Orangemen. Members of the Protestant fraternal Orange Order, prominent in N. Ireland, concerned to defend Protestant ascendancy. The order was founded in 1795, named from William III, William of Orange. (Orange is a town on the river Rhône, once capital of a small principality from which William's ancestors took their name.) The marches of the Orangemen in N. Ireland are a public manifestation of what the Roman Catholic population perceives as a determination of at least some Protestants to remain dominant and a part of the United Kingdom.

Orangemen Members of the Orange Society, or Orange Order. It was founded (1795) in Ulster in response to the mainly Roman Catholic, nationalist United Irishmen, and was named for the Protestant hero, William III (of Orange). His victory against the Catholic James II at the battle of the Boyne (1690) is celebrated on its anniversary, July 12.