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CHAPTER FOUR

Northern Ireland is Born

Although nationalists vehemently opposed the Government of Ireland Act, the nationalist parties still contested the election for Northern Ireland. Áine Ceannt, widow of executed Easter Rising leader Éamonn, disagreed with this decision, claiming that as Dáil Éireann was the only government she recognised, ‘no one else would order a general election’, and certainly not the British government whip.1 Some commentators have contended that ‘by participating in the Home Rule elections, Sinn Fein recognised partition and assisted in the establishment of a separate government for the six counties’.2 Sinn Féin leader Éamon de Valera

recognised the danger of contesting if Republicans and Nationalists couldn’t be sure of winning at least ten seats. If they couldn’t manage that, the British would claim that partition was justified, and it would be better to boycott the elections. But if they could realistically hope to win a quarter or so of the seats, ‘the arguments are altogether in favour of vigorously contesting … the representatives elected will become members of Dáil Éireann’. Failing to contest would also be taken as an acceptance of partition and would, according to de Valera, drive supporters into the Nationalist Party camp – ‘a result which might later have a dangerous reactionary effect, by contagion, on the South’.3

Sinn Féin sought cooperation with the United Irish League (UIL), led by Joseph Devlin. Sinn Féin and the UIL signed an agreement on 17 March on the basis of ‘accepting the principle of self-determination for Ireland, and abstaining from the Northern Parliament’. Both parties agreed to form an anti-partition ticket. They also agreed ‘that each party would advise its supporters to give their lower preference to the candidates of the other party’.4 All nationalists fought the election in Northern Ireland from an anti-partitionist stance, claiming partition would mean ‘national suicide’.5 According to Donal Hall:

considerable effort, funded in a large part by Sinn Féin in Dublin, was put into [the] advertising and circulation of anti-partition pamphlets. The economic difficulties which Northern Ireland would face were emphasised, particularly the danger of the destruction of its commercial and industrial industries by the loss of their market in the south and west of Ireland. Farmers were warned that their prosperity was in danger because the urban industrial vote exceeded their political strength in the region.6

Sinn Féin’s ‘campaign, while vast in scale, was also marked by its crudity and lack of reference to Unionist sensibilities’.7 Sinn Féin formed an internal sub-committee to run the propaganda campaign for the election in the north, with Sinn Féin and the Dáil contributing £1,000 each towards it. Membership of the sub-committee consisted of de Valera, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Jenny Wyse-Power, Erskine Childers and Seán MacEntee. The sub-committee published a newspaper they called the Unionist and distributed it to unionist strongholds.8 Unionists were warned by legitimate unionist newspapers, such as the Belfast Newsletter, that ‘the periodical is on the side of the enemy, and that the title has been adopted with the intention of deceiving Unionist electors’.9 The same newspaper also claimed Sinn Féin had signed a treaty with the Bolsheviks, ‘binding for ten years’, where the Bolsheviks would ‘provide the rebels with arms and to give their leaders permission to study military and naval problems in Russia’.10 Éamonn Donnelly, Sinn Féin organiser for Ulster, claimed the only effect their literature and leaflets would have on the unionist community would be ‘to bring them out to vote against us in great numbers’.11 Despite Sinn Féin’s wholehearted election campaign, it had to overcome considerable intimidation. It was an illegal organisation and of the nineteen candidates, eight were either in jail or interned, and seven were on the run. Its ‘candidates, organisers, and supporters were attacked; raids on the houses of Sinn Féin election organisers were carried out; and speakers and election agents were arrested’.12 Éamonn Donnelly accused opponents of ‘wholesale terrorism’ on the day of the election, 24 May 1921.13

Chastened by the results of local elections in 1920, unionists were determined to maximise their vote for the 1921 general election. Like the local elections, the PR system of voting was used for the general election – the first time it was used in a general election in Britain or Ireland. All unionist candidates were greatly assisted by the Ulster Women’s Unionist Council, which coordinated canvassing events with the men’s association, provided funding, held classes and showed films explaining the novel PR voting system.14 On the issue of women being selected as candidates, the president of the Ulster Women’s Unionist Council, the Duchess of Abercorn, ‘expressed the opinion that the time was not ripe for this, and the essential thing in the first Parliament was to preserve the safety of the Unionist cause, that much organisation and construction work would be necessary for which perhaps women had not the necessary experience, and except in the case of outstanding qualifications, men candidates were preferable’.15

Many members disagreed with her, believing women candidates were necessary to address issues such as ‘Poor Law reform, which will necessitate re-organisation of the system of Medical Relief, some form of provision for necessitous widows with children, and drastic reform of the laws affecting the unmarried mother and her child’.16 Two female unionist candidates did run – Dehra Chichester (she became Dehra Parker after 1928) and Julia McMordie – and both were elected.17 In fact, all forty unionist candidates were elected to the northern parliament.

