Ancient Order of Hibernians - Background in Ireland

Background in Ireland

The organisation had its roots in the Defenders and the Ribbonmen, Catholic agrarian movements of the 18th and 19th centuries. It emerged in Ulster at the end of the 19th century in opposition to the Orange Order. It was organised by Joseph Devlin of Belfast, who was Grandmaster by 1905. The AOH was closely associated with the Irish Parliamentary Party, its members mainly members of the party. It was strongly opposed to secular idologies such as those of the Irish Republican Brotherhood who were most unhappy at the re-emergence of this old rival 'right-wing' nationalist society.

From a membership of 5,000 in 1900, nearly all in Ulster, it climbed to 64,000 by 1909, complimenting the United Irish League. By 1914 the order had spread throughout the country, mainly because of its utility as a patronage, brokerage and recreational association. As a vehicle for Irish nationalism, the AOH greatly influenced the sectarian aspect of Irish politics in the early twentieth century. In Ulster and elsewhere it acted as an unruly but vigorous militant support organisation for Devlin, Dillon and Redmond against radicals and against William O'Brien: O'Brien regarded himself as having been driven from the party by militant Hibernians at the "Baton Convention" of 1909.

After the 1916 Easter Rising the organisation declined outside of Ulster, its members absorbed into Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army. In many areas the organisation provided by the AOH was the nearest thing to a paramilitary force. Many republican leaders in the 1916-1923 period, among them Sean MacDermott, J.J Walsh and Rory O'Connor, had been "Hibs" before the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913.

The AOH is also significant as a link between the new nationalist organisations and the century-old tradition of popular militant societies. More directly, it lingered on as a pro-Treaty support organisation. Some Hibernians fought in the Irish Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. The quasi-Fascist Blueshirts movement of the 1930s may, in fact, have owed as much to the Ribbon tradition which it so much resembled as it did to continental analogies.

Within Northern Ireland, the AOH remains a visible but somewhat marginal part of the Catholic community. It parades at Easter, Lady Day and a few other times a year.