W2A-012 Ulster home rule-0.txt
Churchill, Castledawson, and the Covenant

The Home Rule Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 11 April 1912. The government remained formally committed to the principle of Irish unity. Over the next few weeks, however, some ministers - in particular Winston Churchill - sent out conciliatory signals in the direction of the Ulster unionists. The background is of some interest. On 3 October 1911 Churchill had referred contemptuously to the 'frothings of Sir Edward Carson'." He offered to address a pro-home rule demonstration in the Ulster Hall in Belfast on 8 February 1912, a venue where his father had once delivered a famous loyalist speech. The Irish unionist leadership, considering itself to be grievously provoked, openly committed itself to preventing such a meeting in the Ulster Hall, though not elsewhere in the city and the hall was aggressively double-booked. The message was clear: at this early stage in the crisis, Sir Edward Carson, a former Law Officer, was prepared to support irregular proceedings which might well lead to violence. He also revealed himself as being increasingly 'Ulsterized' in his political instincts, for the exposed minority of southern unionists were worried by this apparent lack of respect for the principle of free speech. In the end, Churchill moved his meeting to Celtic Park and a very tense day passed off peacefully, except for a 'rush of irresponsible rowdies' towards Churchill's car. But, as the Irish Times, which had disliked the methods employed 'on ethical grounds', noted, the strength of Ulster unionist sentiment had been made clear: 'Churchill's visit had merely served to emphasise facts which the Radical and Nationalist leadership were desperately anxious to conceal.' Sections of the Liberal leadership began to take Sir Edward Carson and his movement a good deal more seriously.
At the end of March 100,000 nationalists attended a pro-home rule demonstration in Dublin. 'As decent a crowd of its kind' that could be 'found anywhere in the empire', the Irish Times charitably claimed on 1 April. Joe Devlin declared that, in comparison with this demonstration, 'the march past of the awkward squads in Belfast would be as a farthing candle in the sunshine'." John Dillon proclaimed: 'The work of Oliver Cromwell is nearly undone.' John Redmond struck a more positive note: 'The true purpose of [home rule]... is to put an end... to the disastrous and ruinous war which has gone on between Ireland and the Empire.' In early April the awkward squads gave their reply in Belfast: 100,000 unionists were present at Balmoral. Carson introduced Bonar Law, who was accompanied by seventy MPs from English and Scottish constituencies. According to the Irish Times on 10 April: 'The most important feature was the turn out of the Unionist clubs. The Orangemen are accustomed to processions... there were thousands of others standing witness to their determination of their adherence to the cause of the union. [This is]... a direct answer to any taunting allegation that resistance to home rule is a fanatical movement fostered solely by the Orange Order.' On 11 June T.G.R. Agar-Roberts, a Cornish Liberal MP suggested in the House of Commons the desirability of excluding the four heavily Protestant counties: Antrim, Down, Armagh, and Londonderry. The unionists supported the Agar-Roberts amendment, but it was defeated on 14 June by 69 votes. This indicated a certain fall in government support. Carson chose to regard the defeat as 'a declaration of war'," others felt that a reluctant government had been forced to act against its most profound inclination. The Irish Times noted simply: 'It has been compelled to change its mind by Mr Redmond.' This was the context of a most dangerous development - a slide into large-scale sectarian communal violence in Ulster. The unionists, albeit reluctantly, had been prepared to offer serious consideration to a scheme of partition: the government, or some of its members and supporters, had flirted with the idea and then turned away from it.
