‘More than Tea makers’: How Orangewomen saved Orangeism in New Zealand

Abstract

The Loyal Orange Institution (LOI) has been viewed as one of Ireland’s most controversial exports to the New World. To the general public, it is a male-dominated conservative organisation. This paper seeks to shatter that image by focussing on the New Zealand experience of Orangewomen and how they helped to bolster a shrinking institution. The LOI began in 1843 in New Zealand, but it was not till 1888 that the first Ladies Lodge was opened in Wellington. The colonial experience highlighted different needs. A noticeable feature of the Ladies Lodges was the coming together of women who were not only like-minded but who also had a feeling of sisterhood. It was this ‘sisterhood’ that over the years pushed for more autonomy that eventually led to the first female Grand Master in the world in 2000. Drawing on oral interviews with current members of the LOI and other archival research this paper attempts to construct how Ireland’s most colourful and often controversial institution was influenced through its female members to become more progressive than Orangeism in present day Ireland.