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HISTORY OF VICTORY MASONIC LODGE No.478
The early history of the Warrant
Although Victory Masonic Lodge, No. 478, celebrated it centenary in 2020 the Warrant itself goes back well beyond those hundred years. In fact, it goes back over 250 years to 1769, when it was first issued to the 17th Light Dragoons, the Duke of Cambridge’s Own Lancers, when they were based in Cork.
The 17th Regiment of (Light) Dragoons was a light cavalry regiment of the British Army. Originally raised in 1759 when King George II augmented the Cavalry Corps with five Regiments of Light Cavalry.
On the outbreak of the American revolution, they were ordered to ship to America and were raised to war establishment on 14th Mar 1775.
Deployed to Boston, the unit saw action at the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17th June 1775. In March 1776, the Regiment departed for Halifax, Nova Scotia where it stayed for three months prior to being redeployed to New York to participate in the effort to capture the city.
They took part in the Battle of Long Island on the 25th of Aug 1776. In October they were at the Battle of White Plains and in December at Rhode Island.
In the spring of 1778, the Regiment operated from Philadelphia, where they performed reconnaissance against the Valley Forge encampment. In the course of that year, they joined the Battles of Crooked Billet, Barren Hill and Freehold. Late in the year the Regiment spent time in replenishment and wintered at Long Island.
Following reorganisation of the cavalry in early 1779 the 17th found themselves the only remaining British cavalry unit in the Americas.
1780 saw the Regiment join in the Siege of Charleston, where at Biggin’s Bridge, hostile infantry was famously routed by a charge with the bayonet.
After Charleston fell the Regiment served through the Carolinas, joining battle at Waxhaw before returning to New York. Following the treaty of Independence in 1783 the Regiment returned to Ireland. The Lodge Warrant was returned to Grand Lodge in 1801.
Ironically, in light of the travel through revolutionary America of Warrant No. 478, many commentators ascribe a very significant role to Freemasonry in developing the circumstances in which the revolution came about.
The Warrant was revived in 1887, in Blenheim (Māori: Waiharakeke), the most populous town in the northeast of the South Island of New Zealand. The surrounding Marlborough region is well known as the centre of the New Zealand wine industry and enjoys one of New Zealand's sunniest climates, with warm, relatively dry summers and cool, crisp winters.
However, the revival was relatively short-lived, and the Warrant was back with Grand Lodge by 1889.
By March 1920, the death toll from the post Great War outbreak of Spanish Flu had exceeded 20 million worldwide.
Paris was effectively the seat of world government as the Peace Conference at Versailles proceeded through its second year. It would finally conclude in 1923 having, among many other things, established the League of Nations. The ‘Better Government of Ireland Act’ which replaced the Home Rule Act of 1914, finally passed into law, creating Ireland’s two parliaments. The Ulster Unionist Council accepted the Government's plan for a Parliament of Northern Ireland, while Sir Edward Carson opposed the division of Ireland, seeing it as a betrayal of Unionists in the south and west.
Throughout Ireland, but in Dublin particularly, the Anglo Irish War continued in what was essentially a guerrilla insurgency. March was the month when the Royal Irish Constabulary auxiliary force, the ‘Black and Tans’ made their first appearance in Dublin. Among the dozen or so deaths in March 1920 were those of Thomas Mac Curtain, Lord Mayor of Cork and, in Dublin, of Resident Magistrate, Alan Bell. Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent, a veteran of the second Boer war, was about to be sworn in as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the first Catholic to hold the viceroyalty since the reign of King James II. He would also be the last Viceroy, with the Governor Generalship being established upon independence in December 1922.
In Molesworth Street, Freemasons Hall had recently marked its jubilee, having hosted its first Lodge meetings in July 1869 – although it was not formally competed and dedicated until later.
The modern history of the Lodge
Within Freemasons Hall, against the turbulent and unsettled background outlined above, a group of members of lodges operating under the Grand Lodge of Ireland were granted permission to constitute a new lodge. Looking back, the Great War, where the efforts of largely enlisted armies under the authority of democratically elected parliaments had prevailed against conscript armies, raised by tyrannies, they called it Victory Masonic Lodge. The Grand Lodge of Ireland gave it the number 478.
