158-592: The Unionist Anti-Partition League (UAPL) was a unionist political organisation in Ireland which campaigned for a united Ireland within the United Kingdom . Led by St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton , it split from the Irish Unionist Alliance on 24 January 1919 over disagreements regarding the partition of Ireland . The Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA) had been formed in 1891 from
316-650: A devolved region within the United Kingdom and to resist the prospect of an all-Ireland republic . Within the framework of the 1998 Belfast Agreement , which concluded three decades of political violence, unionists have shared office with Irish nationalists in a reformed Northern Ireland Assembly . As of February 2024, they no longer do so as the larger faction: they serve in an executive with an Irish republican ( Sinn Féin ) First Minister . Unionism became an overarching partisan affiliation in Ireland late in
474-650: A Belfast parliament (they did not develop an express nationalism of their own), but in summarising The Case Against Home Rule (1912), L. S. Amery did insist that "if Irish Nationalism constitutes a nation, then Ulster is a nation too". Faced with the eventual enactment of Home Rule, Carson appeared to press this argument. On 28 September 1912, Ulster Day, he was the first to sign, in Belfast City Hall, Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant . This bound signatories "to stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our position of equal citizenship in
632-523: A Catholic tradition of support for the union, focused on the value of stability and of empire, survived the first home-rule crisis. But it did not share the majority unionist conviction that any measure of devolution within the United Kingdom must lead to separation. Nor did it supply unionism with the equivalent of the Protestants who, individually, played a prominent role in home-rule and separatist politics. A handful of Irish Conservatives, drawn from
790-552: A Catholic, had helped devise a scheme for administrative devolution involving an Irish council of both elected and nominated members. Balfour, now prime minister, was obliged to disavow the scheme and Wyndham, pressed to deny his complicity, resigned. The uproar assisted the Liberal return to office in December. The road to Catholicism's identification with constitutional Irish nationalism was "far from smooth and immediate", and
948-769: A Liberal government if it introduced another home rule bill. The Parliament Act 1911 meant the House of Lords could no longer veto bills passed by the Commons, but only delay them for up to two years. British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith introduced the Third Home Rule Bill in April 1912. An amendment to the Bill was introduced calling for the partition of Ireland. In June 1912 Asquith spoke in Parliament rejecting
1106-422: A Parliament of its own would not be in nearly as strong a position...where, above all, the paraphernalia of Government was already in existence...We should fear no one and would be in a position of absolute security." In reference to the threat of Unionist violence and the achievement of a separate status of Ulster, Winston Churchill felt that "...if Ulster had confined herself simply to constitutional agitation, it
1264-643: A Provisional Ulster Government. In response, Irish nationalists founded the Irish Volunteers to ensure Home Rule was implemented. The Ulster Volunteers smuggled 25,000 rifles and three million rounds of ammunition into Ulster from the German Empire , in the Larne gun-running of April 1914. The Irish Volunteers also smuggled weaponry from Germany in the Howth gun-running that July. On 20 March 1914, in
1422-405: A The Government of Ireland Bill that was largely of his own drafting. Unionists were not persuaded by his inclusion of measures to limit the remit of a Dublin legislature and to reduce the weight of the popular vote (the 200 or so popularly elected members were to sit in session with 28 Irish Peers and a further 75 Members elected on a highly restrictive property franchise). Regardless of how it
1580-636: A conquered community and nothing else". By July 1914, the Ulster Covenant had been complemented by a British Covenant organised by Alfred Milner through the Union Defence League . Nearly two million signatories declared themselves willing to "supporting any action that may be effective" to prevent the people of Ulster being deprived "of their rights as citizens of the United Kingdom". Partition of Ireland The Partition of Ireland ( Irish : críochdheighilt na hÉireann )
1738-527: A constructive course. He pursued reforms intended, as some saw it, to kill home rule with "kindness". For the express purpose of relieving poverty and reducing emigration, in the Congested Districts of the west Balfour initiated a programme not only of public works, but of subsidy for local craft industries. Headed by the former Unionist MP for South Dublin , Horace Plunkett , a new Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction broke with
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#17327977729981896-659: A large paramilitary organization (at least 100,000 men), the Ulster Volunteers , that could be used to prevent Ulster from being ruled by an Irish government. The British government proposed to exclude all or part of Ulster, but the crisis was interrupted by the First World War (1914–18). Support for Irish independence grew during the war and after the 1916 armed rebellion known as the Easter Rising . The Irish republican political party Sinn Féin won
2054-801: A low-level tenant-landlord war came to Westminster in 1852 when the all-Ireland Tenant Right League helped return 48 MPs to Westminster where they sat as the Independent Irish Party . What the Young Irelander Gavan Duffy called the League of North and South soon fell apart. In the South the Church approved the Catholic MPs breaking their pledge of independent opposition and accepting government positions. In
2212-684: A majority. Irish unionists assembled at conventions in Dublin and Belfast to oppose both the Bill and the proposed partition. The unionist MP Horace Plunkett , who would later support home rule, opposed it in the 1890s because of the dangers of partition. Although the Bill was approved by the Commons, it was defeated in the House of Lords . Following the December 1910 election , the Irish Parliamentary Party again agreed to support
2370-660: A minority within the United Kingdom may have passed. In 1830, the leader of the Catholic Association , Daniel O'Connell , invited Protestants to join in a campaign to repeal the Union and restore the Kingdom of Ireland under the Constitution of 1782 . At the same time, the security in Ireland for emancipation was a fivefold increase in the threshold for the property franchise . O'Connell's Protestant ally in
2528-676: A rebellion against British rule, the Easter Rising. It was crushed after a week of heavy fighting in Dublin. The harsh British reaction to the Rising fuelled support for independence, with republican party Sinn Féin winning four by-elections in 1917. The British parliament called the Irish Convention in an attempt to find a solution to its Irish Question . It sat in Dublin from July 1917 until March 1918, and comprised both Irish nationalist and Unionist politicians. It ended with
2686-452: A report, supported by nationalist and southern unionist members, calling for the establishment of an all-Ireland parliament consisting of two houses with special provisions for Ulster unionists. The reports proposal for the setting up of an all Ireland parliament was passed by 51 votes to 18. The amendment to exclude Ulster from the jurisdiction of a national parliament was voted down by 52 votes to 19. The majority of southern Unionists voted for
2844-659: A separation of north and south, with Belfast as the capital of its own "distinct kingdom". In response to the First Home rule Bill in 1886, Radical Unionists (Liberals who proposed federalising the relationship between all countries of the United Kingdom) likewise argued that "the Protestant part of Ulster should receive special treatment . . . on grounds identical with those that support the general contention for Home Rule" Ulster Protestants expressed no interest in
3002-488: A six counties Parliament, with 52 members, the Unionist majority, would be about ten. The three excluded counties contain some 70,000 Unionists and 260,000 Sinn Feiners and Nationalists, and the addition of that large block of Sinn Feiners and Nationalists would reduce our majority to such a level that no sane man would undertake to carry on a Parliament with it. That is the position with which we were faced when we had to take
3160-516: A speech in the British House of Commons where he made clear the future make up of Northern Ireland: "The three Ulster counties of Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal are to be handed over to the South of Ireland Parliament. How the position of affairs in a Parliament of nine counties and in a Parliament of six counties would be is shortly this. If we had a nine counties Parliament, with 64 members, the Unionist majority would be about three or four, but in
