https://belfastmedia.com/robin-livingstone-the-orange-order-doesn-t-like-catholics-okay-so-what-about-women

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE:

The Orange Order doesn't like Catholics. Okay, so what about women?

Robin Livingstone

July 04, 2025 17:10

MALE ORDER: Get the teapot on, girls, and lay out the traybakes, but leave the complicated stuff to the brethren

IT is of zero importance to BBCNI, UTV, the Belfast Telegraph and the News Letter that the Orange Order literally exists because it doesn’t like the Church of Rome. Every year the broadcasters do happy-clappy round-ups of parades across the North, studiously avoiding those aspects of the parades that ensure the pubs of Donegal and the beaches of Benidorm are packed in July.

The editing required to turn out copious air hours and endless columns free of the dodgy stuff is Olympic standard, because the dodgy stuff is everywhere. You’ve the bands churning out hateful, anti-Catholic party tunes.You’ve got the bands actually and literally named after yer UFF and UDA characters.You’ve got the Homeric drinking, which in Belfast reaches its apotheosis among the heaving, sweating, guldering crowds in Sandy Row, Bradbury Place and the lower Lisburn Road. Not only would you not take a child by the hand through the drink-sodden, marijuana-scented, foul-mouthed chaos of that area on the Twelfth, you’d think twice before taking a unit of Navy Seals in full combat gear through it.

But of all these key features of the Belfast Twelfth there's no sign in the evening TV specials and the multi-page newspaper pull-outs the next morning. What you will see is smiling women in union jack cowboy hats, possibly tipsy but never three bottles of Buckie in. What you will see is elderly people in deck chairs drinking tea from tartan flasks and eating sandwiches neatly wrapped in tinfoil. What you will see is toddlers with red, white and blue tin drums performing for their doting parents. What you won’t seen is Sandy Row/Bradbury place. What you won’t see is so much as a single bottle of blue WKD. What you won’t see is a loyalist paramilitary killer on a banner.

PRIVILEGED: When Orangemen walk where they're not wanted, they prefer not to bring along the laydeez

What you’ll hear is How Great Thou Art, Shall We Gather at the River and – at a push and in meagre portions – The Sash or Derry’s Walls. What you won’t hear is The Famine Song (aka The Sloop John B), The Billy Boys (aka The One About Blood and Fenians) and No Pope of Rome (aka Pope Francis Died Ha Ha Ha).

The BelTel and the News Letter have it easy, relatively speaking. The photographers are sent out with a brief to by-ball the unpleasantness and anything that is inadvertently captured – a bandsman pissing against a chapel, a stray two-litre bottle of Olde English – are easily cropped out. Pity the poor BBC Ulster and UTV editors, however. They’ve to trawl through a huge amount of footage from all over the place, sighing and clipping as they go, ever alert to the slightest Twelfth contraindication. And they have to do it in time for the evening special. There's got to be a Bafta in that if they can find the right category.

So we’ve established not only that the majority of our media outlets are gloriously unbothered by the Twelfth’s Catholic problem, but that they go to considerable lengths to cover it up. We move on then to ask ourselves whether it might not be more profitable for those of us who think the summer might be better without asbestos boneys and Catholic-slashing singalongs to consider whether BBCNI, UTV, the BelTel and the News Letter might not be more moved and concerned by another targeted cohort: Women.

Because women aren’t allowed in the Orange Order. If you say that, as I have on many occasions, you’ll get – as I have on many occasions – the same response every time: That’s not true. But it is true.

Sure, there’s an organisation that women can join that is vaguely linked to the Orange Order. The Association of Loyal Orangewomen of Ireland is a satellite organisation in which women are free to make tray bakes and unfeasibly large pots of tea; they can wash and iron sashes; polish medals; darn shabby banners; hell, they can even walk on the Twelfth if they’re so minded. But not with the men. ‘You walk over there, love, go easy in them high heels and maybe head back early to get the kettle on.’

And of course, they’re not allowed within an ass’s roar of the Grand Lodge, the Orange Order’s controlling and decision-making body. There are no women on the key 18-man Central Committee of the Grand Lodge, the holy of holies where the big decisions are made (the clue’s in the phrase ’18-man’). And there are no women in the 373-man Grand Lodge proper.

If being obsessed with Catholics and Catholicism isn’t enough to persuade our modern media that a rethink is required over their love affair with the bowler-hatted ones, shouldn’t the exclusion of women lead to a reimagining of the Orange Order’s inclusion in our celebratory calendar? I assume that women work on the Twelfth newspaper supplements. And I can only take it for granted that women are in the BBC and UTV editing suites when the don’t-scare-the-horses specials are being compiled. What do those women journalists think of inviting us to join them in three hurrahs for an organisation that won’t have them about the place? And even more to the point, what do Catholic women journalists think?