Interestingly, Lodge 477 Londonderry, where another Warrant was re-issued in 1920, also carries the name ‘Victory’.
Victory Masonic Lodge, No. 478 was constituted on 25th March 1920, during the tenure as Grand Master of Richard Walter John Hely-Hutchinson, 6th Earl of Donoughmore KP PC (2nd March, 1875 – 19th October, 1948).
Many of the Lodges founding members came from Clontarf Lodge No. 249, with which Victory still shares a close bond of amity.
The Constitution Meeting of the Lodge, on 1st March 1920 was presided over by RW Bro Sir Charles Cameron, a remarkably impressive figure whose portrait graces the Grand Lodge Room today
Cameron was physician, chemist, and writer prominent in the adoption of medical hygiene. For over fifty years he had charge of the Public Health Department of Dublin Corporation. He was elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in 1885. Such was his status in Freemasonry, where he held the rank of Deputy Grand Master, that a Lodge was dedicated in his name in his lifetime (Charles A. Cameron Lodge, No. 72).
Lodge No. 478 was distinctive in that it chose to ‘labour’ on a Saturday night, a tradition that continued until 2008. This is said to reflect the professions of many of the founding members, who were involved in commercial life and who travelled through the troubled country in the course of the week, finding peace, harmony and fellowship in lodge on a Saturday evening – and most likely finding spiritual sustenance in attending church on Sunday morning.
Constituted with Lodge No. 478 was Lodge No. 480, which amalgamated in 1971 with Lodge No. 269, but which ultimately closed in 1993.
Throughout its first century, several hundred men have been members of Lodge No. 478 for various periods of time. It is appropriate, perhaps to mention those who have been members, and served in office for long periods. Amongst these would be:
WBro Drought, Wilfred Weir, Arnold Cooke, Sydney Saunders, George Sheppard, Jack Keegan, and Les Sibbald.
In Freemasonry, as in life, amalgamations happen and Lodge No. 478 has been joined over the years by brethren from lodges that have, for one reason or another, ‘handed in their warrants’. These ‘incorporated’ lodges include Corinthian Lodge, No. 32, and Tudor Sphinx.
Music within the Lodge
"The purpose of music in [Masonic] ceremonies is to spread good thoughts and unity among the members so that they may be united in the idea of innocence and joy. Music should "inculcate feelings of humanity, wisdom and patience, virtue and honesty, loyalty to friends, and finally an understanding of freedom.”
- Ludwig Freidrich Lenz, ‘Masonic songs’ (1746).
Victory Masonic Lodge, No. 478, has always been ‘a musical lodge’ and among past members are counted the distinguished Grand Organist, R.W.Bro John Rowden and also Bros Philip Lawton and Freddie McKeown. The latter recently passed to the Grand Lodge above and his funeral service in Christchurch, which Freddie himself prescribed, was a treat for lovers of church music generally and of choral polyphony in particular.
Memorable musical occasions at past festive boards have been provided by brethren such as the Reverend WBro Mervyn McCullagh with the guitar he bought the morning after the Beatles play in Dublin, WBro Tommie Rafferty’s rousing ‘Jerusalem’ and Bro Peter Daly’s traditional Scottish pipes.
The Great War
Eleven members of Coronation Lodge, No. 32, which amalgamated with Victory Lodge, No. 478, served in the 1914-18 War and Bro John Henry Frederick Leland, made the supreme sacrifice. Each year in November the Lodge holds a solemn rite of remembrance for these brethren.
