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 Lancers, etc., for a good hour and a-half, and by that time Dad and Mum would come along and the open-air hall would be brought to a close.

It was in 1867 that war was declared at Addisons between the Orangemen and the Irishmen. It was not a capitalist war, but a religious war pure and simple, and the story of this great battle has often been handed down to the young generation by their parents who lived in Addisons at that time, but a review of the battle will no doubt be of interest.

On St. Patrick’s Day of that year the Irishmen held a march past the pubs with bands and banners flying to celebrate the patron saint of Ireland, and according to Tom Hussey, St. Patrick was nothing more than a runaway Scotchman. Well, when the 12th of July came along and the Orangemen turned out and tried to make a better exhibition of their procession than the Irishmen did, everything went sailing merrily along until a lady by the name of Bella Newton, who was mounted on a grey horse, came along in the procession, and a man by the name of Mick Ward could stand it no longer. He went forth and pulled Bella down from the horse, and this angered the men donned in the saflern sashes. The King William warriors and the admirers of King James clashed, and oh! talk about the Anzacs’ gallant deeds, it was nothing compared with this clash. The Green was too much for the Yellow that day. Stones, pitchforks, pick handles, blackthorn sticks were welting, bashing, and crashing in all directions. As the Orangemen retreated they fell back in disorder, and one incident amused me, and that was of a stray Orangeman clearing for dear life around the side of old Hardy’s butcher’s shop, and Jack O’Keefe and Jack Hussey after him—O’Keefe with an axe-handle and Hussey with the broken blade of a cross-cut saw. O’Keefe was just in the act of smasmingsmashing [sic] his opponent’s brains out, when Hussey cried out, “For God’s sake, O’Keefe, don’t kill him until I have the pleasure of having one whack, at the Orange divil.” Poor old Tom Hussey passed away in the Westport Hospital about 25 years ago, at the age of 88. He was a great old humorist and loved telling the younger generation of the wars that were fought and won in the Flat between King William’s and King James’s men.

At the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland, when King James’s men retreated from King William, so did the followers of King William retreat back over Dirty Mary’s and Henman’s Creeks and took refuge down at the Buller. They gathered all the forces they could at Westport and all the brethren from the Terraces. The day for the battle arrived. There must have been about 3000 men lined up for action on the banks of the Buller river, with guns, pistols, spears and clubs, sworn by their commander to kill every Irishman they met. At the same time the Irishmen mobilised under the command of an ex-English officer, and he had a noble band of about the same number as the King Williamites at Westport. The Addisons army was lined up along the main road, the long rank reaching from the Shamrock Hotel to Dick Harley’s Hill. Before the word forward march was given, the commander gave the order to take no prisoners. This order was received