The Ulster Covenant Explained In Detail

Understanding The Ulster Covenant

The hundredth anniversary of the Ulster Covenant will soon happen in Northern Ireland. This post explains what it was in simple terms and what it meant to the people of Ireland at that time.

Ulster Covenant - Sir Edward Carson

 He was born in Dublin in 1854 and died in 1935.  He was a lawyer by profession and was also a Unionist member of parliament for Dublin University from 1892 - 1918.  He also held a number of positions in Ireland and Britain which included:

• Solicitor General for Ireland (1900-1905)
• Attorney General in Britain (1915)
• First Lord of The Admiralty (1916)

He also served as a member of the war cabinet and from 1918 sat for a Belfast constituency. He was the leader of the Unionist Party from 1910 and was a prominent organiser of the huge campaign against Home Rule in Ireland with his focus on the Ulster Volunteers.

When the Northern Ireland parliament was first established in 1921 he was offered the position of Prime Minister.  He declined this offer as he believed that partition in Ireland was a very bad thing for Unionists. His main belief was that all of Ireland should have remained as a part of the United Kingdom.

He visited Belfast in 1911 and informed a huge audience the Home Rule should be resisted.  He stated that if the Home Rule Bill became law that the Unionist Members of Parliament would set up a government for the nine county province of Ulster.

Carson believed that Redmond would not accept Home Rule for a part of Ireland and that is Ulster opposition was strong enough, then the whole bill would have to be abandoned. He was support in this view by the British Conservative Party who viewed Home Rule as a weakening of the British Empire and that impacted many of the landed classes who still retained property in Ireland.

Carson was referring to the full nine counties of Ulster but he was also referring to the Protestant Ulster despite the fact that Ulster's population was half Catholic.

Understanding the Ulster Covenant - Home Rule

Those in favour of Home Rule wanted a separate Irish Parliament but their campaign was defeated by a number of groups, including many Irish Unionists who wanted to remain under British Rule. This happened as far back as the 1870s and when the Home Rule Bill was presented again in 1911 Carson got thousands of Unionists to sign what was called the, "Ulster Solemn League and Covenant" on 28th September 1912 which firmly opposed the Home Rule Bill.

Carson declared that he regarded the Bill as more a British than an Irish question. He viewed any attempt at passing this Bill as a way to appease Irish Republican violence.

The following year a Protestant militia was raised and became known as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). This militia was raised to oppose by force any moves towards self-government in Ireland.  It did become a force to reckon with when a boat load of arms landed in N.Ireland in 1914.

Despite this resistance, a bill granting Home Rule was passed through parliamentary stages and was only postponed because of the outbreak of the First World War.

Sir Edward Carson Facts and Quotes

Sir Edward Carson

Sir Edward Carson

The Orange Order in the north of Ireland started to react to this ever changing political scene and became revitalised once again.  Their minds turned to the Battle of the Boyne and Unionists became determined that their history would not be undermined.

 Sir Edward Carson, a Dublin born lawyer, had been Solicitor General for Ireland, Attorney General in Britain and First Lord of the Admirality and in 1918 sat for a Belfast constituency.

As leader of the Unionist Party from 1910 he was a prominent organiser of campaigns against Home Rule and especially the Ulster Volunteers.  He believed that the whole of Ireland should remain a full and integrated part of the United Kingdom.  

In 1911 he told a huge rally that Home Rule would be resisted and that if the Home Rule Bill became law, the Unionist Members of Parliament would set up a government for the province of Ulster. 

His thinking behind this was that John Redmond would not agree to only part of Ireland becoming separate from the United Kingdom, and if Carson could prevent it in Ulster, then Redmond would abandon the Home Rule Bill.

In January 1912, the unionists had organised the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a huge military force, and a meeting was held in Belfast in September.

A petition known as the “Ulster Solemn League and Covenant” was signed by 200,000 people across the north.  In that petition they pledged that they would “Use all means which may be necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule parliament in Ireland”.  

By Ulster they meant the nine counties and what was surprising was that half of Ulster was Catholic.  In 1913 the UVF had over 100,000 members and around 24,000 rifles were brought in to Larne.  The government of the day allowed this to carry on as they did not view the UVF as a threat to the British Empire.

In 1914 a boat load of arms landed in Northern Ireland and the UVF became a force to be reckoned with.  Despite the fierce resistance a Bill was passed through the parliamentary stages but was postponed by the onset of the First World War.

In 1913, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) also started to become more active.  They held a public meeting at the Rotunda in Dublin.  Thomas J. Clarke had returned from America and began to organise the IRB, taking members from Sinn Fein, who at that time were an ideological group rather than a military one.