Award winning banner featuring Orangemen catching the train on Twelfth morning

For their banner depicting Orangemen boarding a train on the Twelfth morning, Aughnacloy Rising Sons of William LOL 156 picked up the Orange Community Awared for Best New Banner.
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By Graeme Cousins
Published 18th Mar 2023, 10:00 BST

Jackie Brush from the lodge said: “The banner is a scene from the Clogher Valley railway depicting the lodge being taken to the Twelfth. It was the thing back then, every Twelfth they took the train.

“We needed a new banner, we bandied about a few ideas, we decided on a memorial type banner. Our chaplain Maurice McMaster, he suggested the Clogher Valley railway.”

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Although it is no longer a railway station, it is still used by the Masonic Lodge.

The Grand Master and Deputy Grand Master pictured with the ‘Banner of the Year’ from Aughnacloy Rising Sons of William LOL 156The Grand Master and Deputy Grand Master pictured with the ‘Banner of the Year’ from Aughnacloy Rising Sons of William LOL 156
The Grand Master and Deputy Grand Master pictured with the ‘Banner of the Year’ from Aughnacloy Rising Sons of William LOL 156

Jackie said: “A lot of our members worked on the Clogher Valley railway and it was used for a lot of our outings – going to the Twelfth, to picnics, things like that.

“We got a few photographs of it, we knew there was a photograph of the lodge getting the train. We were able to get it through a historian in Aughnacloy.

“The railway station is still there, we took a few photographs to get colours, then took the whole lot down to William Magowan (a banner painter in Garvagh).”

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Jackie continued: “William brought the whole thing to life. He is a man that loves to gives colours. The engine colours are right, the carriage colours are right, the bricks are just right. He did a massive job.”

The banner was unfurled last June and was out on the Twelfth.

"She should have been out the year before but because of lockdown the whole thing was put on hold,” said Jackie.