“Mr. Parnell and his friends will certainly deny it as soon as their programme is embodied into law. They will say to you, ‘Henceforth Ireland shall govern herself. Let those who do not like it go away.’”
“But it is precisely what we shall never do!... Our title to the Irish soil is as good as the Parnellites’.... Let them try to dislodge us, and they shall have a warm welcome, I promise you.”
In the course of conversation my worthy interlocutor had let the number of 100,000 Orangemen, armed to the teeth and ready to defend Ulster against the Home Rulers, escape him. I took advantage of this to ask him for a few details on this organization. I learnt this: that the Orangeist army is by no means a fallacy, as one might imagine, and that it forms a sort of latent militia, with its active forces, and its reserve. At first, established as a kind of freemasonry, and formed in “circles” or “lodges,” it comprises actually four divisions, subdivided into twenty-two brigades: each of these brigades consists of two or three regiments, infantry, cavalry, and artillery; in each regiment are sections and companies, each composed of affiliates belonging to the same district. Three divisions are recruited in Ulster proper; the fourth in Dublin and Cork, in Wicklow and in King’s County. All those affiliates take the engagement to observe passive obedience and to render personal service on the first requisition of their supreme council; they furnish their own arms and recognise the authority of a commander-in-chief.
Does all this have any substantial existence besides what it has on paper? Do the Orangemen secretly drill, as it is averred, both for the infantry and the cavalry manœuvres? Is it true that most of the volunteer companies in Ulster are exclusively Orange companies? Lastly, are those volunteers really ready in case of an open rupture with Dublin, to take up their arms and fight for their cause?... Many people think it doubtful. The Home Rulers especially think it pure moonshine and humbug. I remember one of their papers publishing the following advertisement last year to show in what esteem they held the Ulster army:
Rotten Eggs! Rotten Eggs! Rotten Eggs!
Wanted: 100,000 rotten eggs, to be delivered in Tipperary, worthily to welcome 20,000 Orangemen, armed with rifles and guns, under command of the illustrious Johnson. Offers to be addressed to the printing office of this paper.
This certainly does not indicate a very exalted idea of the valour of the Orangeist forces on the part of the southern populations. But that does not mean that no other sugar plums shall be exchanged. In all civil wars such pleasantries take place, yet they do not prevent rivers of blood being shed. One fact alone is beyond doubt, that the Orange organization has immense ramifications among the regular troops, and is openly favoured by General Wolseley; that a large number of retired officers have entered it; that one would perhaps find it difficult to find one among the Queen’s regiments ready to fire on the loyalists, and that the most ardent partisans of Home Rule hesitate to grant to the Irish Parliament the faculty of raising an armed force.
In conclusion, the last word in Ulster may very well be said by the Orangemen.