3318-555: A stroke in 1898 to democratically elected councils), the old landlord class had the terms of their retirement fixed by the Wyndham Land Act of 1903. This reduced, but did not in itself resolve, agrarian tensions, even in the north. In 1906, Thomas Russell, MP , the son of an evicted Scottish crofter , broke with the Conservatives in the Irish Unionist Alliance to be returned to Westminster from South Tyrone as
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#17327977729983476-520: A subsequent trial, WPSU organiser Dorothy Evans created an uproar by demanding to know why James Craig, then arming Ulster Volunteers with German rifles, was not appearing on the same weapons and explosives charges. In August 1914, suffragists in Ulster suspended their agitation for the duration of the European war. Their reward was a women's franchise in 1918 and (six years after it was granted in
3634-684: A trade regime, the Northern Ireland Protocol , that advances an all-Ireland agenda. In February 2024, two years after their withdrawal collapsed the devolved institutions, on the basis of new British government assurances they returned to the Assembly to form the first Northern Ireland government in which unionists are a minority. In the last decades of the Kingdom of Ireland (1542–1800), Protestants in public life advanced themselves as Irish Patriots. The focus of their patriotism
3792-474: A very weak case on the issue "of forcing these two Counties against their will" into Northern Ireland. On 28 November 1921 both Tyrone and Fermanagh County Councils declared allegiance to the new Irish Parliament (Dail). On 2 December the Tyrone County Council publicly rejected the "...arbitrary, new-fangled, and universally unnatural boundary". They pledged to oppose the new border and to "make
3950-692: Is extremely improbable that she would have escaped inclusion in a Dublin Parliament." The Irish War of Independence led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, between the British government and representatives of the Irish Republic. Negotiations between the two sides were carried on between October and December 1921. The British delegation consisted of experienced parliamentarians/debaters such as Lloyd George , Winston Churchill , Austen Chamberlain and Lord Birkenhead , they had clear advantages over
4108-454: Is the story of weeping women, hungry children, hunted men, homeless in England, houseless in Ireland. If this is what we get when they have not their Parliament, what may we expect when they have that weapon, with wealth and power strongly entrenched? What will we get when they are armed with Britain's rifles, when they are clothed with the authority of government, when they have cast round them
4266-597: The American War of Independence , of the Irish Volunteers and, as that militia paraded in Dublin, the securing in 1782 of the parliament's legislative independence from the British government in London. In the north-east, combinations of Presbyterian tradesmen, merchants, and tenant farmers protested against the unrepresentative parliament and against an executive in Dublin Castle still appointed, through
4424-711: The Buckingham Palace Conference to allow Unionists and Nationalists to come together and discuss the issue of partition, but the conference achieved little. After much negotiations in 1914, John Redmond the leader of the largest political party in Ireland (the Irish Parliamentary Party) agreed to the temporary exclusion of some areas of Ulster. In June 1916 Lloyd George asked for Redmonds approval for six counties (now to include Tyrone and Fermanagh) to be temporarily excluded (four counties had been requested in 1912 and 1914). Redmond
4582-718: The Conservative and Orange-Order candidates of the landed Ascendancy . But as the Irish party-political successors to O'Connell's Repeal movement gained representation and influence in Westminster, Cooke's call for unity was to be heeded in the progressive emergence of a pan-Protestant unionism. Up to, and through, the Great Famine of the 1840s, successive governments, Whig and Tory, had refused political responsibility for agrarian conditions in Ireland. The issues of
4740-638: The Fermanagh County Council passed the following resolution: "We, the County Council of Fermanagh, in view of the expressed desire of a large majority of people in this county, do not recognise the partition parliament in Belfast and do hereby direct our Secretary to hold no further communications with either Belfast or British Local Government Departments, and we pledge our allegiance to Dáil Éireann." Shortly afterwards, Dawson Bates
4898-563: The Irish Free State ) equal voting rights in 1928 . In 1911 a Liberal administration was once again dependent on Irish nationalist MPs. In 1912 the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith , introduced the Third Home Rule Bill . A more generous dispensation than the earlier bills, it would, for the first time, have given an Irish parliament an accountable executive. It was carried in the Commons by a majority of ten. As expected, it
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5056-730: The Irish Free State , now known as the Republic of Ireland . Ireland had a large Catholic, nationalist majority who wanted self-governance or independence. Prior to partition the Irish Home Rule movement compelled the British Parliament to introduce bills that would give Ireland a devolved government within the UK ( home rule ). This led to the Home Rule Crisis (1912–14), when Ulster unionists/ loyalists founded
5214-515: The Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union to oppose plans for Home Rule for Ireland. By 1919, the IUA was wracked by internal disagreements between southern and Ulster unionists over the proposed partition of Ireland. Southern unionists saw partition as the defeat of their aim to keep a united Ireland within the United Kingdom. Ulster unionists were more receptive to the notion of partition, seeing it as
5372-613: The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). In his first ministry (1868-1874), the Liberal premier William Ewart Gladstone had attempted conciliation. In 1869, he disestablished the Church of Ireland , and in 1870 introduced the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act . In both measures conservative jurists identified threats to the integrity of the union. Disestablishment reneged on the promise of "one Protestant Episcopal Church" for both Britain and Ireland under Article V of
5530-480: The Irish Trades Union Congress as tantamount to support for Home Rule. Yet loyalist workers resented the idea that they were the retainers of "big-house unionists". A manifesto signed in the spring of 1914 by two thousand labour men, rejected the suggestion of the radical and socialist press that Ulster was being manipulated by "an aristocratic plot". If Sir Edward Carson led in the battle for
5688-636: The Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union —sought to connect. With Gladstone's conversion to home rule, politicians who had held aloof from the Order now embraced its militancy. Colonel Edward Saunderson , who had represented Cavan as a Liberal, donned an Orange sash "because", he said "the Orange society is alone capable of dealing with the condition of anarchy and rebellion which prevail in Ireland". In February 1886, playing, in his own words,
5846-764: The Parliament of Northern Ireland (24 May 1921), the 1921 Northern Ireland general election returned Sinn Fein/Nationalist Party majorities: 54.7% Nationalist / 45.3% Unionist in Fermanagh – Tyrone (which was a single constituency). In a letter dated 7 September 1921 from Lloyd George to the President of the Irish Republic Eamon de Valera regarding Counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, the British Prime Minister stated that his government had
6004-590: The Republic of Ireland , by successive British governments. Following the 1998 Belfast Agreement , under which both republican and loyalist paramilitaries committed to permanent ceasefires, unionists accepted principles of joint office and parallel consent in a new Northern Ireland legislature and executive. Renegotiated in 2006, relations within this consociational arrangement remained fraught. Unionists, with diminishing electoral strength, charged their nationalist partners in government with pursuing an anti-British cultural agenda and, post- Brexit , with supporting
6162-684: The Ulster Unionist Council was established to bring together unionists in the north including, with 50 of 200 seats, the Orange Order . Until then, unionism had largely placed itself behind Anglo-Irish aristocrats valued for their high-level connections in Great Britain . The UUC still accorded them a degree of precedence. Castlereagh's descendant and former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , The 6th Marquess of Londonderry , presided over its executive. The Council also retained
