Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland
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The Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland is the autonomous Grand Lodge that organises the Orange Institution in Scotland.
In 1976 in Scotland, the Grand Lodge was frustrated in its attempt to expel a leading member of the Ulster Defence Association, Roddy MacDonald, from the Order, because of widespread support for the loyalist. The Order's democratic organisation makes it difficult for the Grand Lodge to overrule county or individual lodges. Other Scottish members were later convicted of smuggling guns and explosives to the UDA, although the Ulster Volunteer Force is thought to command more support among Scottish loyalists in recent years.
Ian Wilson, the Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, began contributing a column to the weekly newspaper, the Scottish Catholic Observer, at the invitation of Harry Conroy, the editor, which is distributed in hundreds of Catholic churches across Scotland. The first article, published in January 2006, set out a more conciliatory approach to be adopted by the Orange Order towards the Catholic Church. It sought to explain the ethos of the order and its mission to modernise. Ian Wilson is quoted as saying the following to the Sunday Times:
“At the end of the day it’s not an exercise in apologising for who we are and what we are,” he said. “We’re not about to abandon being a purely Protestant fraternity, that is going to continue. What it’s about is saying we have a right to exist.
We are a legal, law-abiding, perfectly wholesome organisation — and if you have any doubts about that come and see us. We’re not the ogres that we are sometimes portrayed as being.”