On 29 June, a serious affray at Castledawson, County Londonderry, initiated a marked deterioration in the intercommunal relations. A Presbyterian Sunday School excursion party largely composed of women and children and numbering about 500, was attacked by on William Craig, a member of a Hibernian bank which unluckily happened to be returning from a Maghera demonstration. (At Maghera, ironically, there had been Protestant home rulers on the platform and much non-sectarian oratory.) Craig dashed into the excursion party and seized a small Union Flag, attempting to drag it from a small boy who held on to it. The local RIC officer, Sergeant Burchill, pushed Craig back, and was struck by several of the Hibernians. A general row ensued, the excursion party was thrown into a confused mass, and blows were struck on both sides. The violence escalated: there was large-scale stone-throwing and many of the Protestants armed themselves with forks, shovel shafts, and sticks. The police decided to take decisive action: they brought out their rifles and fixed their swords. Ruefully, the two antagonistic crowds decided to disband, but not before many of the children were terrified out of their wits.
Tales of the incident soon spread. Inflamed Protestants regarded this attack upon children as an indication of the baseness of nationalist intent. Catholics felt that the incident had been greatly exaggerated by local Protestants; in particular, they criticized the role of the Revd Robert Barren, who had been superintending the Presbyterian excursion. The Belfast presbytery indignantly repudiated charges of exaggeration. The Witness declared of Castledawson: 'Its real importance lies in the view that it points to the difference between the Hibernians and other nationalists and their professed leaders.... We have said that it did not matter what the leaders said: it was what the rank and file thought and said which should be the dominating factor. At the same time there was undoubtedly a certain exploitation of the Castledawson affray. When the Revd J. D. Craig Houston told the Presbyterian assembly that they should not use the outrage for political purposes, 'So we do!' cried the ranks of this normally staid body. For offences connected with Castledawson twenty-three Hibernians and seven Protestant defendants were convicted and each sentenced to a term of three months'imprisonment with hard labour for riot and unlawful assembly. The seven Protestant defendants in the same case were acquitted. For Protestants this verdict proved where the responsibility lay; for Catholics it proved merely the partiality of the judiciary. On 8 January 1913 a Memorial praying for remission of the unexpired period of the sentence imposed on the Hibernians was signed by a large number of Castledawson residents of all classes and professions - unionists, Conservatives, nationalists, Orangemen, Liberals, and clergymen of all denominations - and sent to the Lord Lieutenant. Amongst the signatories were the Revd Mr Tarleton, rector of Castledawson, the Revd Mr Lindsay, rector of Magherafelt, and Alexander Clarke, JP, the proprietor of the large linen factory at Castledawson. The signatories were surprisingly representative on a cross-community basis: there were six Catholic clergymen as against three Protestants, but, on the other hand, there were ten unionist professional men as against nine Catholics. Given the immense bitterness occasioned by the incident in the Protestant community, it is important to note that the spirit of harmony and conciliation was by no means extinguished. The complete synopsis of the signatures to the Memorial in the table below makes interesting reading.
Mr Justice Wright, who presided at the trial, in reporting on the Memorial, expressed his opinion that there could be no doubt of the righteousness of the verdict, adding that he had carefully considered the case before passing sentence and that he saw no reason to recommend any reduction of the sentence of three months'imprisonment with hard labour which he had imposed. This was not a sentiment which was shared at the highest level in Dublin Castle. On 4 February the Lord Lieutenant, with the support of the Chief Secretary, made an order that the twenty-three prisoners convicted and sentenced should be released on 5 February 1913: they had served only half their sentences. The Weekly Northern Whig bitterly noted in an editorial of 15 February; 'Stripped of all casuistry the plain fact remains that the Government is under the thumb of the Hibernians.' The pamphlet Ulster Protest added: 'Such is the meaning of Mr Redmond's perfectly true statement that Mr Devlin is the real Chief Secretary of Ireland.'