6320-466: The crown of the United Kingdom and to the union it represents with England , Scotland and Wales . The overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority , unionism mobilised in the decades following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to oppose restoration of a separate Irish parliament . Since Partition in 1921, as Ulster unionism its goal has been to retain Northern Ireland as
6478-595: The partition settlement of 1921 by which the rest of Ireland attained separate statehood , Ulster unionists accepted a home-rule dispensation for the six north-east counties remaining in the United Kingdom. For the next 50 years, the Ulster Unionist Party exercised the devolved powers of the Northern Ireland Parliament with little domestic opposition and outside of the governing party-political system at Westminster . In 1972,
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6636-567: The " Curragh incident ", many of the highest-ranking British Army officers in Ireland threatened to resign rather than deploy against the Ulster Volunteers. This meant that the British government could legislate for Home Rule but could not be sure of implementing it. Ireland seemed to be on the brink of civil war. In May 1914, the British government introduced an amending bill to the Third Home Rule Act allowing for
6794-481: The "Orange card", Lord Randolph Churchill assured a "monster meeting" of the Anti-Repeal Union in Belfast, that English Conservatives would "cast in their lot" with loyalists in resisting Home Rule, and he later coined the phrase that was to become the watchword of northern unionism: "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right". Gladstone's own party was split on Home Rule and the House divided against
6952-427: The "temporary exclusion of Ulster" from Home Rule. Some Ulster unionists were willing to tolerate the 'loss' of some mainly-Catholic areas of the province (the Ulster counties of Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal). In May 1914 three border boundary options were proposed for the temporary exclusion of part of Ulster from Home Rule. One option recommended that Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh, south County Armagh, south County Down,
7110-416: The 1887 Act creating a new city-status municipal franchise for Belfast (piloted through the Commons by William Johnston ) conferred the vote on persons rather than men. This was eleven years before women elsewhere Ireland gained the vote in local government elections. The WSS had not been impressed by the women's Ulster Declaration or by the Ulster Women's Unionist Council (UWUC)—with over 100,000 members
7268-560: The 1920 partition for the time being, and of the rest of Treaty text as signed in regard to Northern Ireland: That whilst refusing to admit the right of any part of Ireland to be excluded from the supreme authority of the Parliament of Ireland, or that the relations between the Parliament of Ireland and any subordinate legislature in Ireland can be a matter for treaty with a Government outside Ireland, nevertheless, in sincere regard for internal peace, and to make manifest our desire not to bring force or coercion to bear upon any substantial part of
7426-428: The Act of Union (the Ulster Protestant Defence Association claimed breach of contract), and weak as they were, provisions for tenant compensation and purchase created a separate agrarian regime for Ireland at odds with the prevailing English conception of property rights. In the Long Depression of the 1870s the Land War intensified. From 1879 it was organised by the direct-action Irish National Land League , led by
7584-435: The Belfast shipyards, all of them either Catholics or Protestant labour activists . In his Twelfth of July speech, Unionist leader Edward Carson had called for loyalists to take matters into their own hands to defend Ulster, and had linked republicanism with socialism and the Catholic Church. In response to the expulsions and attacks on Catholics, the Dáil approved a boycott of Belfast goods and banks. The 'Belfast Boycott'
7742-490: The Bill two entirely new provisions, one providing for the permanent exclusion of Ulster, of the six Ulster counties...and I was given to understand in so many words that this decision was not put before me for the purpose of discussion or consultation, that the decision was absolute and final, and the right hon. Gentlemen described themselves to me simply as messengers, without any power or authority to discuss these questions in any way whatever with me, and they informed me that it
7900-460: The Bill, fearing industrial decline and religious persecution of Protestants by a Catholic-dominated Irish government. English Conservative politician Lord Randolph Churchill proclaimed: "the Orange card is the one to play", in reference to the Protestant Orange Order . The belief was later expressed in the popular slogan, "Home Rule means Rome Rule " . Partly in reaction to the Bill, there were riots in Belfast , as Protestant unionists attacked
8058-405: The British Government entertain an earnest hope that the necessity of harmonious co-operation amongst Irishmen of all classes and creeds will be recognised throughout Ireland, and they will welcome the day when by those means unity is achieved. But no such common action can be secured by force. In reply, de Valera wrote We most earnestly desire to help in bringing about a lasting peace between
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#17327977729988216-399: The British House of Commons concerning the Government of Ireland Act: I was pleased to fight shoulder to shoulder, on the Somme and elsewhere, with my fellow-countrymen from the North of Ireland. We fraternised, and we thought that when we came home we would not bicker again, but that we would be happy in Ireland, with a Parliament for our own native country. We did not want two Irelands at
8374-413: The British government suspended this arrangement. Against a background of growing political violence, and citing the need to consider how Catholics in Northern Ireland could be integrated into its civic and political life, it prorogued the parliament in Belfast. Over the ensuing three decades of The Troubles , unionists divided in their responses to power-sharing proposals presented, in consultation with
8532-403: The British parliament, believing that it left Irish domestic interests without proper representation. The UAPL was supportive of the work of the Proportional Representation Society of Ireland , seeing proportional representation as a way of ensuring unionist voices were heard in government. In June 1919 the leadership of the League was approached by Sir Horace Plunkett , who invited them to join
8690-406: The Catholic gentry , were returned to the Commons before the 1884 Reform Act. A "unique place" was occupied by Sir Denis Henry (1864-1925). When he won his native South Londonderry seat in a 1916 by-election, he was the first Catholic to represent a unionist constituency in Ulster, and when he retained the seat in 1918, the future Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland was the last. In 1905,
8848-423: The Catholic majority counties (Tyrone and Fermanagh) would later be incorporated into Northern Ireland. In September 1912, more than 500,000 Unionists signed the Ulster Covenant , pledging to oppose Home Rule by any means and to defy any Irish government. They founded a large paramilitary movement, the Ulster Volunteers , to prevent Ulster becoming part of a self-governing Ireland. They also threatened to establish
9006-427: The Catholic minority. The Irish War of Independence resulted in a truce in July 1921 and led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty that December. Under the Treaty, the territory of Southern Ireland would leave the UK and become the Irish Free State. Northern Ireland's parliament could vote it in or out of the Free State, and a commission could then redraw or confirm the provisional border. The Northern government chose to remain in
9164-608: The Church of Rome", then undergoing its own devotional revolution. The leading Presbyterian evangelist, Henry Cooke took the occasion to preach Protestant Unity. In 1834, at a mass demonstration hosted upon his estate by the 3rd Marquess of Downshire , Cooke proposed a "Christian marriage" between the two main Protestant denominations (Anglican and Presbyterian). Setting their remaining differences aside, they would cooperate on all "matters of common safety". Presbyterian voters tended to favour reform-minded Whigs or, as they later emerged, tenant-right and free-trade Liberals , over
9322-658: The Dáil in September 1919. The number of counties that might be excluded from an Irish Home Rule parliament varied over the years. During the Gladstone era it was proposed that all nine counties of Ulster be excluded. A nine county exclusion was again proposed in September 1912, during this time the Unionist leader Edward Carson repeatedly spoke of the exclusion of all nine counties of Ulster. In April 1912 Winston Churchill proposed that three counties (Down, Antrim and Londonderry) be excluded. Later that year Bonar Law added County Armagh thereby recommending that four counties be excluded from Home Rule. During Asquith's time in office
