on the properties of mill-owners and linen manufacturers who were employing
Catholics. 31 Armagh was different from the other counties in Ulster in that Catholics and
Protestants were fairly evenly distributed. As a result Protestants occupied positions of
advantage through a 'constitution of a determinative limit' in the relations between Catholics
and Protestants. Gibbon argues that with the growth of the linen industry an unrestricted
27Op. cit., Houston & Smyth, p. 11.
28Ibid., p. 12 . .
29Jbid., pp. 29-30.
30peter Gibbon, The Origins of the Orange Order and the United Irishmen' Economy and Society, vol. I,
no.2, May 1972, p. 162. Gibbon suggests that the Armagh troubles were not primarily or purely
religious.
31Ibid.,p.I58.