Ancient Order of Hibernians
in America

Division One, Orange County, CA

THE HIBERNIAN GUARD
OF AOH DIVISION ONE

Orange County, California

Help support Irish Heritage and Culture and  the Novitiate of the Brothers of St. Patrick. Only requirement to become an Associate Member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Brothers of St. Patrick  is an interest in Irish Culture and Heritage. Yearly membership dues for 2010 are only $15. Click Here for membership form.

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Members of the Division have founded an honor guard  to participate in the rituals of the Order and in other activities respectful of God and country. We have taken the name Hibernian Guard in memory of our forefathers who resisted tyrannical laws intended to obliterate their religion, their culture, their being. 

We have adopted a uniform which acknowledges the present and hearkens back to our past. We wear a peasant shirt emblazoned with the modern day logo of the AOH. And we wear the green caubeen and carry the pike, the distinctive headgear and weapon of the Irish warriors of old.  

The Guard is available for Irish weddings, funerals and parades.  Fill out our contact form here.

OH, Paddy dear! and did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?
The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground!
No more St. Patrick’s day we’ll keep; his colour can’t be seen,
For there’s a cruel law against the Wearin’ o’ the Green!

I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
And he said, “How’s poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?”
“She’s the most distressful country that ever yet was seen,
For they’re hanging men and women there for the Wearin’ o’ the Green.

An’ if the colour we must wear is England’s cruel red,
Let it remind us of the blood that Ireland has shed;
Then pull the shamrock from your hat, and throw it on the sod,
An’ never fear, ’twill take root there, though under foot ’tis trod.

When law can stop the blades of grass from growin’ as they grow,
An’ when the leaves in summer time their colour dare not show,
Then I will change the colour, too, I wear in my caubeen;
But till that day, please God, I’ll stick to the Wearin’ o’ the Green.

But if at last our color should be torn from Ireland's heart.
Her Sons with shame and sorrow from the dear old soil will part;
I've heard whisper of a country, that lies far beyond the sea.
Where, rich and poor stand equal in the light of Freedom's day.

Oh! Erin, must we leave you driven by the tyrant's hand.
Must we ask a mother's welcome from a strange, but happier land.
Where the cruel Cross of England's thralldom never shall be seen;
And where, thank God, we'll live and die still wearin' the green.

Caubeen - In Irish Gaelic it means “shabby old hat.” Worn by Owen Roe O'Neill, who in 1646 lead the Irish against the English at the Battle of Benburb in County Tyrone.

Napper Tandy - James Napper Tandy was a leader of the United Irishmen in County Louth, Ireland. In 1793 he was betrayed by informers and fled Ireland with a bounty on his head.

British Penal Laws, Enacted 1691-1760 

Professor William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838--1903), a Protestant of British blood and ardent British Sympathizer, writes (in his A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, 4 vols.  London, 1887) that the objective of the British Penal Laws were threefold.

1. To deprive the Catholics of all civil life.

2. To reduce them to a condition of most extreme and brutal ignorance.

3. To disassociate them from the soil.

When laws against dissenters were established 1691-1760, the Irish Catholic were forbidden to own land, school their children, vote, own a horse worth more than $5, be a public official, serve on a jury and be a lawyer or solider. At this time many old Irish traditions also fell out of favor, including the wearing of the traditional Irish kilt.

During the time of the American revolution, Henry Grattan (a leader of the Protestant class) became a leader of a group known as "The Irish Volunteers." This group became powerful and began to lobby for the restrictions to be lifted against the Irish Catholics and Irish trade. Grattan said, "The Irish Protestant cannot be free until the Irish Catholic ceases to be a slave."

When the Irish Volunteers began to take up the wearing of the shamrock, it was seen as an act of rebellion. Laws were passed that anyone wearing the Shamrock would be hung. The United Irishmen were unsuccessful in the rebellion of 1798.

MacManus, Seamus, Story of the Irish Race, Devlin-Adair Co., Greenwich, Connecticut, 1979, pp. 458-459. 

The last Catholic Relief Act became law on April 13, 1829, and Catholic emancipation was achieved.

       Click Here for more Irish History

THE RISING OF THE MOON

(Irish rebel song)

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"O then tell me Sean O'Farrell,

Tell me why you hurry so?"

"Hush a bhuachaill, hush and listen"

And his cheeks were all aglow.

"I bear orders from the captain,

Get you ready quick and soon

For the pikes must be together at the rising of the moon."

Out from many a mud wall cabin, Eyes were watching through that night,

Many a manly heart was throbbing, For the blessed warning light.

Murmurs passed along the valleys,

Like the banshee's lonely croon

And a thousand pikes were flashing,

At the risin' of the moon.

There beside the singing river,

That dark mass of men were seen,

Far above the shining weapons,

Hung their own beloved green.

"Death to every foe and traitor!

Forward! Strike the marching tune.

 And hurrah, my boys for freedom;

Tis the risin' of the moon!"

THE LATER PENAL LAWS

From "The History of the Irish Race" by Seamus Mac Manus,

Underlining added.
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  Submitted by Jack Caulfield.