9480-491: The Free State, leaving the remaining territory too small to be viable. In October 1922, the Irish Free State government established the North-Eastern Boundary Bureau (NEBB) a government office which by 1925 had prepared 56 boxes of files to argue its case for areas of Northern Ireland to be transferred to the Free State. De Valera had drafted his own preferred text of the treaty in December 1921, known as "Document No. 2". An "Addendum North East Ulster" indicates his acceptance of
9638-449: The Front; it was one Ireland, whether we, came from the North or from the South...I feel in common with thousands of my countrymen in Ireland, that I and they have been cheated out of the fruits of our victory. We placed our trust in you and you have betrayed us. Michael Collins had negotiated the treaty and had it approved by the cabinet, the Dáil (on 7 January 1922 by 64–57), and by the people in national elections. Regardless of this, it
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#17327977729989796-408: The Home Rule Bill (now Government of Ireland Act 1914) on 18 September 1914. The Suspensory Act ensured that Home Rule would be postponed for the duration of the war with the exclusion of Ulster still to be decided. During the First World War, support grew for full Irish independence, which had been advocated by Irish republicans . In April 1916, republicans took the opportunity of the war to launch
9954-644: The Imperial garb, what mercy, what pity, much less justice or liberty, will be conceded to us then? That is what I have to say about the Ulster Parliament." Ulster Unionist Party politician Charles Craig (the brother of Sir James Craig) made the feelings of many Unionists clear concerning the importance they placed on the passing of the Act and the establishment of a separate Parliament for Northern Ireland: "The Bill gives us everything we fought for, everything we armed ourselves for, and to attain which we raised our Volunteers in 1913 and 1914...but we have many enemies in this country, and we feel that an Ulster without
10112-422: The Irish Free State (Agreement) Bill was being debated on 21 March 1922, amendments were proposed which would have provided that the Ulster Month would run from the passing of the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act and not the Act that would establish the Irish Free State. Essentially, those who put down the amendments wished to bring forward the month during which Northern Ireland could exercise its right to opt out of
10270-458: The Irish Free State. Not only is this opposed to your pledge in our agreed statement of November 25th, but it is also antagonistic to the general principles of the Empire regarding her people's liberties. It is true that Ulster is given the right to contract out, but she can only do so after automatic inclusion in the Irish Free State. [...] We can only conjecture that it is a surrender to the claims of Sinn Fein that her delegates must be recognised as
10428-434: The Irish Free State. Once the treaty was ratified, the Houses of Parliament of Northern Ireland had one month (dubbed the Ulster month ) to exercise this opt-out during which time the provisions of the Government of Ireland Act continued to apply in Northern Ireland. According to barrister and legal writer Austen Morgan, the wording of the treaty allowed the impression to be given that the Irish Free State temporarily included
10586-457: The Irish nationalist and Catholic minority. In 1967 Unionists opposed a civil rights campaign to end discrimination, viewing it as a republican front. This helped spark the Troubles ( c. 1969 –1998), a thirty-year conflict in which more than 3,500 people were killed. Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement , the Irish and British governments and the main political parties agreed to a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland, and that
10744-442: The Liberal Chief Whip proposed that "roughly five counties" be excluded. Finally, in May 1916 Lloyd George proposed that six counties be excluded from a Dublin Home Rule parliament. However, in a 29 May 1916 letter to the Unionist leader Edward Carson, Lloyd George made clear that the exclusion should not be temporary: "We must make it clear that at the end of the provisional period Ulster does not, whether she wills it or not, merge in
10902-470: The North, the Protestant tenant righters, William Sharman Crawford and James MacKnight had their election meetings broken up by Orangemen . For unionism the more momentous challenge lay in the wake of the Reform Act 1867 . In England and Wales it produced an electorate that no longer identified instinctively with the conservative interest in Ireland and was more open to the "home-rule" compromise that nationalists now presented. Ireland would remain within
11060-405: The Sinn Féin negotiators. The Treaty was signed on 6 December 1921. Under its terms, the territory of Southern Ireland would leave the United Kingdom within one year and become a self-governing dominion called the Irish Free State . The treaty was given legal effect in the United Kingdom through the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922 , and in Ireland by ratification by Dáil Éireann . Under
11218-433: The South. The British government, which had had to deploy its own forces to suppress the rebellion in Ireland and to turn back and defeat French intervention, decided on a union with Great Britain. Provision for Catholic emancipation was dropped from the Act of Union pushed with difficulty through the parliament in Dublin. While a separate Irish executive in Dublin was retained, representation, still wholly Protestant,
11376-571: The UAPL's more prominent members was William Morgan Jellett , KC, who was MP for Dublin University from 28 July 1919 to 1922. However, the majority of ordinary southern unionists remained with the IUA, which was left without effective leadership outside Northern Ireland following the split. The UAPL developed into a think-tank, with a focus on minority rights and constitutional affairs. The group argued against Sinn Féin 's policy of absenteeism from
11534-808: The UK, with their own bicameral parliaments, along with a Council of Ireland comprising members of both. Northern Ireland would comprise the aforesaid six northeastern counties, while Southern Ireland would comprise the rest of the island. The Act was passed on 11 November and received royal assent in December 1920. It would come into force on 3 May 1921. Elections to the Northern and Southern parliaments were held on 24 May. Unionists won most seats in Northern Ireland. Its parliament first met on 7 June and formed its first devolved government , headed by Unionist Party leader James Craig. Republican and nationalist members refused to attend. King George V addressed
11692-404: The UK. The Boundary Commission proposed small changes to the border in 1925, but they were not implemented. Since partition, most Irish nationalists/republicans continue to seek a united and independent Ireland, while Ulster unionists/loyalists want Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK. Over the years the Unionist governments of Northern Ireland have been accused of discrimination against
11850-670: The UWUC that draft articles for an Ulster Provisional Government included votes for women. The nationalists would make no such undertaking with regard to a Dublin parliament. The marriage was short lived. In March 1914, Carson , after being door-stepped for fours days by the WSPU, ruled women's suffrage too divisive an issue for unionists. There followed a series of arson-attacks on unionist-owned and associated property that culminated in Lillian Metge 's bombing of Lisburn Cathedral . In
12008-681: The Ulster Unionist leader Sir James Craig met with the President of Sinn Féin, Éamon de Valera , in secret near Dublin. Each restated his position and nothing new was agreed. On 10 May De Valera told the Dáil that the meeting "... was of no significance". In June that year, shortly before the truce that ended the Anglo-Irish War, David Lloyd George invited the Irish President de Valera to talks in London on an equal footing with
12166-530: The Ulster Women's Declaration; 237,368 men signed the Solemn League and Covenant . Unionist women had been involved in political campaigning from the time of the first Home Rule Bill in 1886. Some were active suffragettes . Isabella Tod , an anti-Home Rule Liberal and campaigner for girls education, was an early pioneer. Determined lobbying by her North of Ireland Women's Suffrage Society ensured