Few, however, believed that the government had acted purely out of considerations of abstract legality. The political context is all too clear: the by-election in Londonderry City on 30 January 1913 was narrowly carried by the Scottish Presbyterian Liberal, David Clegthorn Hogg, a large local employer, over Lt. Col. Hercules Arthur Pakenham (unionist) by 2,699 votes to 2,642. Not surprisingly, the Irish party presented the victory and the choice of a Presbyterian candidate as great proof of the non-sectarianism of Catholic politics. At Hogg's celebratory dinner, Redmond offered a limited olive branch to unionists - he was prepared to offer them an influence in an Irish parliament greater than their numbers warranted. Such rhetoric was soon to be undermined by allegations in the Pall Mall Gazette concerning the inner history of the Derry election. It was claimed that the Hibernian factions in the city had made a deal with the government before they consented to vote for the Liberal candidate. Patrick Arkins, a Clare peasant sent down for seven years by Justice Dodd for an agrarian offence (knocking down a wall), was to be set free after three months; also to be freed were the Castledawson prisoners. The government kept the bargain - shortly after the Derry result Arkins and the Castlesdawson men were released. Perhaps Birrell had not entirely suppressed his memory of these events when he referred drily in his memoirs to the 'near impossibility' of any English government dispensing 'even handed justice' in Ireland.

But long before their eventual release the behaviour of the Castledawson nationalists had rebounded negatively on the nationalist minority in Belfast. As the stories of Castledawson reached Belfast, loyalists contemplated savagely the attack on their women and children: some of the children at Castledawson were those of Belfast shipyard workers. Inflamed, some at once turned to violence and revenge. From July onwards, at the shipyards and in their immediate vicinity, assaults were committed on Catholics and also on Protestant liberals and home rulers. These assaults were so serious and there was such a degree of intimidation of Catholic workers that about 2,000 of them left their employment at the shipyards. When the July holidays (the 'Twelfth') started, not more than a hundred Catholics remained in the shipyard. Southern unionists were embarrassed by the events. They felt themselves to be in 'a sense outsiders',", confronted by such 'inflexible contempt of opponents'." 'It is not for us to live as vividly in the past or map the future with such arrogant confidence.'

It was hoped that passions would diminish over the July holidays, but this did not happen. By the end of July Harland and Wolff (whose owner Lord Pirrie was a recent convert to home rule from the ranks of liberal unionism) felt compelled to act; it threatened to lay off its entire 17,000-strong workforce unless the Catholic workers were re-admitted. George Clark, the managing director of Workman and Clark, which employed 9,000, appeared to be less sympathetic to the plight of the Catholic workforce: they had been 'easily frightened' he declared tactlessly. This provoked the Leader to a bitter attempt at verse in mid-February 1914: "The senior director of Workman and Clark This lack of true grit in the Papists did mark He deemed that each Papist in courage was slack Who left with a murderous mob at his back."
Workman and Clark was not the only firm to attract such critical comment. The Sirocco engineering works appeared to be equally culpable. A South Bucks. working man's delegation reported eighteen months later: On Thursday [29 January] our first visit was to the Sirocco Works, where we were received by Mr Davidson, the proprietor. He remarked that only about fifty Catholics were employed, and explained that in consequence of the shipyard and other disturbances in 1912, he made an arrangement with the Protestants that if they agreed to work with the older hands among his Catholic employees he would employ more in the future. The unionist workmen, Mr Davidson assured us, kept him regularly to this bargain.
Both George Clark and S. C. Davidson were to serve on the Financial and Business Committee of the Ulster provisional government: on the other hand Lord Pirrie's threat cooled passions and led to an improvement: many Catholic employees felt able to return to work. But as late as 28 September 1912 the Weekly Freeman's Journal noted sadly: 'It must be remembered, however, that none of the expelled Catholics and Home Rulers have been taken back at Workman and Clark's. Some time ago it was rumoured that some had gone back there but it appears the rumour was groundless.' There was to be a messy and unsatisfactory aftermath in the courts. The police noted: 'The various cases for the disturbance at the shipyards and other places during the summer of 1912 were heard at the Assizes this month. Notwithstanding that the judge charged strongly in each case for a conviction most of the defendants were acquitted.' Unsurprisingly many nationalists contrasted this leniency with the fate of the Castledawson Hibernians.
