This battle between ‘Peep o’ Day’ Boys and the Defenders is usually taken as the trigger for the formation of the modern Orange Order. With this episode, so dramatically described by the Order's most noted historian, R.M. Sibbett, the logic of Orangeism dawned on ordinary Ulster Protestants. Yet the first few months of the Order's life offered nothing quite so remarkable as Sibbett imagined. At this point there was no real indication of its future trajectory. In mid-1796, by which time some several thousand had joined, the rate of enrolment remained modest with only a fraction of its potential recruits having signed up. At this point, Orangeism matched neither the militia nor the United Irishmen as a military or political network. However, as matters in Ulster became more intense, particularly following the French landing at Bantry Bay in January 1797, and as the yeomanry began to look less than sufficient to protect anxious Protestants, the Order seized its opportunity, took a hold, and burgeoned. Its rapid rise said something about the growing capacity of ordinary people in the Protestant crowd to make an impression upon the social and psychological landscape of Ulster.

Orangeism's ‘transition from “ungovernable mob” to “invincible mass” was not achieved without change’. Indeed, its success in this respect illustrated that ordinary loyalists had impressed a need for dialogue upon their social betters. Having grown from a weak base, Orangeism attained a position from which its members could bargain. In later 1797 and early 1798, according to the viceroy, Lord Camden, the organisation grew rapidly to around 40,000 members. From this point it had a settled purpose: to be a movement to add structure and gravity to the task of subjugating Catholics, mixing loud declarations of loyalty with a willingness sometimes to do violence.