Croppies Lie Down: Orangeism in Low and High Irish Protestant Political Culture, 1790-1801

William Carpenter

Advisor: Mack P. Holt, PhD, Department of History and Art History

Committee Members: Jack Censer, Dina Copelman, Robert Mahony, Catholic University

Johnson Center, Meeting Room D
June 23, 2010, 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM

Abstract:

This dissertation explores four aspects of the Protestant secret society, the Orange Order, in the period of the Irish Rebellion of 1798: (1), a reinterpretation of the early years of the movement, between 1795 and 1798, during which elements of the Ascendancy elite apparently co-opted a grass-roots violent secret society; (2), a detailed examination of the relationship between the language of Orange political discourse in print—as well as the United Irish response to that expression—and the popular and often violent expression of that discourse in County Armagh in the years before the rebellion; (3), a study of the impact of the Catholic fear of Orangeism on the course of the rebellion and the genesis of that fear; and (4), an examination of the complex relationship between the movement and Union.  This dissertation uses literary sources, including the poem, “Orange: A Political Rhapsody,” to argue that the Orange Order changed in character between 1795 and 1801 from a rural secret society of lower-order Ulster Protestants to an island-wide political force led by Dublin-based elites, and that this change in character is best understood through the songs, poems, and pamphlets of those Orangemen who sought to lead the organization through this period.