The book room of Ireland’s War Memorial Gardens in Kilmainham were collected, researched, and displayed by Ronald J. Marino, Esq, LLCM, Trustee of the Memorial Committee (1994-2002) and a Past Master of Lodge No. 478. Tribute is paid to his role in this endeavour in a plaque on the wall of the book room. The exhibition includes a copy of the rare Ypres Alphabet, an example of the Princess Mary gift box with its original card intact, and items such as death pennies, postcards from the Front, uniform items, and photographs. In 2015, eighteen items from the collection were photographed and made available for viewing on the Irish National War Memorial Gardens website, in both English and Gaeilge (opwdublincommemorative.ie/warmemorial/collection). One of the books in the collection, The Ypres Alphabet, was also researched, digitised, and made available for free download.
Early years
“Irish freemasons were predominantly Protestant and affiliated to the Anglo-American masonic fraternity. From a Catholic perspective, however, the local brotherhood resembled a bastion of sectarianism, while it also struggled to disentangle itself from continental freemasonry, which had been roundly condemned by the leadership of the Catholic Church.”
Mark Phelan, ‘Local brotherhood – An Irishman’s Diary on the freemasonry controversy in 1920s Ireland’, The Irish Times, 18th September 2017.
The early years of Lodge No. 478 would be both significant and controversial – not within the lodge itself, but in the world outside.
When Lodge 478 was constituted in 1920, the Grand Lodge of Ireland would already have been looking forward to marking its bicentenary in 1925. That event would have been attended by representatives of English-speaking Grand Lodges from all around the world. Preparations were, no doubt, set back somewhat when Freemasons Hall, together with the headquarters of the Dublin Port Company on O’Connell Bridge, and the Four Courts on Inns Quay were occupied by proclamationist insurgents in April 1922. In Molesworth Street, the occupation was, thankfully, short-lived. Things turned out quite differently down at the Four Courts, with civil war breaking out there on June 28th, just twelve days after the electorate had overwhelmingly endorsed the establishment of an independent treaty-based state.
The Grand Lodge bicentenary celebrations would prompt reaction from such as the widely read Catholic Bulletin, which proposed that the state should “close down by right of its authority every secret lodge in this country of these secret geometric [societies] . . .” Thankfully, in the independent Ireland of the new Treaty-based state, legislators felt disinclined to suppress a lawful society, a voluntary brotherhood like freemasonry, simply because it harboured sentiments other than respect for the principles voiced by its loudest critics.
For as long as they’ve existed, even in times characterised by hierarchical social order, masonic lodges have inculcated the practice of fellowship, encouraging men to regard and address one another as brothers. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart joined a masonic lodge in 1794. His subsequent work, including ‘The marriage of Figaro’ is informed by the idea that social rank was not coincident with the nobility of the spirit, and that people of the lower class could be noble in spirit. Among the songs Mozart wrote is "O heiliges Band der Freundschaft treuer Brüder" (O sacred bond of friendship between true brothers), K 148/125h”
After the fall of the ‘ancient regime’ in the western world, both the American and French revolutions, as well as the failed United Irishmen rebellion of 1798, made much of fraternity, as well as liberty and equality. Friedrich Schiller’s declaration “Alle menschen warden bruder” (all people become brothers) was set to music by Beethoven, and incorporated in the ‘Ode to Joy’ in his ninth symphony. Originally, Schiller wrote, “Bettler warden furstenbruder” (Beggars become brothers of princes). The Scottish national poet, and enthusiastic mason, Robbie Burns wrote “Then let us pray come it may . . .that man to man, the world o’er, shall brothers be for a’ that.”
Today in Lodge No. 478, fellowship continues as it always has, except now with a decidedly international flavour, with brethren of the lodge hailing from both sides of the Liffey (the great divide!), and also from Italy, United Kingdom, Luxembourg, India, the Philippines, and Greece.
Freemasonry is universal in more than one sense. In this spirit, Lodge No. 478 perpetuates:
4 TRADITIONS:
Fellowship
Charity & Benevolence
Ritual
Spirituality
7 STAGES:
Initiation
Passing
Raising
Minor office,
Major office,
Worshipful Master
Past Master
8 EXPERIENCES:
History,
Practice,
Amity,
Hospitality,
Festive Board,
The Helping Hand,
Masonic Education,
Public Speaking
Appreciation of the Liberal Arts and Sciences