AOH Hall, 18 Annaghmore Road, Portadown, Co Armagh, BT62 1NA

Ancient Order of Hibernians Hall, Annaghmore, built 1907

This is a small, single-storey Ancient Order of Hibernians hall of 1907, constructed in an unusual yellowish-brown brick similar to a London stock brick. It is a relatively early surviving example of its building type and one of the few remaining AOH halls to have come down to us without significant alteration. Its diminutive scale, well-executed picturesque design and distinctive brick construction set it apart from most comparable buildings. The hall is currently recorded as derelict; abandonment in recent decades has led to some deterioration, but enough of the fabric survives for it to remain an important local landmark and a tangible remnant of the political and cultural life of early 20th-century rural Ulster.

Setting

The building sits on the west side of Annaghmore Road, approximately 5km northwest of Portadown town centre. The setting is rural but not isolated. Large orchards lie to the north and south, and a small patch of open ground, cleared recently, sits immediately to the rear on the north side.

Exterior

The hall is a gabled rectangular block with a lower gabled porch projection at the south end. The overhanging double-pitch roof has a relatively steep pitch and is covered in natural Welsh slate with serrated terracotta ridge tiles and plain bargeboards. To each gable end is a brick chimneystack carrying twin octagonal clay pots. The porch has a small finial. Window cills appear to be stone. All windows are currently boarded, but the original timber sliding sash frames are believed to remain in place behind the boarding. The entrance door is a plain timber sheeted type. Rainwater goods are cast iron.

On the east elevation, the door on the porch and the windows are symmetrically arranged. Between the windows is a stone panel inscribed 'Annaghmore [letters now indistinct] Hall Built 1907', with shamrock motifs to each corner. The south elevation has a window on the porch. The north elevation is a blank gable end. The west elevation has a window, with a small corrugated-iron lean-to to its left side.

History

The hall was built in 1907 for the Annaghmore Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The first decade of the 20th century saw a large growth in AOH membership throughout Ireland, particularly in Ulster. Evidence suggests that a branch of the Order had been established in the Annaghmore district before January 1906. A newspaper report from May 1906 mentions 'the hall of the Ancient Order of Hibernians' in connection with an affray between local Nationalists and Orangemen on Easter Monday of that year, and in late November 1906 'Division 264, Annaghmore' are recorded as meeting in the 'Hibernian Rooms', though the location of these earlier premises is not known.

The members were still meeting in the 'Hibernian rooms' in late March 1907, but plans for the present building were already in hand by that point. A vote of thanks was passed at that time 'to Brother James McNiece, America, for his very handsome cheque towards the building, and to Brother James Magowan, Coatbridge [Scotland], for his very substantial financial support.' Construction was completed before the end of February 1908, when a further vote of thanks was passed 'to Brother John Fay for the excellent manner in which he finished the contract.' The identity of the architect is not known.

The hall was officially opened on St Patrick's Day, 1908, by County Councillor Andrew Donnelly, who stated that 'the new hall would serve as a centre which could be utilised for educational purposes by the Nationalists and Catholics of the district.' It remained in use for AOH meetings until the late 1940s or early 1950s, after which it was taken over by Annaghmore GAA Club. The small corrugated-iron lean-to on the west side, which served as a toilet, appears to have been added in around the 1960s.

The Ancient Order of Hibernians was the largest Irish-American benevolent society, established in New York in 1836. It remained small in Ireland and Great Britain until after 1900, when a reunited American order stimulated its rapid growth. Catholic and broadly nationalist in character, it shared with the Christian Brothers the slogan 'Faith and Fatherland'. Under Belfast Nationalist leader Joseph Devlin, its national president from 1905 to 1934, the mainstream of the order — known as the 'Board of Erin' — became a political machine for the Nationalist Party. Membership in Ireland and Britain grew from 10,000 in 1905 to 60,000 in 1909, concentrated preponderantly in Ulster and neighbouring counties, and in Dublin. The order was attractive to businessmen for its Freemason-style activities, to workers for its benevolent functions, and to young Ulster Catholics as a rival to the Orange Order. It benefited considerably from its designation as an 'approved society' under the National Insurance Act of 1911. Known disparagingly by independent nationalist, Labour, and Sinn Féin opponents as 'the Molly Maguires' — after the secret society which had operated covertly within the AOH in the Pennsylvania coalfields in the 1870s — it was regarded by its critics as synonymous with jobbery, machine politics, and sectarianism. After 1921 it acquired a 'green Tory' image in Ireland, while its divisions in British cities delivered the former Irish vote to the Labour Party. In Northern Ireland it was closely associated with the old Nationalist Party, but contracted drastically from the early 1970s onwards.