Held on Empire Day, 24 May, the general election, with a turnout of 89 per cent, was an astounding victory for Ulster unionists, who won all but twelve of the fifty-two seats. Sinn Féin won just six seats, with the UIL winning the other six. It was a bitter blow for Sinn Féin; de Valera had predicted that at least seventeen, if not half the seats, would be won by nationalists.18 Indicative of the lack of penetration of Sinn Féin in the north were the profiles of the six people elected under its banner: de Valera, Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, Eoin MacNeill, Seán Milroy and Seán O’Mahony. Most of them were high-profile figures in the south, with O’Mahony the only one not also elected to a Southern Ireland constituency. The UIL result showed its dependence on Devlin, who won two of its six seats, in Antrim and West Belfast. The unionist victory prompted Carson to say to Bonar Law, the Conservative Party leader, that ‘It would take a very brave man … to take away Ulster’s parliament’.19 Winston Churchill similarly claimed, ‘From that moment the position of Ulster became unassailable.’20 The breakdown of the results showed the truly sectarian nature of the electorate. Ernest Clark sent John Anderson, the Under Secretary of Ireland in Dublin Castle, a letter with a table (see Table 1) showing ‘that the percentage of votes cast for the Unionists and the other party respectively was almost identical with the percentage of Protestants and Roman Catholics in the various constituencies’.21

The elected nationalists decided to abstain from taking their seats in the new Northern Ireland parliament, thus granting unionists a monopoly on proceedings.22 For the Southern Ireland parliament, not one seat was contested. Sinn Féin secured 124 seats – every seat except for the four seats in Dublin University.23 Sinn Féin used the occasion to elect a second Dáil.24 Outside of Northern Ireland, the Government of Ireland Act was effectively ignored. Commenting on its one and only meeting, the Irish Times remarked, ‘The formal opening of the Southern Parliament in Dublin on June 28 was a subdued spectacle. Fifteen senators and four Commoners – the members for Trinity College – attended.’25

The northern parliament held its first official sitting on 7 June in Belfast’s City Hall, where the state opening was also held later in the month. Such was the makeshift nature of the new entity that a temporary home had to be found at the Presbyterian church in Ireland’s Assembly College from September 1921, with a permanent parliament in Stormont not opened until 1932.26 In October, the northern government decided not to install electric lighting in the temporary parliament, as it was not an ‘absolutely necessary’ expense.27 At the first meeting, Hugh O’Neill, was elected the speaker of the house.28 Four days later, twenty-four people were elected to the upper house, the senate. The senate consisted of twenty-six members, the other two were ‘the Lord Mayor of Belfast and Mayor of Londonderry – sitting ex officio’.29 Whilst the senators in the north were elected from the northern House of Commons, the southern senate had to include different minority groups. Patrick Buckland claims that ‘Ulster unionists justified this difference … by arguing that the circumstances of the minorities differed: the southern minority would be virtually unrepresented in the southern House of Commons, whereas northern nationalists and Catholics would have considerable representation in the northern House of Commons’.30 Joseph Devlin claimed this arrangement was ‘the most dishonest’ transaction he had heard in his life.31 James Craig, the Prime Minister, and his cabinet also took up office in early June. The cabinet consisted of Hugh Pollock as Minister of Finance, Richard Dawson-Bates as Minister of Home Affairs, Lord Londonderry as Minister of Education, John Andrews as Minister of Labour and Edward Archdale as Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Commerce.32 At the cabinet’s first meeting on 15 June, Northern Ireland’s twenty representatives for the Council of Ireland were selected – thirteen from the House of Commons and seven from the senate.33 That meeting was primarily concerned with arranging the state opening of the northern parliament by King George V a week later.

