Detroit 199F-1790 / Chicago Murphy · p.43
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2
From Michael Farrell's Northern Ireland: The Orange State:
Bloody Beginning: 1918-21
.. .Belfast and its hinterland more than ever represented an outpost of industrial Britain in Ireland. Belfast was effectively one
corner of a great industrial triangle...
As the Home Rule Bill loomed nearer and nearer the Unionists prepared to resist. Although they were opposed to Home Rule
for any part of Ireland, in practice fhey now concentrated their preparations in Ulster. Already they had established a separate
Ulster Unionist Council (UUC).
. . .a meeting was held at the gate of Workman, Clark & Co's shipyard (the smaller of the two Belfast shipyards) by the Belfast
Protestant Association, an extreme politico-religious group. There was a show of revolvers and it was decided to drive the 'Sinn
Feiners' out. Then, in the words of one of the expelled workers:
'Men armed with sledge-hammers and other weapons swooped down on Catholic workers in the shipyards and
didn't even give them the chance for their lives. . .
The fiction that only Sinn Feiners were to be expelled was soon disposed of. All Catholics in the two yards were put out,
together with a number of Protestants of radical or labour views. . .
.. .the most important event to mark the close of 1920 was the establishment of the Specials. There was an angry debate at
Westminster in October with J.R. Clynes of the Labour Party saying that the government were arming the Orangemen, and Joe
Devlin pointing out that 300 of the Special Constables recruited in Lisburn had resigned in protest when their colleagues were
charged with looting. He declared '. . .the Protestants are tobe armed. . . Their pogrom is to be made less difficult. Instead of
paving stones and sticks they are to be given rifles.
Siege or Pogrom: 1921-24
Despite the widespread Loyalist violence [in 1923] the intemees were all Republicans. They were by no means all IRA men. In
Co. Fermanagh Cahir Healy, a local writer, county councilor and soon to be a Westminster MP, was lifted'. So were Sean
Nethercott of Enniskillen Urban Council and Thomas Corrigan, the secretary of the County Council. In Derry, Eugene
ed were not to be released until the end of 1924.
A Protestant State
. . . the Unlonist leaders were not free agents: they had mobilised the Protestant masses to resist Home Rule and inclusion in the
Free State, through the policy of discrimination and the ideology of Protestant supremacy. Now.their followers were seeking.their
jo od e je soey a yo jnpumun sou nqnop ou sem uaussausng pue sisnsnpu jo juawuaon e ianoaio 't uum
discrimination and Protestant privilege would effectively prevent the emergence of any working-class solidarity.
The Violent Thirties
aseq oi uasouo pue h papalai pey haul 'ssep aippu soue ay uon uogenado-on jo padsoid aui ipey] uawurao ay. .
themselves on the Orange Order and anti-Catholic prejudice. They chose temporary securify at the price of permanent instability.
The mass of the Catholic population soon turned to more militant voices.. .
The War Years: 1939-45
. . .Churchill, had a virtual obsession with the question of the Irish ports, and in the light of the traditional friendship between
Ireland and the United States he hoped the Southem government might be more willing to abandon its neutrality now. So the day
after Pearl Harbour he sent De Valera an extraordinary secret telegram saying Now is your chance. Now or Never, "a National
Once Again." Am ready to meet you any time.' It seemed to offer a united Ireland in return for the South's entering the war but
De Valera was suspicious and didn't take up Churchhill's offer of a meeting.. . .It is doubtful if Churchill's offer was at all serious.
If it was it would have involved an utterly cynical abandonment of the Uister Unionists who had not even been consulted.
: 1960-69
. . .As unemployment grew in the late 195Os he [lan Paisley] built up an organization call Ulster Protestant Action (UPA) whose
aim was "To keep Protestant and loyal workers in employment in fimes of depression, in preference to their Catholic fellow
workers.'
council houses, since the Unionist-controlled Dungannon Rural Council wouldn't allocate the houses to them. in June the
families were evicted and the council allocated one of the houses to the local Unionist candidate's secretary, an unmarried girl.
