Irish and Catholic procession, of which the Hibernians formed
the largest contingent, was, of course, on St. Patrick's Day. A
considerable portion of the processionists were dock labourers; a fine
body of men, who were at this time, as I have already said, mostly
Irish.

The Orange processions in Liverpool were often the occasion of
bloodshed, for in them they carried guns, hatchets, and other deadly
weapons, as if they were always prepared for deeds of violence. The
ship carpenters were the most numerous body in the Orange processions.
Indeed, they formed such a large proportion that, by many, the 12th of
July was called "Carpenter's Day." Shipbuilding used to flourish in
Liverpool, and, as none of the firms engaged in it would take a Catholic
apprentice, it was quite an Orange preserve. This became somewhat
changed when the Chalenors, an English Catholic family, who were already
extensive timber merchants, commenced ship-building, and, of course,
took Catholic apprentices.

The Orange ring was thus gradually broken up, and, as iron ships
superseded wooden ones, ultimately the shipbuilding trade almost
vanished from Liverpool. The ship carpenters, for the most part, found
their occupation gone, and many of them ended their days in the
workhouse.

A further instance of the decline of rabid Orangeism might be cited. It
was not an altogether uncommon thing for people to be fired at from the
windows of Orange lodges. I see, according to the "Nation" of July 20th,
1850, that "an innkeeper of Liverpool named Wright fired out of his
house and wounded three people." In justification of this he stated that
"a crowd of Ribbonmen assembled round his house." At one time there used
to be a notorious Orange lodge held in a public house called "The Wheat
Sheaf" in Scotland Road. The members of this body thought nothing of
firing upon an unarmed and peaceable crowd from the windows, and I
remember an Irishman being shot dead upon one of these occasions. The
change that has taken place in this district can be best realized from
the facts that, in after years, the landlord of "The Wheatsheaf" bore
the name of Patrick Finegan, that, at the present moment, Scotland Road
is, as it has been for many years, represented in the City Council by a
sterling body of Irish Nationalists, and that the Scotland Division of
the Borough of Liverpool is the _one_ place in Great Britain where an
Irish Home Ruler, _as such_, can be returned to Parliamen