Table 1. 1921 Northern Ireland general election vote breakdown per constituency, based on religion and political party
Votes Polled (Excluding Spoiled Votes) 1st Preference	Percentage of Votes Polled	% of Population Census 1911
	Total	Unionist	Independent & Socialist	Nationalist	Sinn Féin	Nationalist & Sinn Féin	Unionist	Independent & Socialist	Nationalist	Sinn Féin	Nationalist & Sinn Féin	Protestant	Roman Catholic
Antrim	79949	64269	–	9448	6232	15680	80.39	–	11.82	7.79	19.611	79.5	20.5
Armagh	46532	25718		6857	13957	20814	55.27	–	14.74	29.99	44.73	54.67	45.33
Down	81180	55930	1188	7644	16418	24062	68.90	1.46	9.42	20.22	29.64	68.44	31.56
Fermanagh & Tyrone	83701	37935	–	12591	33175	45766	45.32	–	15.43	39.25	54.68	43.40	56.60
Derry	53988	30330	–	7772	15886	23658	56.18	–	14.40	29.42	43.82	54.20	45.80
Belfast not Queen’s University Belfast	165514	127448	2813	16502	18751	35253	77.00	1.70	9.97	11.33	21.30	75.90	24.10
Total	510864	341630	4001	60814	104419	165233	66.87	.79	11.90	20.44	32.34	65.60	34.40
Source: PRONI – D1022/2/17 – Files of Correspondence, mainly between Clark and Sir James Craig, Dealing with Various Aspects of the Setting Up of the Northern Ireland Ministries and Departments – 1921–1922, 28 May 1921.

22 June 1921 was a day of pomp and ceremony as it ushered in a new era in Ireland’s history. Despite ‘dire warnings’, the king and queen came to Belfast to officially open the new parliament. Belfast was draped with flags and bunting; pavements and lamp posts were painted red, white and blue. On the city streets, many banners reading ‘We will not have Home Rule’ were visible.34 The irony seemed lost on the banner holders that this was a Home Rule jurisdiction, up and running before one in the south was. The event was boycotted by almost the entire Catholic community, with Cardinal Logue turning down his invitation to the opening ceremony due to ‘a prior engagement’.35 For the opening ceremony, Craig drafted a speech that ‘greatly distressed’ the king. ‘He feels he is being made a mouthpiece of Ulster in the speech rather than that of the Empire.’36 The king felt that Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, and not Craig, should be responsible for the king’s speech; it was not up to Ulster to dictate the king’s utterances. The king’s speech was subsequently changed, partly written by Lloyd George and partly on the advice of Jan Smuts, South African Prime Minister. Smuts convinced King George V to use his speech as an olive branch to Sinn Féin, as the ‘establishment of the Northern Parliament definitely eliminates the coercion of Ulster’ and cleared the road ‘to deal on the most statesmanlike lines with the rest of Ireland’.37 In his pacifying speech, the king appealed ‘to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment, and goodwill’, paving the way for the truce between Sinn Féin and British forces weeks later.38

Notwithstanding the fanfare surrounding the occasion and the conciliatory speech delivered by the king, violence and the threat of it permeated the new jurisdiction. On the day of the ceremony itself, ‘there was enormous security, with armed policemen placed in commandeered houses along the route’.39 To mark the occasion, the IRA attacked ‘a troop train returning from the official opening of the Belfast Parliament’, derailing it ‘at Adavoyle on the Louth/Armagh border. Four men and eighty horses were killed.’40 The majority of the first cabinet meetings of the northern government were dominated with security issues. On 23 June, Nevil Macready and John Anderson were present to highlight measures being planned to curb Sinn Féin and the IRA, including ‘the establishment of Posts along the Border of Ulster, and the invention of a very strict Passport system,’ which, it was hoped, would ‘curtail Passenger Service to less than one-fourth of its present dimensions’ into Ireland.41 Before the truce of 11 July 1921, the British military had proposed that in southern Ireland, ‘all males between the ages of 16 and 50 will be required to provide themselves with Identification Cards. The Identification Card will include a Photograph of the Bearer.’42 The authorities believed the identification system would be ‘ineffective unless the Government of Northern Ireland will consent to establish a similar system along a belt on the frontier line, running from the Coast of County Down to the Sea Coast on the Southern Border of Donegal’.43 The northern government promised to assist the British authorities by

introducing a Passport system similar to that in the South, but so arranged that the facilities for obtaining Passports by all loyal persons in the North should be as easy as possible. It was agreed that Passport Offices would be necessary in Londonderry as well as Belfast, but that Newry might reasonably be restricted owing to its being really in the ‘disturbed’ area.44