12324-842: The Union it was "because we, the workers, the people, the democracy of Ulster, have chosen him". The majority of the signatories would have been organised in British-based unions, and could point to the growing political weight of British labour in reform measures such as the Trade Disputes Act 1906 , the People's Budget 1910 , and the National Insurance Act 1911 . Nationalists did not seek to persuade them that collective bargaining, progressive taxation and social security were principles for which majorities could be as readily found in an Irish parliament. At what
12482-471: The United Kingdom but with a parliament in Dublin exercising powers devolved from Westminster. Meanwhile, in Ireland, a combination of the secret ballot and increased representation for the towns, reduced the electoral influence of land owners and their agents, and contributed to the triumph, in 1874 , of the Home Rule League . Fifty-nine members were returned to Westminster where they sat as
12640-485: The United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland". In January 1913, Carson declared for the exclusion of Ulster and called for the enlistment of up to 100,000 Covenanters as drilled and armed Ulster Volunteers . On 23 September, the second Ulster Day, he accepted Chairmanship of a Provisional Government organised by Craig. If Home Rule were imposed "we will be governed as
12798-671: The United Kingdom. Many Irish republicans blamed the British establishment for the sectarian divisions in Ireland, and believed that Ulster Unionist defiance would fade once British rule was ended. In an attempt to bring about the secession of Ireland from the UK, the Irish War of Independence began on 21 January 1919 with the Soloheadbeg ambush . A guerrilla war developed as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began attacking British forces. The British authorities outlawed
12956-615: The United Kingdom. The nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party won most Irish seats in the 1885 general election . It then held the balance of power in the British House of Commons , and entered into an alliance with the Liberals . IPP leader Charles Stewart Parnell convinced British Prime Minister William Gladstone to introduce the First Irish Home Rule Bill in 1886. Protestant unionists in Ireland opposed
13114-404: The achievement of a republic through negotiation was impossible'. On 20 July, Lloyd George further declared to de Valera that: The form in which the settlement is to take effect will depend upon Ireland herself. It must allow for full recognition of the existing powers and privileges of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, which cannot be abrogated except by their own consent. For their part,
13272-404: The all Ireland parliament proposal. The report was, however, rejected by the Ulster unionist members, and since Sinn Féin had not taken part in the proceedings, the convention was considered a failure. In 1918, the British government attempted to impose conscription in Ireland and argued there could be no Home Rule without it. This sparked outrage in Ireland and further galvanised support for
13430-504: The basis of the legislation that partitioned Ireland – the Government of Ireland Act 1920. At the first meeting of the committee (15 October 1919) it was decided that two devolved governments should be established — one for the nine counties of Ulster and one for the rest of Ireland, together with a Council of Ireland for the "encouragement of Irish unity". The Long Committee felt that the nine-county proposal "will enormously minimise
13588-575: The bill, which did allow for Irish MPs, was passed by a narrow majority in the Commons but went down to defeat in the overwhelmingly Conservative House of Lords . The Conservatives formed a new ministry. Gladstone's Tory successor in 1886, Lord Salisbury , believed his government should "leave Home Rule sleeping the sleep of the unjust". In 1887 Dublin Castle was given standing power to suspend habeas corpus . However, as Chief Secretary for Ireland , Salisbury's nephew Arthur Balfour determined upon
13746-518: The boundaries". This left large areas of Northern Ireland with populations that supported either Irish Home Rule or the establishment of an all-Ireland Republic. The results from the last all-Ireland election (the 1918 Irish general election) showed Nationalist majorities in the envisioned Northern Ireland: Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh, Derry City and the Constituencies of Armagh South, Belfast Falls and Down South. Many Unionists feared that
13904-482: The ceremonial opening of the Northern parliament on 22 June. Meanwhile, Sinn Féin won an overwhelming majority in the Southern Ireland election. They treated both as elections for Dáil Éireann , and its elected members gave allegiance to the Dáil and Irish Republic, thus rendering "Southern Ireland" dead in the water. The Southern parliament met only once and was attended by four unionists. On 5 May 1921,
14062-595: The champion of the Ulster Farmers and Labourers Union. With the Cork City MP, William O'Brien , Russell helped initiate a programme that built some 40,000 one-acre labourer-owned cottages. During the constructivist 1890s, and before a Liberal government revived the prospects for home rule, unionists appeared more at ease with interest in Irish culture. The first Ulster branch of the Gaelic League
14220-636: The cities of Newry and Derry should be left under the proposed Irish Parliament. There was then debate over how much of Ulster should be excluded and for how long, and whether to hold referendums in each county. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George supported "the principle of the referendum...each of the Ulster Counties is to have the option of exclusion from the Home Rule Bill." In July 1914, King George V called
14378-403: The city's Catholic nationalist minority. The Bill was defeated in the Commons. Gladstone introduced a Second Irish Home Rule Bill in 1892. The Irish Unionist Alliance had been formed to oppose home rule, and the Bill sparked mass unionist protests. In response, Liberal Unionist leader Joseph Chamberlain called for a separate provincial government for Ulster where Protestant unionists were
14536-432: The decision a few days ago as to whether we would call upon the Government to include the nine counties in the Bill or be settled with the six." In what became Northern Ireland, the process of partition was accompanied by violence, both "in defence or opposition to the new settlement". The IRA carried out attacks on British forces in the north-east, but was less active than in the south of Ireland. Protestant loyalists in
14694-419: The ending of the ongoing "Belfast Boycott" of northern goods by the south and the return of jobs to the thousands of Catholics that had been forcibly removed from Belfast's mills and shipyards (see The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922) . The second Pact consisted of ten Articles which called for an end to all IRA activity in Northern Ireland and the setting up of a special police force that would represent
14852-471: The floor of the House of Commons: I was informed, on behalf of the Cabinet, that negotiations and communications and consultations with me had been struck off, and that I would receive no communication from the Cabinet until they had come to a decision, behind my back, upon proposals which I had never seen and which they refused to submit to me. I asked them what the nature of these new proposals was, and I
15010-588: The former Act, at 1 pm on 6 December 1922, King George V (at a meeting of his Privy Council at Buckingham Palace ) signed a proclamation establishing the new Irish Free State. Under the treaty, Northern Ireland's parliament could vote to opt out of the Free State. Under Article 12 of the Treaty, Northern Ireland could exercise its opt-out by presenting an address to the King, requesting not to be part of
15168-551: The fullest use of our rights to mollify it". While speaking in the British House of Parliament on 14 December 1921, the British Prime Minister remarked on the possibility of including Tyrone and Fermanagh into Northern Ireland: "There is no doubt—certainly since the Act of 1920—that the majority of the people of two counties prefer being with their Southern neighbours to being in the Northern Parliament." On 21 December 1921
15326-507: The largest women's political organisation in Ireland. Elizabeth McCracken noted the failure of unionist women to formulate "any demand on their own behalf or that of their own sex". Yet in September 1913 McCracken was celebrating a "marriage of unionism and women's suffrage". Following reports that the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WPSU) would begin organising in Ulster, the secretary of Ulster Unionist Council had informed
15484-613: The leadership of the tenant-right movement men, like the Rev. James Armour of Ballymoney , who were at best agnostic on the union, while in the west of the province (in counties Armagh , Cavan , Fermanagh and Tyrone ) even Orangemen had started joining the Land League. The final and decisive shift in favour of constitutional concessions came in the wake of the Third Reform Act of 1884 . The near-universal admission to
