Women and the Orange Order

This book tells, for the first time, the remarkable and unexpected story of women''s participation in the Orange Order. The Orange Order is often characterised as a thoroughly masculinist brotherhood, associated with Irish sectarian violence. Women played a key role, however, in the development of Orangeism in the British world, and by the 1930s were numerically the most significant element of the Orange Order in Scotland. This ground-breaking study of female Orangeism provides an important contribution to our understanding of Irish women within the diasporic contexts of Britain and Canada, and addresses broader questions within migration history about the gendered nature of ethnic associational activity.Women and the Orange Order examines the growth and activism of Orangewomen in England, Scotland and Canada since the mid-nineteenth century and argues that they were central to the development of Orange associational culture up to the Second World War. It also explores how women were key participants in the formation of diasporic connections throughout the British world, building on links created by migration and the Empire. The book reveals that the ordinary - and largely working-class - women who joined the Orange Order eagerly engaged in the public lives of their communities, in conservative politics and in upholding the ideologies of the British Empire.In its examination of gender, ethnicity, class and imperialism, Women and the Orange Order will appeal to readers interested in the history of the Irish diaspora, women''s public activism and the British Empire.