Wickham, commissioner of the Specials, doubted the system would be effective given that there were ‘110 roads across the Southern frontier of Northern Ireland’ and that ‘Sinn Fein gangs’ would be able to ‘congregate North of the Belt and commit their atrocities’.45 With the truce of 11 July, the identification system was abandoned. Whilst hostilities ceased in the south, the birth of Northern Ireland in the summer of 1921 had witnessed another wave of intense sectarian violence engulfing Belfast, resulting in ‘the highest number of casualties since the shipyard expulsions of the previous summer’.46

After a RIC constable was killed in Belfast on 10 June, three Catholics were dragged from their homes the following night and shot dead as a reprisal. Two more Catholics were killed similarly after a ‘B’ Special was shot on 12 June. There was intense rioting in York Street, where 150 Catholic families were driven from their homes. Catholic families were forced to live in schools, halls and other makeshift accommodation. A bomb was thrown into the Catholic Dock Lane, killing one man and injuring twenty. Fourteen people were killed in Belfast in June 1921 – ten Catholics and four Protestants.47 On the eve of the truce, 10 July 1921, fourteen people were killed and over 150 Catholic homes burnt down. It became known as Belfast’s ‘Bloody Sunday’.48 The timing of the truce, 11 July, a day before the most testing day in Ulster, further inflamed the sectarian violence. As a result of the truce, the Specials were demobilised, and the IRA was officially recognised, a move vehemently opposed by the northern government:

the withdrawal of the protection hitherto afforded, by which peace was secured in this area, cannot be justified, in view of the occurrences during the past week, beginning with the murderous attack by Sinn Fein Gunmen on the Police in Belfast on Sunday last, and culminating in last night’s riots, when many persons were shot, including a young girl killed, and Mr. Grant, M.P. [Labour Member for Duncairn], and District-Inspector of Police wounded.49

There were many Specials to demobilise. According to Michael Farrell, by July 1921, there were 3,515 ‘A’ Specials, just under 16,000 ‘B’ Specials and 1,310 ‘C’ Specials.50 The truce, which by and large held in the south, was ‘not observed by either side in the north,’ according to IRA member Tom Fitzpatrick. Another IRA member, Roger McCorley, claimed that in Belfast, ‘the Truce itself lasted six hours only’.51 The truce saw the IRA gain new respect from the Catholic community and many new recruits, mockingly dubbed ‘Trucileers’ by IRA veterans.52 With the demobilisation of the Specials, loyalists joined the revived UVF and new vigilante groups such as the ‘Imperial Guards’ and ‘Cromwell Clubs’. They filled the void left by the Specials until full responsibility of policing was handed over to the northern government in November 1921.53 This move, on top of transferring other services at the same time, further increased the legitimacy of the northern jurisdiction, which beforehand was seen merely as a ‘glorified county council’.54 Patrick Buckland maintains that even with services transferred, the northern government was ‘given responsibility without real power’.55

When Northern Ireland came into being in the summer of 1921, the jurisdiction had very limited powers. In its first year of existence, Westminster controlled about 88 per cent of Northern Ireland’s revenue and 60 per cent of its expenditure.56 Its fiscal functions were extremely restricted, with Westminster reserving the power to levy income tax and customs and excise.57 On the same day that the northern government came into existence, 7 June, the Belfast Gazette was issued for the first time to publish government notices, announcing the specific functions of each government department ‘without prejudice to the powers and duties of existing departments and authorities pending the transfer of services’.58 The northern domain had come into existence, but it needed to be equipped with government services. The transfer of services was stalled due to only one of the Irish jurisdictions being operational under the Government of Ireland Act. The British government insisted that both Irish governments needed to be in place in order for this to happen, something that was acutely embarrassing for the northern government. It had no control over its policing or its laws.