15642-674: The leadership of unionism. Together with R. Lindsay Crawford and their Independent Orange Order , Sloan supported dock and linen-mill workers, led by the syndicalist James Larkin , in the great Belfast Lockout of 1907 . In July 1912, loyalists forced some 3,000 workers out of the shipyards and engineering plants in Belfast. Unlike previous incidents, the expellees included not only Catholics but also some 600 Protestants, targeted mainly because they were seen to support labour organising across sectarian lines. The unionist press depicted any connection with either British Labour (who had held their first party conference in Belfast in 1907) or with
15800-491: The link between Ireland and Great Britain were weakened or severed". That same link was critical for all those employed in the great export industries of the North—textiles, engineering, shipbuilding. For these the Irish hinterland was less important than the industrial triangle that linked Belfast and region with Clydeside and the north of England. Yet the most popular summary of case against Irish self-government remained
15958-650: The long time (1921–1943) Minister of Home Affairs (Northern Ireland) authorized that both County Councils offices be seized (by the Royal Irish Constabulary), the County officials expelled, and the County Councils dissolved. The British government introduced the Government of Ireland Bill in early 1920 and it passed through the stages in the British parliament that year. It would partition Ireland and create two self-governing territories within
16116-401: The manufacturers and merchants of Belfast and neighbouring industrial districts could generally count on voting with the majority of their own workforce. But the loyalty of the Protestant worker was not unconditional. In the mind of many working-class unionists there was no contradiction between the defence of Protestant principle and political radicalism, "indeed, these were often seen as one and
16274-633: The measure. In 1891 Ulster's Liberal Unionists , part of a larger Liberal break with Gladstone, entered Saunderson's Irish Unionist Alliance , and at Westminster took the Conservative whip . In 1892, despite bitter division over the personally compromised leadership of Parnell, the Nationalists were able to help Gladstone to a third ministry. The result was a second Home Rule bill . It was greeted by an Ulster opposition more highly developed and better organised. A great Ulster Unionist Convention
16432-603: The message broadcast in a "great revival" of the Orange Order — "Home Rule means Rome Rule ". In the north, the competition represented by the growing numbers of Catholics arriving at mill and factory gates had already given the once largely rural (and Anglican ) Orange Order a new lease among Protestant workers. The pattern, in itself, was not unique to Belfast and its satellites. Glasgow , Manchester , Liverpool and other British centres experiencing large-scale Irish immigration developed similar Orange and nativist ward and workplace politics with which unionists—organised in
16590-475: The more convinced am I that these differences will disappear." Unionists opposed the Bill, but argued that if Home Rule could not be stopped then all or part of Ulster should be excluded from it. Irish nationalists opposed partition, although some were willing to accept Ulster having some self-governance within a self-governing Ireland ("Home Rule within Home Rule"). Winston Churchill made his feelings about
16748-592: The new Irish Dominion League . The idea was rejected, as the Dominion League was perceived to be too sympathetic to Irish nationalism . The establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the consequent decrease in the number of southern unionists resulted in the disestablishment of the League. Unionism in Ireland Unionism in Ireland is a political tradition that professes loyalty to
16906-482: The new Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig, which de Valera attended. De Valera's policy in the ensuing negotiations was that the future of Ulster was an Irish-British matter to be resolved between two sovereign states, and that Craig should not attend. After the truce came into effect on 11 July, the USC was demobilized (July – November 1921). Speaking after the truce Lloyd George made it clear to de Valera, 'that
17064-458: The new settlement" – see The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922) . In the spring and early summer of 1922, the IRA launched a failed "Northern Offensive" into border areas of Northern Ireland. The capital, Belfast , saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence , mainly between Protestant and Catholic civilians. More than 500 were killed and more than 10,000 became refugees, most of them from
17222-562: The nineteenth century. Typically Presbyterian agrarian-reform Liberals coalesced with traditionally Anglican Orange Order Conservatives against the Irish Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893. Joined by loyalist labour, on the eve of World War I this broad opposition to Irish self-government concentrated in Belfast and its hinterlands as Ulster unionism and prepared an armed resistance—the Ulster Volunteers . Within
17380-502: The north, George Ensor , observed that this broke the link between Catholic inclusion and democratic reform. In Ulster, resistance to O'Connell's appeal was stiffened by a religious revival. With its emphasis upon "personal witness", the New Reformation appeared to transcend the ecclesiastical differences between the different Protestant denominations. while launching them into "a far more conscious sense of separateness from
17538-646: The north-east attacked the Catholic minority in reprisal for IRA actions. The January and June 1920 local elections saw Irish nationalists and republicans win control of Tyrone and Fermanagh county councils, which were to become part of Northern Ireland, while Derry had its first Irish nationalist mayor. In summer 1920, sectarian violence erupted in Belfast and Derry, and there were mass burnings of Catholic property by loyalists in Lisburn and Banbridge . Loyalists drove 8,000 "disloyal" co-workers from their jobs in
17696-520: The office of the Lord Lieutenant , by English ministers. Seeing little prospect of further reform and in the hope that they might be assisted by republican France , these United Irishmen sought a revolutionary union of "Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter" (i.e. of Catholics and Protestants of all persuasions). Their resolve was broken with the defeat of their uprising in 1798 , and by reports of rebel outrages against Protestant Loyalists in
17854-549: The old-fashioned Tories of the Counties ... modern Conservatives ... Orangemen ... All these various elements—Whig, Liberal, Radical, Presbyterian, Episcopalian , Unitarian and Methodist ... united as one man." While references to Catholics were conciliatory the Convention resolved: to retain unchanged our present position as an integral portion of the United Kingdom, and protest in the most unequivocal manner against
18012-534: The only Irishmen consulted during this time. During the summer of 1919, Long visited Ireland several times, using his yacht as a meeting place to discuss the "Irish question" with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland John French and the Chief Secretary for Ireland Ian Macpherson . Prior to the first meeting of the committee, Long sent a memorandum to the British Prime Minister recommending two parliaments for Ireland (24 September 1919). That memorandum formed
18170-404: The only way to safeguard Protestant unionist interests in the north of Ireland. At a Dublin meeting of the party on 24 January 1919, the anti-partition leader of the IUA, Lord Midleton , proposed a motion which would have denied Ulster unionists a say on government proposals affecting the south of Ireland. The motion was defeated, with a majority of both southern and northern unionists rejecting
18328-581: The partition issue...it minimises the division of Ireland on purely religious lines. The two religions would not be unevenly balanced in the Parliament of Northern Ireland." Most northern unionists wanted the territory of the Ulster government to be reduced to six counties, so that it would have a larger Protestant/Unionist majority. Long offered the Committee members a deal – "that the Six Counties ... should be theirs for good ... and no interference with
18486-547: The passage of any measure that would rob us of our inheritance in the Imperial Parliament, under the protection of which our capital has been invested and our home and rights safeguarded; that we record our determination to have nothing to do with a Parliament certain to be controlled by men responsible for the crime and outrage of the Land League . . . many of whom have shown themselves the ready instrument of clerical domination. After mammoth parliamentary sessions