2
From Michael Farrell's Northern Ireland: The Orange State:
Bloody Beginning: 1918-21
.. .Belfast and its hinterland more than ever represented an outpost of industrial Britain in Ireland. Belfast was effectively one
corner of a great industrial triangle...
As the Home Rule Bill loomed nearer and nearer the Unionists prepared to resist. Although they were opposed to Home Rule
for any part of Ireland, in practice fhey now concentrated their preparations in Ulster. Already they had established a separate
Ulster Unionist Council (UUC).
. . .a meeting was held at the gate of Workman, Clark & Co's shipyard (the smaller of the two Belfast shipyards) by the Belfast
Protestant Association, an extreme politico-religious group. There was a show of revolvers and it was decided to drive the 'Sinn
Feiners' out. Then, in the words of one of the expelled workers:
'Men armed with sledge-hammers and other weapons swooped down on Catholic workers in the shipyards and
didn't even give them the chance for their lives. . .
The fiction that only Sinn Feiners were to be expelled was soon disposed of. All Catholics in the two yards were put out,
together with a number of Protestants of radical or labour views. . .
.. .the most important event to mark the close of 1920 was the establishment of the Specials. There was an angry debate at
Westminster in October with J.R. Clynes of the Labour Party saying that the government were arming the Orangemen, and Joe
Devlin pointing out that 300 of the Special Constables recruited in Lisburn had resigned in protest when their colleagues were
charged with looting. He declared '. . .the Protestants are tobe armed. . . Their pogrom is to be made less difficult. Instead of
paving stones and sticks they are to be given rifles.
Siege or Pogrom: 1921-24
Despite the widespread Loyalist violence [in 1923] the intemees were all Republicans. They were by no means all IRA men. In
Co. Fermanagh Cahir Healy, a local writer, county councilor and soon to be a Westminster MP, was lifted'. So were Sean
Nethercott of Enniskillen Urban Council and Thomas Corrigan, the secretary of the County Council. In Derry, Eugene
ed were not to be released until the end of 1924.
A Protestant State
. . . the Unlonist leaders were not free agents: they had mobilised the Protestant masses to resist Home Rule and inclusion in the
Free State, through the policy of discrimination and the ideology of Protestant supremacy. Now.their followers were seeking.their
jo od e je soey a yo jnpumun sou nqnop ou sem uaussausng pue sisnsnpu jo juawuaon e ianoaio 't uum
discrimination and Protestant privilege would effectively prevent the emergence of any working-class solidarity.
The Violent Thirties
aseq oi uasouo pue h papalai pey haul 'ssep aippu soue ay uon uogenado-on jo padsoid aui ipey] uawurao ay. .
themselves on the Orange Order and anti-Catholic prejudice. They chose temporary securify at the price of permanent instability.
The mass of the Catholic population soon turned to more militant voices.. .
The War Years: 1939-45
. . .Churchill, had a virtual obsession with the question of the Irish ports, and in the light of the traditional friendship between
Ireland and the United States he hoped the Southem government might be more willing to abandon its neutrality now. So the day
after Pearl Harbour he sent De Valera an extraordinary secret telegram saying Now is your chance. Now or Never, "a National
Once Again." Am ready to meet you any time.' It seemed to offer a united Ireland in return for the South's entering the war but
De Valera was suspicious and didn't take up Churchhill's offer of a meeting.. . .It is doubtful if Churchill's offer was at all serious.
If it was it would have involved an utterly cynical abandonment of the Uister Unionists who had not even been consulted.
: 1960-69
. . .As unemployment grew in the late 195Os he [lan Paisley] built up an organization call Ulster Protestant Action (UPA) whose
aim was "To keep Protestant and loyal workers in employment in fimes of depression, in preference to their Catholic fellow
workers.'
council houses, since the Unionist-controlled Dungannon Rural Council wouldn't allocate the houses to them. in June the
families were evicted and the council allocated one of the houses to the local Unionist candidate's secretary, an unmarried girl.