Within this section, we have recorded the most frequent questions that visitors to the cottage would ask. With each question, is the general answer we would give to such questions.
questions
| 1 - What is the difference in the two houses? |
|
Both houses were leased from Copes of Loughgall by Daniel Winter
at the time of the Diamond Battle . Daniel Winter was the immediate
lessor of the farmyard house and Francis Winter was the occupier
of the cross roads cottage |
| 2 - Why was one house better known than the other? |
|
The Orangemen themselves made the farmyard house famous, acknowledging
it as their birthplace.The first embryonic meeting of the Orange
Society is accepted as being held there on the 21st September 1795. |
| 3 - What is the official listing of both houses? |
|
The
cross roads cottage is claimed to be the house |
| 4 - Which house is the oldest ? |
|
The farmyard house is the oldest, official timber dating by Queen's University Belfast of the main purline states 1712 plus or minus 9 years. This house was one of the last houses to use Irish oak as a building timber. |
| 5 - Was the Orange Order not formed in Loughgall? |
|
The men who met in Dan Winter's House following the Battle of the Diamond would have formed their own Lodges and to obtain the warrants for these lodges they travelled to Sloan's House in Loughgall. Therefore it can be stated that the first embryonic meeting of The Orange Society (as it was then known) took place in the ancestral home in the farmyard 200 yards from the Diamond Crossroads. Following the battle, the main leaders including James Wilson, Daniel Winter and James Sloan needed to get away from the throng to plan and think. Discussion took place to outine the new organisation and it was decided to hold further discussions later in the house of James Sloan in Loughgall i.e. Sloan's House. In the actual room where these founding fathers met in Dan Winter's House, are to be seen old muskets and pikes as well as an old sword found many years ago in the thatch. All had been used at the Battle of the Diamond. Heavy lead shot has been found recently in the roof space of this famous house. Dan
Winter's Cottage - 'the Birthplace of Orangeism'. |
| 6 - Who was Dan Winter? |
|
He was a substancial farmer in the area, and was setting his sons
up in business prior to the Diamond Battle. He had a grocery buisness
at the cross roads and his son Francis employed weaver's. His son
Daniel was working the farm, and his son Samuel was also farming.
James Winter had a well known Inn across the road from the grocer's
store. James may have been a relation of Dan's as most of the land
around the Diamond was leased by the Winter family. |
For more
information email winter@orangenet.org.
