reform and the ending of legal discrimination against Catholics, who were relegated to second status in public life throughout Britain & Ireland. Before long, they began to advocate an independent Irish republic that would ‘unite Catholic, Protestant and dissenter’. And interestingly enough, the United Irishmen was a largely Protestant organisation. For Britain, this was too much, and from 1796 they began supporting the creation of a new Prods-only crew, the Orange Order. Their aim was clear: to ferment sectarianism, disunity and disorder by nurturing a hardline Protestant identity that countered the dangerous ideas being touted by the United Irishmen, which represented a clear threat to British colonial rule. This same tactic of divide and rule was used in virtually every continent on Earth to maintain Britain’s Empire.

Every movementneeds its own folklore. Despite not existing until over a century later, Year Zero for the Order has become the Battle of the Boyne on the 12 July 1690, the victory of King William of ORANGE over the Catholic claim to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland. King Billy of ORANGE loved Britain so much that he was actually Dutch, having been parachuted in by part of the English ruling class two years previously in a bloodless coup to remove all vestiges of Papery from the throne (or something). It’s this ‘glorious revolution’ and its final triumph at the Boyne in 1690 that the Lodge seek to commemorate with their marches every summer.

The Lodge have had their fair share of ups and downs since 1796. Taking a