18644-434: The peoples of these two islands, but see no avenue by which it can be reached if you deny Ireland's essential unity and set aside the principle of national self-determination. Speaking in the House of Commons on the day the Act passed, Joe Devlin ( Nationalist Party ) representing west Belfast , summed up the feelings of many Nationalists concerning partition and the setting up of a Northern Ireland Parliament while Ireland
18802-602: The plan. As a result, Midleton's wing of the party split from the IUA, establishing the Unionist Anti-Partition League that evening. The split of the IUA had the effect of ending the realistic electoral hopes of unionists in southern Ireland. The UAPL attracted numerous leading figures from the southern unionist community, including Richard Hely-Hutchinson, 6th Earl of Donoughmore , Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh , John Arnott , Sir Maurice Dockrell and Valentine Browne, 5th Earl of Kenmare . Among
18960-406: The possibility of the partition of Ireland clear: "Whatever Ulster's right may be, she cannot stand in the way of the whole of the rest of Ireland. Half a province cannot impose a permanent veto on the nation. Half a province cannot obstruct forever the reconciliation between the British and Irish democracies." The 1911 census reported Catholic majorities in five of the nine counties of Ulster, two of
19118-484: The proposed status as a dominion (as represented by the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity) for Southern Ireland , rather than as an independent all-Ireland republic , but continuing partition was a significant matter for Ulstermen like Seán MacEntee , who spoke strongly against partition or re-partition of any kind. The pro-treaty side argued that the proposed Boundary Commission would give large swathes of Northern Ireland to
19276-505: The province of Ulster, whose inhabitants may now be unwilling to accept the national authority, we are prepared to grant to that portion of Ulster which is defined as Northern Ireland in the British Government of Ireland Act of 1920, privileges and safeguards not less substantial than those provided for in the 'Articles of Agreement for a Treaty' between Great Britain and Ireland signed in London on 6 December 1921. In early 1922
19434-508: The provisions of Section 12 of the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922. The treaty also allowed for a re-drawing of the border by a Boundary Commission . Sir James Craig, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland objected to aspects of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In a letter to Austen Chamberlain dated 14 December 1921, he stated: We protest against the declared intention of your government to place Northern Ireland automatically in
19592-586: The representatives of the whole of Ireland, a claim which we cannot for a moment admit. [...] The principles of the 1920 Act have been completely violated, the Irish Free State being relieved of many of her responsibilities towards the Empire. [...] We are glad to think that our decision will obviate the necessity of mutilating the Union Jack . In March 1920 William Redmond a member of Parliament and combat veteran of World War I, addressed his fellow members of
19750-437: The republicans. In the December 1918 general election , Sinn Féin won the overwhelming majority of Irish seats. In line with their manifesto , Sinn Féin's elected members boycotted the British parliament and founded a separate Irish parliament ( Dáil Éireann ), declaring an independent Irish Republic covering the whole island. Unionists, however, won most seats in northeastern Ulster and affirmed their continuing loyalty to
19908-435: The rest of Ireland." In September 1919, British Prime Minister Lloyd George tasked a committee with planning Home Rule for Ireland within the UK. Headed by English Unionist politician Walter Long , it was known as the 'Long Committee'. The makeup of the committee was Unionist in outlook and had no Nationalist representatives as members. James Craig (the future 1st Prime Minister of Northern Ireland ) and his associates were
20066-452: The rest of the island (Southern Ireland). This was passed as the Government of Ireland Act 1920, and came into force as a fait accompli on 3 May 1921. Following the 1921 elections , Ulster unionists formed a Northern Ireland government. A Southern government was not formed, as republicans recognised the Irish Republic instead. During 1920–22, in what became Northern Ireland, partition was accompanied by violence "in defence or opposition to
20224-497: The same because it was the wealthy who were most prone to conciliation and treachery". Exercising the new workingman's vote , in 1868 loyalists in Belfast had chosen their own "Conservative", rejecting a millowner and returning an evangelical Orangeman, William Johnston , to Westminster. Johnston proceeded to propose and vote for labour protection , tenant right , the secret ballot and woman's suffrage In 1902, Johnston's successor as MP for South Belfast , Thomas Sloan , again
20382-544: The services of Carson, from 1892 MP for Trinity College Dublin and supported him from 1910 as leader of the Irish Unionist parliamentary party. But marshalled by Captain James Craig , a millionaire director of Belfast's Dunville Whiskey , it was northern employers who undertook the real political and organisational work. Unlike the southern landowners who were politically opposed by their Catholic tenants,
20540-413: The southern Protestant Charles Stewart Parnell . In 1881, in a further Land Act , Gladstone conceded the three F's —fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure. Recognising that "the land grievance had been a bond of discontent between Ulster and the rest of Ireland and in that sense a danger to the union", Irish Conservatives did not oppose the measure. Protestants in the eastern counties had admitted to
20698-456: The status of Northern Ireland would not change without the consent of a majority of its population. The treaty also reaffirmed an open border between both jurisdictions. Results in Ireland of the December 1910 United Kingdom general election showing a large majority for the Irish Parliamentary Party . During the 19th century, the Irish nationalist Home Rule movement campaigned for Ireland to have self-government while remaining part of
20856-411: The suffrage of male heads of household tripled the electorate in Ireland. The 1885 election returned an IPP, now under the leadership of Parnell, of 85 Members (including 17 from Ulster where Conservatives and Liberals split the unionist vote). Gladstone, whose Liberals lost all 15 of their Irish seats, was able to form his second ministry only with their Commons support. In June 1886, Gladstone tabled
21014-424: The suggestion of partition: "You can no more split Ireland into parts than you can split England or Scotland into parts...You have an essential unity of race and temperament, although I agree that unhappily dissensions have been rank, partially by religion, and partially, by the organisation of partisanship. The more Irishmen are encouraged and empowered to cooperate in the great works of governing their own country,
21172-513: The support of the splinter Liberal Unionist Party , Salisbury returned to office in 1895. The Land Act of 1896 introduced for the first time the principle of compulsory sale to tenants, through its application was limited to bankrupt estates. "You would suppose", said Sir Edward Carson , Dublin barrister and the leading spokesman for Irish Conservatives, "that the Government were revolutionists verging on Socialism". Having been first obliged to surrender their hold on local government (transferred at
21330-519: The territory would not last if it included too many Catholics and Irish Nationalists but any reduction in size would make the state unviable. The six counties of Antrim , Down , Armagh , Londonderry , Tyrone and Fermanagh comprised the maximum area unionists believed they could dominate. The remaining three counties of Ulster had large Catholic majorities: Cavan 81.5%, Donegal 78.9% and Monaghan 74.7%. On 29 March 1920 Charles Craig (son of Sir James Craig and Unionist MP for County Antrim) made
21488-486: The traditions of Irish Boards by announcing that its aim was to "be in touch with public opinion of the classes whom its work concerns, and to rely largely for its success upon their active assistance and cooperation". It supported and encouraged dairy cooperatives, the Creameries, that were to be an important institution in the emergence of a new class of independent smallholders. Greater reform followed when, with
21646-560: The two communities. Article VII called for meetings before the Northern Ireland Government exercised its option to opt out of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The purpose of the meetings was to be "...whether means can be devised to secure the unity of Ireland or failing this whether agreement can be arrived at on the boundary question otherwise than by recourse to the Boundary Commission." Under the treaty it
