1.1K 
Come with us…
Ever Wondered What’s Inside That Masonic Hall…?
We get the lowdown on Greystones' Freemason history
previous post
Come with us…
o be honest, we really weren’t all that prepared for our long-awaited 
snoop this evening inside the Greystones Masonic Centre…
Partly because we had forgotten our usual camera – hence the especially crappy-verging-on-avant-garde framing here – but more importantly because, well, we can’t make up our minds about this whole Freemasonry lark.
On the one hand, it seems innocent enough, like Boy Scouts for men. On the other, its 300 years of secrecy and subterfuge and the compulsory belief in a supreme being suggests, at worst, an early Church Of Scientology prototype, and, at best, given its jobs-for-the-boys-only-club rules, visions of Fianna Fáil with candles. Lots and lots of candles.
If the Freemasons ever had fangs at any point over the last three centuries, they would appear to be well and truly worn down to a gummy, friendly smile these days.
4 comments
There are still a couple of MASSIVE misconceptions in the original post.
For instance, “300 years of secrecy and subterfuge”? Where did that come from? Up until the early 20th Century parades of Freemasons were common place, masonic meetings were always advertised in local newspapers, scarcely a single public building in the UK and Ireland was build without a prominent local Freemason laying the foundation stone. This only really came to end with the threat of Nazi invasion. In countries that had already been invaded one of the very first actions by the Nazis was to obtain lists of the names of Freemasons so that they could be rounded up and sent off to the death camps. It was hardly surprising that Freemasonry went ‘underground’ and became more secretive with that sort of threat involved. Unfortunately it took a long, long time after WWII before it really came back out of the shadows. But it is truly back out in the open now, with open days, press days, parades of Masons wearing their regalia, etc, etc. As for the ‘subterfuge’ – where did that come from?
Secondly, “jobs-for-the-boys-club-rules” – a misconception that has absolutely no basis in fact whatsoever. In actual fact Freemasons are expressly forbidden to show any such favouritism.
Don’t forget, this is on this Saturday, 19th August, at 8 p.m.!
Great work! I for one have always been dying for look inside that building. Good interview? Any interesting photos/objects around the walls?
Hi David,
Indeed there are some interesting things on the walls and to most (if not all) we are able to provide you with insights.
I am curious if any visitor will point me to something I haven’t recognised or asked about, yet!