Lecture 8: Unionism

25
Lecture 8: Unionism

description

Lecture 8: Unionism. Nine counties of Ulster. Why was Ulster different?. Experienced more extensive migration from Britain Religious difference - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Transcript of Lecture 8: Unionism

Page 1: Lecture 8: Unionism

Lecture 8: Unionism

Page 2: Lecture 8: Unionism

Nine counties of Ulster

Page 3: Lecture 8: Unionism

Why was Ulster different?

• Experienced more extensive migration from Britain

• Religious difference• Economic development: export-based

linen & shipbuilding industries – Ulster had more in common with Merseyside and Clyneside than with the rest of Ireland

• Ulster’s Protestants: not truly British, could not completely reject their Irishness

• Two Irelands

Page 4: Lecture 8: Unionism
Page 5: Lecture 8: Unionism

‘In the decade before the outbreak of the Great War in Europe the United Kingdom experienced its most

severe crisis in modern times. Around the constitutional struggle over the reform of the House of Lords, and the political struggle over Irish Home Rule, welled up more diffuse but no less serious conflicts

over the rights of workers and women. The word ‘crisis’ may have been over-used in this century, but at

the time many people had a sense that the simultaneous eruption of these multiple conflicts was

more than a coincidence…The intensity of Unionist resistance to Home Rule was heightened by this sense

of general crisis.’

Townshend, Charles, Ireland: the 20th Century, p52.

Page 6: Lecture 8: Unionism

Front cover of a programme for a Unionist

demonstration

What is unionism? A belief in the constitutional

connection between Britain and Ireland.

Unionism as an organised movement dates from the home rule crisis of 1885-6.

Formal Irish unionist organization emerged in 1885-6 in the wake of a revitalized Orangeism and Conservatism which represented a reaction to the Land War.

Page 7: Lecture 8: Unionism

Unionist Objectives• To preserve the union between Britain and Ireland• Unionist leaders aimed to create a strong, united and

disciplined movement to convince the British government that Ireland should not be granted Home Rule

Page 8: Lecture 8: Unionism

Supporters of Unionism

• Institutions: Irish Tories, the Orange Order, the Church of Ireland (Anglican church)

• Social groups: landed and commercial capital, the southern gentry, Belfast industrialists, small-town Orange brokers, metropolitan Tories and imperialists.

Page 9: Lecture 8: Unionism

Tactics

• The period 1885-1914 was a time of confident opposition for Irish Unionists

• Confident that they would defeat the Home Rule movement

• Two options in opposing home rule: constitutional methods or physical force.

• Hoped that constitutional methods would be sufficient in staving off the home rule threat.

Page 10: Lecture 8: Unionism

• Irish Protestants made up 25% of the population of Ireland.

• 1911: 890,880 Protestants in Ulster

• Protestants made up only 57 per cent of the 9 county province of Ulster.

• Concentrated in certain parts of certain counties, particularly Antrim, Armagh, Down and Londonderry

• A compact community covering all social classes

• Independent of their Catholic neighbours

Page 11: Lecture 8: Unionism

Southern Unionists

• Two main strands within unionism: southern unionism & northern Unionism

• Southern unionists: 250,000 at most• Southern unionists: primarily landed and

Anglican• Southern unionists provided financial &

organisational direction to unionists in all parts of Ireland

• Southern unionism went into decline during and after the Edwardian period

Page 12: Lecture 8: Unionism

Unionist fears

• Economic prosperity of the north-east might be undermined

• Unionists had a lot to lose – power, privilege, land, livelihood

• ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule’

• Catholic democratic rule distasteful

Page 13: Lecture 8: Unionism

Orange Order

• Played an important part in the emergence of organised unionist response to home rule.

• Mid 1880s, before unionism became organised, the Orange Order provided the only credible basis for loyalist opposition to both the Land League and the National league.

• Orangeism united members of the Church of Ireland and Presbyterians

• In 1879 and 1880 when the Land League began to make inroads into Ulster, even among some Protestant farmers, the Orange Order provided the predominant loyalist response.

Page 14: Lecture 8: Unionism

Unionist response to Home Rule

• First HR Bill (1886)

• Unionists were ill-prepared

• Their organisation was rudimentary

• Sectarian riots in Belfast: 32 people died

Page 15: Lecture 8: Unionism

Unionist response to Home Rule

• Second HR Bill (1893)

• Unionist leaders better prepared

• Unionist Clubs formed

• Central Council elected to co-ordinate opposition accross the province

Page 16: Lecture 8: Unionism

Unionist Organisations

• Initially attempted to unite all Irish opponents of HR in a single national movement – the attempt failed

• Unionists in Ulster & unionists in the other 3 provinces organised themselves separately

• 1885: Southern unionists were organised into the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union (ILPU)

• 1891: ILPU becomes the Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA)

Page 17: Lecture 8: Unionism

Unionist Organisations• From 1886 onwards Ulster unionists

developed a series of organisations• Ulster Unionist Council (UUC): the most

enduring • UUC formed in 1904-5• UUC: 200 delegates from all 9 Ulster counties• It elected a 30 man standing committee for

day to day administration• A permanent staff of full time officials also

appointed • UUC: a permanent organisation separate from

all other Irish unionist organisations

Page 18: Lecture 8: Unionism

Unionist response to Home Rule

• Third HR Bill (1912-14)

• Mass political mobilisation

• Ulster Solemn League and Covenant signed on Ulster Day 1912

• UVF founded

Page 19: Lecture 8: Unionism

Sir Edward Carson (1854-1935)

‘We must be prepared…themorning Home Rule passes, ourselves tobecome responsible for the government of theProtestant Province of Ulster’

Page 20: Lecture 8: Unionism

Interior of Ulster Hall and a scene outside on

eve of Covenant Day

Page 22: Lecture 8: Unionism

Souvenir copy of Women’s Declaration

The wording of the Declaration which women signed differed from that of the Covenant.

It allowed women, "to associate with the men of Ulster in their uncompromising opposition to the Home Rule Bill now before Parliament".

Page 23: Lecture 8: Unionism

Waiting for guns at Bangor 24 April 1914

Page 24: Lecture 8: Unionism

Carson inspecting the Ulster Volunteers c. 1913

Page 25: Lecture 8: Unionism

Irish Volunteers

• Irish (National) Volunteers founded November 1913

• IRB heavily involved

• Modelled on UVF

• Enrolled twice as many men as the UVF

• John Redmond as leader

Irish Volunteer, Robert Erskine Childers