21804-484: The two leaders of Northern and Southern Ireland agreed on two pacts that were referred to as the Craig-Collins Pacts. Both Pacts were designed to bring peace to Northern Ireland and deal with the issue of partition. Both Pacts fell apart and it was the last time for over 40 years that the leaders of government in the north and south were to meet. Among other issues, the first pact (21 January 1922) called for
21962-518: The vast majority of Irish seats in the 1918 election . They formed a separate Irish parliament and declared an independent Irish Republic covering the whole island. This led to the Irish War of Independence (1919–21), a guerrilla conflict between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British forces. In 1920 the British government introduced another bill to create two devolved governments: one for six northern counties (Northern Ireland) and one for
22120-451: The whole island of Ireland, but legally the terms of the treaty applied only to the 26 counties, and the government of the Free State never had any powers—even in principle—in Northern Ireland. On 7 December 1922 the Parliament of Northern Ireland approved an address to George V, requesting that its territory not be included in the Irish Free State. This was presented to the king the following day and then entered into effect, in accordance with
22278-422: Was assured by the British Prime Minister and the entire Cabinet that voters in all counties excluded from Home Rule would be permitted to vote on joining a Home Rule Ireland (a vote was never held). Redmond was also "guaranteed" that all excluded counties were to be returned to Home Rule Ireland after six years. On 20 July 1916 Redmond was removed from any further negotiations with the British government. He spoke on
22436-463: Was constituted, they believed that an Irish parliament would (egged on by the "American Irish") enter into conflicts with the "imperial parliament" in London that could only be resolved through "complete separation". The upper and middle classes found in Britain and the Empire "a wide range of profitable careers--in the army, in the public services, in commerce--from which they might be shut out if
22594-510: Was defeated in the Lords, but as result of the crisis engendered by the opposition of the peers to the 1910 People's Budget the Lords now only had the power of delay. Home Rule would become law in 1914. There had long been discussion of giving "an option to Ulster". As early as 1843, The Northern Whig reasoned that if differences in ethnicity ("race") and interests argue for Ireland's separation from Great Britain, they could as easily argue for
22752-407: Was deployed and an Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) was formed to help the regular police. The USC was almost wholly Protestant and some of its members carried out reprisal attacks on Catholics. From 1920 to 1922, more than 500 were killed in Northern Ireland and more than 10,000 became refugees, most of them Catholics. See The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922) . In the first election to
22910-468: Was duly created with a devolved government (Home Rule) and remained part of the UK. The larger Southern Ireland was not recognised by most of its citizens, who instead recognised the self-declared 32-county Irish Republic . On 6 December 1922 (a year after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty ), Ireland was partitioned. At that time, the territory of Southern Ireland left the UK and became
23068-439: Was enforced by the IRA, who halted trains and lorries from Belfast and destroyed their goods. Conflict continued intermittently for two years, mostly in Belfast, which saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence between Protestant and Catholic civilians. There was rioting, gun battles and bombings. Homes, business and churches were attacked and people were expelled from workplaces and from mixed neighbourhoods. The British Army
23226-478: Was formed in 1895 in east Belfast under the patronage of the Rev. John Baptiste Crozier and Dr. John St Clair Boyd , both avowed unionists, and of the Orange Order Grand Master, the Rev. Richard Rutledge Kane . But for many Irish unionists the chief-secretaryship of George Wyndham was "a last straw". In February 1905, they learned that his undersecretary, Sir Anthony MacDonnell ,
23384-651: Was held in Belfast organised by the Liberal Unionist Thomas Sinclair , whom the press noted had been a critic of Orangeism. Speakers and observers dwelt on the diversity of creed, class and party represented among the 12,300 delegates attending. As reported by the Northern Whig there were "the old tenant-righters of the 'sixties' ... the sturdy reformers of Antrim ... the Unitarians of Down, always progressive in their politics ...
23542-407: Was in a deep state of unrest. Devlin stated: "I know beforehand what is going to be done with us, and therefore it is well that we should make our preparations for that long fight which, I suppose, we will have to wage in order to be allowed even to live." He accused the government of "...not inserting a single clause...to safeguard the interests of our people. This is not a scattered minority...it
23700-617: Was not the choice of employers. The campaign of the Belfast Protestant Association candidate was marked by what his opponents considered a classic piece of bigotry. Sloan protested the exemption of Catholic convents from inspection by the Hygiene Commission (the Catholic Church should not be "a state within a state"). But it was as a trade unionist that he criticised the "fur-coat brigade" in
23858-561: Was provided that Northern Ireland would have a month – the "Ulster Month" – during which its Houses of Parliament could opt out of the Irish Free State. The Treaty was ambiguous on whether the month should run from the date the Anglo-Irish Treaty was ratified (in March 1922 via the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act) or the date that the Constitution of the Irish Free State was approved and the Free State established (6 December 1922). When
24016-460: Was the Parliament in Dublin . Confined on a narrow franchise to landed members of the established Anglican communion (the Anglo-Irish " Protestant Ascendancy "), the parliament denied equal protection and public office to Dissenters (non-Anglican Protestants) and to the Kingdom's dispossessed Roman Catholic majority. The high point of this parliamentary patriotism was the formation during
24174-520: Was the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill containing these provisions practically whether we liked it or not. The Home Rule Crisis was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, and Ireland's involvement in it . Asquith abandoned his Amending Bill, and instead rushed through a new bill, the Suspensory Act 1914 , which received Royal Assent together with
24332-484: Was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK) divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland . It was enacted on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 . The Act intended both territories to remain within the United Kingdom and contained provisions for their eventual reunification . The smaller Northern Ireland
24490-608: Was to be the high point of mobilisation in Ulster against Home Rule, the Covenant Campaign of September 1912, the unionist leadership decided that men alone could not speak for the determination of the unionist people to defend "their equal citizenship in the United Kingdom". Women were asked to sign, not the Covenant whose commitment to "all means which may be found necessary" implied a readiness to bear arms, but their own Associate Declaration. A total of 234,046 women signed
24648-595: Was told that the Cabinet did not desire to consult me about them, and until they had come to a decision I would be told nothing...The next communication I received was on Saturday last, when the Minister for War and the Home Secretary requested me to call and see them at the War Office. They then informed me that another Cabinet Council had been held, and that it had been decided, mark you, decided, to insert in
24806-525: Was transferred to Westminster . In the Presbyterian north east the Irish parliament was unlamented. Having refused calls for reform—to broaden representation and curb corruption—few saw cause to regret its passing. It took the Union thirty years to deliver on the promise of Catholic emancipation (1829)—to admit Catholics to Parliament—and permit an erosion of the Protestant monopoly on position and influence. An opportunity to integrate Catholics through their re-emerging propertied and professional classes as
24964-411: Was unacceptable to Éamon de Valera, who led the Irish Civil War to stop it. Collins was primarily responsible for drafting the constitution of the new Irish Free State, based on a commitment to democracy and rule by the majority. De Valera's minority refused to be bound by the result. Collins now became the dominant figure in Irish politics, leaving de Valera on the outside. The main dispute centred on
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