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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
The relationship of Irish unionists to the Empire presents opposing views. Hugh Shearman claimed that Irish unionists were ‘progressive imperialists’. Alvin Jackson disagreed, writing that they were more focused on local matters, and had little interest in the Empire except as a resource to suit their own agenda. The career of the leading Irish and Ulster unionist, James Craig, in the period 1903–14, can be used to test these competing theories and to illuminate such topics as the influence of Joseph Chamberlain on Craig, how local, national and imperial issues were dealt with by Craig, and the part played by Orangeism in Craig’s imperialism. This author shall argue that imperialism was a strand within Craig’s Protestantism and Orangeism that allowed him to deal with local-constituency problems, the demands of party at Westminster, and the national issue of home rule. As such, Craig provides evidence for what Keith Jeffery calls the ‘irrelevance’ of the Empire for Ulster unionists. From the early part of Craig’s political career, the Empire was a means of making Ulster-unionist arguments relevant to a particular audience, local or British.
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16 Belfast News-Letter, 5 Apr. 1904.
17 Ibid., 14 May 1904.
18 Belfast Evening Telegraph, 5 Jan. 1906 (P.R.QN.I., Craigavon papers, press cuttings, D/1415/A/1).
19 Belfast News-Letter, 12 Nov. 1904.
20 Ibid., 14 Oct. 1905.
21 Northern Whig, 26 Jan. 1906.
22 Hansard 4 (Commons), clviii, cols 320–2 (29 May 1906).
23 Ibid., cols 1032–5 (13 June 1906).
24 Northern Whig, 11 Jan. 1910.
25 Ibid., 18 Jan. 1910.
26 Hansard 4 (Commons), clxxxviii, cols 738–9 (11 May 1908).
27 Northern Whig, 16 Apr. 1910, ‘Our London letter’.
28 Hansard 5 (Commons), xvi, cols 1895–6 (19 Apr. 1910). On 4 May the Northern Whig published a letter from the earl of Meath reminding his readers of the forthcoming Empire Day on 24 May, and appealing for voluntary support and help in supplying poorer schools with flagstaffs so as enable children to salute the Union Jack. He wrote that the Empire Day Movement was ‘a non-party, non-sectarian, non-aggressive effort to awaken the peoples who constitute the British Empire to the serious duties that lie at their door, and that their keywords were “responsibility, duty, sympathy, self-sacrifice’”. Craig’s use of it as a weapon against the government and as a loyalty test in Irish schools would seem to go against the earl of Meath’s ethos for the movement. See also Hume, David H., ‘Empire Day in Ireland’ in Jeffery, (ed.), ‘An Irish empire’?, pp 149-68.Google Scholar
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34 Ibid., 18 July 1912.
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39 Northern Whig, 1 Nov. 1913.
40 Belfast News-Letter, 14 July 1904.
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56 Ibid., pp 554–5.
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58 Northern Whig, 7 Feb. 1914.
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61 I would gratefully like to acknowledge the assistance of Professor Keith Jeffery in the preparation of this article.