This thesis is an exploration of an oath-bound secret Catholic organisation, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, during a very important period in its existence from 1900 to 1933. The focus will be on County Monaghan with particular reference to my native parish of Aghabog. The period between 1900 and 1933 witnessed a series of very dramatic changes in the Irish political scene which have had lasting and profound effects on the island up to the present time. The Hibernians, as the Order was commonly referred to, were emerging at the end of the nineteenth century from a period of division and stagnation both in Ireland and Britain where the Order had taken root among the numerous Irish emigrants in Scotland and the north of England.(1) Divisions had also occurred in America where the Hibernians were very strong among the Irish masses and where the Order received its name in 1838.(2) The Order had also to contend with the disapproval of the Catholic church which had imposed a ban on membership of secret societies as a result of Pope Leo XII’s papal decree of 1825 in an apostolic constitution called ‘Quo Graviora’.