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‘ROTTEN PROTESTANTS’: PROTESTANT HOME RULERS AND THE ULSTER LIBERAL ASSOCIATION, 1906–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2017

CONOR MORRISSEY
CONOR MORRISSEY*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
*
Old Buildings, 5.4, Hertford College, University of Oxford, Catte St, Oxford, ox1 3bw[email protected]
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Abstract

This article assesses ‘Rotten Protestants’, or Protestant home rulers in Ulster, by means of an analysis of the Ulster Liberal Association, from its founding in 1906 until its virtual disappearance by 1918. It argues that Ulster Liberalism has been neglected or dismissed in Irish historiography, and that this predominantly Protestant, pro-home rule organization, with its origins in nineteenth-century radicalism, complicates our understanding of the era. It has previously been argued that this tradition did not really exist: this article uses prosopography to demonstrate the existence of a significant group of Protestant Liberal activists in Ulster, as well as to uncover their social, denominational, and geographic profile. Ulster Liberals endured attacks and boycotting; this article highlights the impact of this inter-communal violence on this group. Although Ulster Liberalism had a substantial grassroots organization, it went into sharp decline after 1912. This article describes how the third home rule crisis, the outbreak of the Great War, and the Easter Rising of 1916 prompted a hardening of attitudes which proved detrimental to the survival of a politically dissenting tradition within Ulster Protestantism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 743 - 765
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

1 For accounts of this incident, see Ulster Guardian (UG), 17 Feb. 1912; Irish Independent (II), 13 Feb. 1912; Ulster Herald, 17 Feb. 1912; Sydney Morning Herald, 13 Feb. 1912.

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21 The IPHRA took 9,283 votes, to the Unionists’ 26,446, amounting to 35 per cent of the poll.

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29 Jackson, ‘Irish Unionism and the Russellite threat’, p. 399.

30 UG, 28 Apr. 1906. Four former Russellite candidates went on to stand in the ULA interest: T. W. Russell; R. G. Glendinning; Samuel Robert Keightly; and James Woods.

31 Irish Times (IT), 21 Apr. 1906.

32 See, for example, IT, 12 Nov. 1912, 16 May 1916.

33 IT, 23 Oct. 1906.

34 Nominal data for ULA activists derived from UG, 9, 16, 23 Jan. 1909, 29 Jan., 2 Apr., 10 Dec. 1910, 23 Sept. 1911, 6 Jan., 3, 10, 17 Feb., 6, 27 Apr. 1912, 4 Apr. 1914. Prosopographical data from this and other sets derived in most part from the Census of Ireland, 1901, and Census of Ireland, 1911(available online). Reference was made to a wide variety of other sources, including McGuire, James and Quinn, James, eds., Dictionary of Irish biography (Cambridge, 2009)Google Scholar; Thom's Irish almanac and official directory (Dublin, published annually); and Burke, Bernard, Burke's genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Ireland, ed. Pine, L. G. (4th edn, London, 1958)Google Scholar.

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36 For the IPHRA leadership, see Loughlin, ‘The Irish Protestant Home Rule Association’, p. 343.

37 IT, 18, 21 July 1906; Donegal News, 20 Jan. 1912; McMinn, Against the tide, p. xlvii; J. W. Kirk to Rev. James Brown Armour, 7 Feb. 1906, Belfast, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), Armour papers; Henry H. Graham to Robert Carson, 18 Oct. 1913, PRONI, T2077/13. Names of ULA activists checked against specimen years of Thom's Irish almanac and official directory.

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44 See Conor Morrissey, ‘Protestant nationalists in Ireland, 1900–1923’ (Ph.D. thesis, Trinity College Dublin, 2015), ch. 2.

45 Irish Protestant, 22 July 1905.

46 Irish Protestant, 23 Jan. 1904.

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48 See report, UG, 12 Jan. 1907.

49 See UG, 12, 26 Jan., 2, 9, 16 Feb. 1907.

50 The directors were Hugh Mack, Henry Havelock Graham, Samuel Robert Keightly, and John R. Moorhead.

51 IT, 4 Sept. 1920.

52 See below.

53 UG, 10 Dec. 1910.

54 Ulster Herald, 2 Sept. 1911; IT, 19 July 1913.

55 25,506 for the Ulster Unionist Party; 20,339 for the ULA.

56 For a discussion, see Jackson, The Ulster Party, pp. 270–1.

57 Northern Constitution, 1 Nov. 1913, qu. in McMinn, Against the tide, p. lvii.

58 FJ, 15 Nov. 1913.

59 Donegal News, 4 May 1912.

60 UG, 10 Dec. 1910.

61 24,874 for the Ulster Unionist Party; 19,003 for the ULA.

62 Ulster Liberal Association, What Liberalism has done for the people: points in the Liberal policy and in the Liberal record (Belfast, 1913)Google Scholar, pp. 3, 4, 8, 22, 6.

