This book examines the creation of the Antients Grand Lodge and traces the influence of Ireland and the London Irish, and most especially that of Laurence Dermott, the Antients Grand Secretary, in the development of freemasonry in the second half of the eighteenth century. The book demonstrates the relative accessibility of the Antients and contrasts this with the exclusivity of the Moderns -- the original Grand Lodge of England. The Antients instigated what became a six decades long rivalry with the Moderns and pioneered fundamental changes to the social composition of freemasonry, extending formal sociability to the lower middling and working classes and creating one of the first modern friendly societies.