Will they continue to keep quiet and knit, as the Orange ladies do? Or will they say something about it?

by ByGollie

33 comments

  1. What in the middle aged uncle midnight drunken Facebook rant is that?

  3. What is this all about? there’s ladies lodges and they’re growing.

  4. There’s literally women orange lodges 😂 or women apart of the ones already there what a load of shite lol

  5. The articles from that Robin Livingstone are a good laugh he must be obsessed. The man must wake up every night in a sweat.

  6. Looks like someone summoned the Minions to downvote the correct answers.

  7. In my day to day life I hear very little about the orange order. Almost to the point I could forget they exist for most of the year, unless they are blocking my drive home (I’ve not got a degree).

    However, almost every time I’m on this sub there’s a post about them or someone mentions them. They get more attention here than they do anywhere else. Do you realise that?

    You are preaching to the converted complaining about them in this sub. Why give them so much headspace?

  9. “Because women aren’t allowed in the Orange Order.”

    You know what; sectarian BS aside, I am ok with a men’s only club.

    During my 50+ years I have seen men’s spaces slowly disappear in the name of equality. We should have a place to mentor young men to give back to the communities and to be good husbands and fathers. Other than our own relations, we don’t have many of those anymore.

    Addendum: To clarify, there are plenty of things to not like about the OO, but being men only should not be on the list!

  10. The oo are sectarian bigots. They don’t like anyone. Hell, they barely tolerate themselves considering the amount of infighting.

  11. Women weren’t invited to Kincora sex parties either.

    I think the orange movement is gayer than Top Gun, and I think everyone knows it. All those manly men with their dainty white gloves and their totally not gay tattoos.

    Recall the palpable blend of surprise and relief when Jeffrey Donaldson’s accuser turned out to be a female person?

    Recall the complete lack of any surprise that Mrs. Robinson wasn’t getting what she needed at home from the totally not gay anti-human rights activist?

    Orangemen are not the only fruits, just the most bitter fruits in Ireland.

  13. Seriously who gives a fuck about the OO. As previously stated you give them too much Credence. A so called religious organization that is followed by drunken yobs and members who’ve been shown to be fond of the turbo talc. If you watch the corrupt pedo sheltering BBC, U(Unionist)TV or read the local equivalent of Pravda, the newsletter, you’re a gluten for punishment.

  16. Women have their own Orange Order.

    It’s all wank like, but there is woman’s organisation. Think of it like the BB and GB.

  17. Certainly not worse that the Ancient Order of Hibernians where Members must be **male, practicing Roman Catholic, and either born in Ireland or of Irish descent.** How about that for a sectarian organisation?

  18. I forget who said it, but the only thing worse than being hated, is being ignored. OO should be ignored by all sensible people. Although it is pretty funny when you remind any Orangeman about the celebration mass held by the Pope after the Battle of the Boyne (Historical fact apparently that Billy the Silent was backed by the Pope for political reasons) and that every Orange walk is essentially a gay-pride parade. They lose their minds

  19. As a southerner, the first time I learned about the Orange Order was watching the news when I was like 5 or something. Asked who they were, parents told me they’re Orangemen and they march around. I took this to mean they march around *all the time*. But I could see that there were Orangeboys marching with the Orangemen and I was like ??? Where are the Orangewomen and Orangegirls? Where did the Orangeboys come from if there’s no Orangewomen? Did they spring up out of holes in the ground? My family were like, no, you idiot, they have wives and daughters at home.

  20. There’s more talk about the Orange in this sub than there is the whole parading season

  21. Women? A Prod can’t even join if they’re married to a Catholic one

  22. Is that what all that racket is about? Grow up lads 🟧👎

  23. *You think ~~Ralph~~, the Orange Order is a little funny about women?*

  24. If you don’t like them stop giving them attention they are a thing of the past and slowly decaying anyway.

  26. The OO is anti Catholic, anti Irish, anti gay, anti women, and marches the streets to celebrate colonialism. In any normal part of the world they’d be outlawed as a hate group. For some reason in NI they continue to get a public holiday named after them. Crazy world.

  28. FUCKING **3** of my mates were in the orange order they are now dating ( 1 married) to Catholics, how can you say ALL Orange order hate catholics when they are busy humping away at them.

    Can I ask the catholic ladys what is the attraction here because this is not an isolated incident and seems to be escalating.

  29. They dont like anybody thats not a pot bellied 60 year old loyalist bigot.

  30. They don’t like anyone apart from British Protestants.

  31. The Orange Order are openly misogynistic. It’s in their doctrine.

  32. I’m pretty sure they hate everyone, including each other..

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