63 See below. For reference to ‘Rotten Protestants’, see, for example, UG, 10 Feb. 1912, FJ, 4 Apr., 3 Nov. 1917; Gwynn, Experiences of a literary man, p. 277.

64 FJ, 26 Jan. 1912. See also Armour, Armour of Ballymoney, pp. 252–5.

65 II, 24 Jan. 1912.

66 PRONI, D2846/1/2/1/2, clipping from the Belfast News-Letter, 27 Jan. 1912.

67 UG, 3 Feb. 1912; PRONI, D2846/1/2/1/2, clipping from an unknown newspaper, 26 Jan. 1912; PRONI, D2846/1/2/1/3, clipping from the Irish News, 6 Feb. 1912.

68 UG, 10 Feb. 1912.

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77 UG, 16, 23 Jan. 1909.

78 For contemporary references to attacks on Protestant home rulers in Belfast, especially ship workers, see Rosamond Stephen to John Baptist Crozier, archbishop of Armagh, 30 July 1912, Dublin, Representative Church Body Library, Rosamond Stephen papers; UG, 20, 27 Apr., 27 July, 3, 10 Aug. 1912; House of Commons debates, 31 July 1912, cc. 41, 2091–8, 2111–13, 2122–7, 2129–33, 2148–9; Connaught Tribune, 29 Nov. 1913; Connaught Telegraph, 14 Sept. 1912, 5 Apr. 1913, 9 May 1914; FJ, 26, 28 Sept. 1912, 29 Mar., 30 Apr. 1913; Anglo-Celt, 3 May, 3, 10, 17, 24 Aug. 1912; Southern Star, 21 Sept. 1913; II, 7 Nov. 1913; Limerick Leader, 7 Aug. 1912; Manchester Guardian, 18 Sept. 1912.

79 Manchester Guardian, 8 July 1912.

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85 Weekly Irish Times, 18 Jan. 1913.

86 FJ, 6 Feb. 1913 (South-east Cork United Irish League (UIL) executive); FJ, 1 Feb. 1913 (Mountjoy Ward branch of the UIL, Dublin City); Southern Star, 8 Feb. 1913 (Bandon Town Commission, Co. Cork); Anglo-Celt, 26 July 1913 (East Cavan UIL); Donegal News, 9 Aug. 1913 (UIL branch in Ballyliffin, Co. Donegal); Anglo-Celt, 22 Mar. 1913 (Knockbride east division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Co. Cavan).

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88 McMinn, ‘The Ballymoney meeting of 1913 – a nationalist mirage?’.

89 Alice Stopford Green, qu. in McDowell, Alice Stopford Green, p. 94.

90 Phoenix et al., eds., Feis na nGleann, p. 60. See also James Brown Armour to W. S. Armour, 27 Oct. 1913; James Brown Armour to J. B. M. Armour [n.d. Oct.? 1913], in McMinn, Against the tide, pp. 133–5.

91 McNeill, Ulster's stand for the union, p. 158.

92 For a recent account, see O'Brien, Alternative Ulster covenant.

93 North Antrim Standard, 30 Oct. 1913; UG, 1 Nov. 1913. Fifteen women have also been identified; these have been excluded from the following calculation, as the Ulster Guardian almost never provided names of women who attended ULA meetings – their inclusion in the set would skew the figure.

94 The North Antrim Standard described the event as a ‘meeting of Liberals’: 30 Oct. 1913. See also Belfast News-Letter, 26 Nov. 1913.

95 UG, 1 Nov. 1913. For a full account of the speeches, see [Various authors], A Protestant protest: Ballymoney, Oct. 24th 1913 (Ballymoney, 1913).

96 Text of counter-covenant given in Ullans Speakers Association, A ripple in the pond, p. 16.

97 O'Brien, Alternative Ulster covenant, p. 7.

98 Donegal News, 8 Nov., 6 Dec. 1913. For Roger Casement's delighted reaction to the Scarva meeting, see Roger Casement to Alice Stopford Green, 4 Nov. 1913, NLI, Roger Casement additional papers, MS 36,204/1.

99 Belfast News-Letter, 26 Nov. 1913.

100 Fanning, Fatal path, pp. 96–7.

101 II, 25 Nov. 1914.

102 Ulster Liberal Association, The Kaiser's Ulster friends: pro-German speeches by prominent Carsonites (n.p., 1914).

103 Fanning, Fatal path, pp. 145–9.

104 Henry H. Graham to David Lloyd George, 7 June 1916, London, Parliamentary Archives (PAL), Lloyd George papers, D/14/3.

105 John Gulland to David Lloyd George, 28 June 1916, PAL, Lloyd George papers, D/14/3.

106 Office of David Lloyd George to Henry H. Graham, 29 June 1916, PAL, Lloyd George papers, D/14/3.

107 UG, 23, 30 Nov. 1918.

108 UG, 14 Dec. 1918.

109 UG, 14 Dec. 1918. Davey eventually sued Carson for libel, and sought £5,000 damages. The case was withdrawn when Carson offered a further apology in court: Manchester Guardian, 26 Apr. 1919.