This becoming intolerable, some sincere but misguided Catholics in the North joined the organisation known as THE ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS.

This was, in effect, a sort of Catholic Freemasonry to counter the Orange Freemasonry, but like Orangeism, it was a political and not a religious weapon.
Further, as a political weapon, it extended all through Ireland during the last years of the Irish Parliamentary Movement.

In Cork, for example, it completely controlled the city life for some years, but the rapid rise of the Republican Movement brought about the equally rapid fall of Hibernianism.

At the present moment it has as little influence in the public life of Cork as Sir Edward Carson himself.

The great bulk of its one-time members have joined the Republican Movement.