With the creation of a border, there were numerous teething problems, many of a legal nature. Soon after Northern Ireland came into being, the Manorhamilton Board of Guardians in County Leitrim heard a case of a man in distress seeking relief. The man had recently received four shillings of relief money from Enniskillen, now part of a new jurisdiction.59 A Donegal man who was summoned to the Derry Petty Sessions Court for selling adulterated buttermilk claimed the Derry magistrates had no jurisdiction over Donegal. The case was adjourned.60 Two judges, one who was County Court judge for counties Armagh and Louth and the other who was County Court judge for counties Monaghan and Fermanagh, solved the problem caused by partition, with one taking on responsibility for the two counties in Northern Ireland and the other for counties Monaghan and Louth.61 The Law Society claimed that solicitors in Ireland now had to contend themselves with three legal systems instead of one, which had been the case for centuries.62

Samuel Watt, Permanent Secretary to the northern Ministry of Home Affairs, contended that by delaying the transfer of services, ‘the whole of the northern government will prove to be a farce, and that the northern parliament will be nothing more than a debating society, as it will not have the power to legislate on or discuss any matter arising out of the services to be transferred’.63 The northern House of Commons was adjourned for a lengthy period, from 24 June until 20 September 1921. A cabinet meeting beforehand believed ‘the Government would be in a very unsatisfactory position when Parliament met on September 20th, without any Financial powers, and with no Departments for the Ministers which had been set up’.64 On resuming in September, Craig and his government were inundated with questions regarding the delay in the transfer of services, particularly in relation to policing. At one session on 27 September, the Minister of Home Affairs, Dawson-Bates, was unable to satisfactorily answer questions relating to issues such as non-compliant county councils (Tyrone and Fermanagh), state grants, road maintenance and motor licenses due to the northern government still waiting to have control over the local government for the area.65 Craig stated:

my chief reason for asking for so prolonged an interval was that I hoped we would have been in a position to secure the transfer of various services under the Government of Ireland Act, that my Ministers would have their departments in thorough-going order, and that we could report, at all events, to the House, not necessarily the possibility of immediate legislation but at all events that the full machinery of Government was now in your hands, and that you would be able to proceed, as we have all been looking forward to, with the carrying out of the Act passed by the Imperial Parliament.66

One of the main reasons for the delay in the transfer of services was the changed situation in Ireland due to the truce with Sinn Féin. This led to a change in the prioritising of the Irish question for the British government. According to John McColgan, ‘in the summer of 1921 a new phase emerged in which the task of transferring full powers to the government of Northern Ireland was subordinated to the requirements of the larger Irish policy – the need to reach agreement with the South’.67 This was reflected in Dublin Castle’s tardiness in assisting Ernest Clark in establishing a civil service for Northern Ireland. Craig complained to Hamar Greenwood about the delay in the transfer of services and staff from Dublin Castle. There was also bad blood between Dublin Castle and Belfast, where ‘stories were circulating Dublin departments to the effect that the better posts in the prospective Northern administration were being reserved for certain officials in London and Dublin departments with influence in the North’. Clark countered by stating ‘that the various departments in Dublin are selecting their “duds” for submission to the civil service committee as suitable for transfer’.68 The northern government also expressed dissatisfaction with the civil service examinations being only held in Dublin and wanted a centre established in Belfast for the ‘forthcoming Typists’ Examination in September’.69

The role for Catholics in the northern civil service was uncertain from the start. At a cabinet meeting, the Ulster Ex-Service Association objected to the appointment of J.V. Coyle to the Department of Agriculture. Archdale, the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, stated that ‘Mr. Coyle was a Roman Catholic, a loyalist he had known for 20 years and he proposed to appoint him as his Head of one of his branches.’ At the same meeting, the government committed to ‘enrol members of all creeds in their Staff provided their loyalty was unquestioned’.70 However, when the British Treasury recommended H.P. Boland for appointment to a senior post in the new Northern Ireland civil service as an official with ‘a wide and varied experience of civil service administration … intimately concerned with the reorganisation of several large departments’, and who had ‘an exceptionable knowledge of the various problems of civil service organisation’, Boland, a Catholic, was turned down. The northern government responded with ‘Thank you very much, but no. I believe you know the reason why.’71 It was clear that very few Catholics would find a place in the new civil service.

By June 1921, Craig and his colleagues had achieved a number of key milestones that safeguarded their future by not being subservient to a Dublin parliament. The Government of Ireland Act was passed into law, elections were held in the six counties and a parliament had been convened. The machinery of government was taking shape without the transfer of services required to give it further structure. Despite these victories, the future of Northern Ireland as an entity in its original form was still uncertain. This became clear once the British government began its negotiations with Sinn Féin following the truce in July 1921.