The Five Demands

Online debate rages on Orange numbers (News Letter)

Claims thousands are leaving the Orange Order has sparked a fierce debate on the News Letter website.

The claims were made in a letter written by Brian Moorehead from Banbridge in response to an in-depth interview in the News Letter newspaper with Grand Secretary Drew Nelson.

Commenting on the membership of the Order, Mr Nelson said numbers currently stood at about 34,000, a dip from 35,758 in 2006 and down from more than 90,000 members in the 1960s.

The Grand Secretary said that while numbers had fallen in the institution they had not dropped to the same extent as those of other mass membership organisations such as political parties or trade unions.

In response to these statements Mr Moorehead wrote to the News Letter claiming that “compromise and liberal views are destroying the Orange Order”.

He said: “Thousands of good men have left the Order because of what is happening today.

“We need to get back to our founding principles within Orangeism. What is needed in the Order today is for Christian men to stand up and take their stand for Christ and to uphold the reformed faith within the Institution.

“If that doesn’t happen, then we will see a more liberal and compromising agenda taking place which will destroy the Orange institution and see it fall to even lower numbers.”

The letter provoked responses from a Christian claiming they would not be attracted to the Order, from brethren claiming more young members are what is needed and a Lisburn Orangeman saying that membership of the institution is growing in his area.

A spokesman for the Orange Order said the institution is primarily a Christian organisation and continued to attract new members.

The spokesman said Mr Moorehead’s letter was factually inaccurate in its claim “thousands” of members had left. “Indeed, the huge turnout at the Covenant commemorations was a clear indication of the enduring strength of Orangeism and its relevance in modern society,” he said. “There has been a reduction in numbers of members in the Orange Order since the 1950s, which is part of a wider trend for fraternal organisations, churches and others. However, academics have found that the Orange Order has actually fared better than most.

“To ascribe wider and deeper societal trends to a dismissive sentence or two as the letter writer did in terms of ‘telling us all we need to know’ is inaccurate, erroneous, and ill-informed. There are many within the media and elsewhere whose view of the Order is coloured by the wishful thinking that it is in decline.

“The turnout at the recent Covenant parade has put paid to that idea more than anything and the response from members and the public has shown us quite clearly that we hold a unique and valued place within the Protestant community.”

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