Orange Day

Orange Day (Orangemen's Day)

July 12

Sometimes referred to simply as The Twelfth or The Glorious Twelfth, this is the anniversary of the Battle of Boyne, which took place in Ireland on July 1, 1690, when the old Julian calendar was still in use. Ireland was under English rule at the time, and the trouble began when James II, who was Roman Catholic, was deposed in 1668 and his throne was given to William of Orange, a Protestant. Each side raised an army of about 30,000 men, and the two clashed on the banks of the Boyne River. The Protestants won a decisive victory, but that was hardly the end of the conflict. The Catholics formed underground societies designed to restore the line of James, and the Protestants countered by forming the Orange Order, committed to maintaining the link with Protestant England. As Irishmen left Ireland and England for the New World, lodges of Orangemen were formed in Canada and the United States, where Orange Day is still observed by Protestant Irish.

SOURCES:
AnnivHol-2000, p. 116
DaysCustFaith-1957, p. 178
DictDays-1988, p. 84
OxYear-1999, pp. 291, 330

Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary, Fourth Edition. © 2010 by Omnigraphics, Inc.