The Red Hand is one of the most recognisable symbols associated with Ulster Lodge No. 2972, but the Lodge’s own 1953 history gives it a very particular story.
The Jubilee Review describes the Lodge badge as a representation of the Red Hand of Ulster, surrounded by shamrocks and carrying the Lodge name. Beneath it appeared an Irish motto which the booklet printed as “Lamh dearg aboo”, translated there as “The Red Hand for ever”.
What did the Red Hand mean?
The Jubilee writer was careful not simply to repeat the familiar legend of a man cutting off his hand and throwing it ashore to claim Ulster. The booklet notes that historians had already challenged that romantic story.
Instead it drew on the work of Belfast heraldic authority John Vinycomb. The account connects the Red Hand with the historic arms associated with Ulster and with the O’Neill tradition, while also explaining why different versions of the symbol sometimes show a right hand and sometimes a left.
For the Lodge, however, the important point was simpler. The Red Hand was adopted as a visible statement of its Ulster roots.
The Barry banner story
The 1953 booklet preserves a much more personal version of the banner story. It says that during the Mastership of W. Bro. Sam Barry in 1909, Mrs Barry surprised the Lodge by presenting a small banner which she had worked herself.
However, a contemporary Masonic report from 1905 states that Samuel M. Barry presented a Lodge banner. We are therefore treating the exact provenance with caution while the original sources are compared. There may have been two banners, a later replacement or simply a difference in how the story was remembered.
It had a light green background, lines of shamrock, and the name and date of consecration of the Lodge. The Jubilee Review says that from then on it was hung behind the Worshipful Master’s chair during meetings.
That makes the banner more than decoration. It was a handmade gift from within the Lodge family, created only six years after the Lodge had been consecrated.
A symbol carried through the generations
By 1953 the Red Hand was already part of fifty years of Lodge identity. Today it remains an obvious link between the Lodge’s London home and the place from which its founders drew their name and character.
The symbolism may be ancient, but the Lodge’s own version of the story is also wonderfully human: a badge, a banner and a gift made by the wife of a Master in 1909.
Related reading
- Ulster Lodge and the Irish Masonic network in London
- The 1928 Semi-Jubilee and Lord Ampthill’s tribute
- The remarkable men connected with Ulster Lodge by 1953
Source: Ulster Lodge No. 2972, A Jubilee Review, 1953.
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