Birth of the Border - Cormac Moore

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bodies prior to 1921 remained so afterwards. Most religious organisations remained all-Ireland entities, regardless of the central role that religion played in the Irish question. They did so, however, under significantly changed circumstances, as they had to operate within two extremely different jurisdictions. This was most clearly demonstrated through the issue of education within both states. Divisions in education that had existed before were worsened by partition. The two jurisdictions adopted very different approaches to education, with the north looking to democratise it whilst the south looked to Gaelicise it. A striking example of Irish nationalism’s non-recognition of the northern jurisdiction was the payment of Catholic teachers based in the north by the provisional government in the south.

      The labour movement consisted of a divergent group of people – Protestants and Catholics, nationalists and unionists, and internationalists. The political division of the island led to great pressures on the movement. Many trade unions as well as the Labour Party looked to retain a sense of unity by focusing on areas of common interest and offering degrees of autonomy to northern members. The labour movement was deeply affected by partition, and its influence was diluted by the sectarian divide that engulfed the north.

      The disruption caused by partition was clearly seen in the necessary changes made to aspects of Ireland’s infrastructure and services. The creation of the border impacted greatly on railways, roads, fisheries and postal services, as well as many other areas. The necessary changes to Irish infrastructure and services in order to accommodate the creation of two jurisdictions affected people more on a day-to-day basis than almost anything else.

      All sports were affected by partition, with some affected more than others. As with trade, charity, labour and religious organisations, many sports remained or became all-Ireland bodies after partition. Soccer and athletics stand out, however, as they were partitioned along political lines. Those that were governed on an all-Ireland basis navigated the difficult political terrain by accommodating diverse interests and compromising on certain areas of symbolic importance, such as flags, anthems and emblems.

      This book demonstrates the vast upheaval of partition, which affected everyone on the island in a political, economic, social and cultural sense. It examines the effects that the creation of a border had on many aspects of people’s lives, including how they were affected on a day-to-day basis. It shows the great uncertainty that surrounded Northern Ireland’s status for many years after its birth, with this uncertainty feeding into decisions made by numerous bodies, both political and non-political. A unique feature of the partition of Ireland, compared with other jurisdictions, was the number of organisations across most spheres of Irish life that were allowed to, and chose to, ignore the new international frontier and continue as they had before, as all-Ireland entities.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Towards Partition

      The Irish question dominated British party politics for over three decades, beginning when William Ewart Gladstone converted to the cause of Home Rule for Ireland in the 1880s. His decision tied the Liberal Party to the Irish Parliamentary Party while the Conservative Party became aligned to the Ulster unionists. The Irish question did not become the Ulster question during the Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893. Both bills were defeated by normal parliamentary procedures, with the 1886 bill defeated by the House of Commons and the 1893 bill defeated by the House of Lords. Joseph Chamberlain, a liberal who became a liberal unionist in opposition to Irish Home Rule, was the first major figure to suggest the partition of Ulster during the first Home Rule Crisis in 1886.1 He said that ‘Ireland is not a homogenous community […] it is a nation that comprises two nations and two religions’.2 He floated the concept of ‘a federal Britain with a parliament in Belfast,’ similar to Quebec’s relationship with Canada.3 There was little support for Chamberlain’s proposal at the time, and although Ulster featured more prominently during debates on the second Home Rule Bill in 1893, the Irish question did not become Ulster-centric until the twentieth century. The British electoral rejection of Home Rule in 1886 heralded almost twenty years of conservative and unionist rule, where the policy on Ireland comprised ‘killing Home Rule with kindness’.4 This included the introduction of tax reforms; local government, which established democratically-elected county and urban councils throughout Ireland; and significant land-purchase legislation.5 Many of the Tory initiatives for Ireland were supported by both nationalists and unionists.

      With most unionists based in Ulster, the ‘Ulsterisation’ of Irish unionism came to the forefront with the formation of the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905.6 The exclusion of Ulster from any Home Rule settlement became the overriding issue of the third Home Rule Bill, introduced in 1912. In the House of Commons, the two general elections of 1910 saw the Irish Parliamentary Party hold the balance of power once again, for the first time since the 1890s. John Redmond, the Irish Parliamentary Party leader, promised to support a Liberal government and its Parliament Act, which greatly curbed the powers of the House of Lords on the condition that a Home Rule Bill would be introduced.7 The real prospect of Home Rule saw a violent reaction from unionists, most vociferously so in Ulster. Edward Carson, the new leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance since 21 February 1910, ‘hoped to use Ulster Unionist resistance to prevent Home Rule coming into effect in any part of Ireland’.8 From an early juncture, Ulster unionists realised that a huge effort was necessary to secure public sympathy in Britain. The effort involved the production and distribution of literary propaganda, demonstrations, canvassing and tours of Ireland and Britain. The most symbolic gesture of opposition to Home Rule was the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant by just under 500,000 men and women on ‘Ulster Day’ (i.e. 28 September 1912).9 Ulster unionists also armed themselves and threatened to establish a provisional government in Ulster if Home Rule was brought into Ireland.10 Their open flouting of the law was supported by ‘the British Conservative Party, now re-named the Unionist Party and led from 1912 to 1923 by Andrew Bonar Law’.11 In July 1913 at Blenheim Palace, Bonar Law warned that there were ‘things stronger than parliamentary majorities’ and that if Home Rule was imposed on Ulster, he could ‘imagine no length of resistance’ that Ulster would go to, ‘in which I should not be prepared to support them’.12

      Compounding the strong and blatantly dangerous opposition from the Ulster unionists and the Conservative Party was the lukewarm support for Home Rule within the Liberal Party. The Liberal leader and Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, brought none of the moral crusade that informed Gladstone’s campaign for Home Rule. In the words of Ronan Fanning, ‘Asquith was always an unwilling ally, a resentful partner in a loveless marriage’ with Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party.13 Senior Liberal Party figures such as David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill were early advocates of some form of Ulster exclusion from Home Rule. At a cabinet meeting in February 1912, they both proposed that each county in Ulster have the right to vote themselves in or out of Home Rule.14

      Asquith introduced the third Home Rule Bill to the House of Commons on 11 April 1912. No special provision was made for Ulster, as Asquith believed Ireland was ‘a nation, not two nations, but one nation’.15 Although it appeared that Home Rule for the whole island was close at hand, the House of Lords still had the power to delay the bill by two years, meaning that Home Rule could not be enacted until 1914 at the earliest. This gave unionists ample time to spoil the bill, and knowing the Liberal Party’s dilemma over Ulster, it soon became apparent that special treatment was needed for Ulster. In June 1912, a Liberal backbencher named T.G. Agar-Robartes tabled an amendment to exclude the four north-eastern counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry and Down from Home Rule.16 Although his amendment was greeted with outrage by all political parties and was defeated, he ‘was merely expressing a growing frustration at the seemingly intractable impasse between Irish nationalism and Irish (specifically Ulster) unionists as to what should be the future constitutional status of Ireland’.17 However, it was soon supported by unionists as a tactic to stop the implementation of Home Rule for all of Ireland. Carson introduced his own amendment to exclude the nine counties of Ulster, still as a ‘strategic thrust’.18 The amendment nevertheless alarmed southern unionists, who realised that a drift towards partition was occurring within Ulster unionist and Conservative ranks. Carson, himself a southern unionist from Dublin, was moving away from ‘partition as tactic’ to ‘partition as compromise’ and confided in Bonar Law in September 1913 that ‘matters were now moving

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