Earl of Ulster

“ Ulster was known in ancient times as one of the five Irish 'kingdoms,' and remained unconquered by the English till the reign of James I., when the last prince of the great house of O'Neill, then Earl of Tyrone, fled to the Continent in company with O'Donel, Earl of Tyrconnel, head of another very ancient sept. Up to that period the men of Ulster proudly regarded themselves as 'Irish of the Irish and Catholic of the Catholics.' The inhabitants were of mixed blood, but, as in the other provinces of the island, the great mass of the people, as well as the ruling classes, were of Celtic origin. ”

“ Ulster had not been bled white like the rest of Ireland. The O’Neills had a nephew of their old hero Shan for their chief, who had been brought up at the English Court and made Earl of Tyrone by Elizabeth. An educated and remarkably able man, he had none of his uncle’s illusions. He clung to his ancestral rights and dignity, but he hoped to preserve them by zealously discharging his obligations as a vassal of the Queen. He served in the war against Desmond, and exerted himself to maintain order in Ulster. ”

“ They burned churches and abbeys, with the people whom they found in the same, sparing neither man, woman, nor child. Then was the Lord Butler chosen Lord Justice, who made the Earl of Ulster and the Geraldines friends, and reconciled himself with Sir John Mandeville, thus seeking to preserve the residue of the realm which Edward Bruce meant wholly to conquer, having caused himself to be crowned King of Ireland.'
"Dundalk was heretofore the stronghold of the English power, and the head-quarters of the army for the defence of the Pale. ”

“ While we frequently feel indignant at the tone they take towards the "Irish enemy" in their despatches to London—the pretended enemies being at that very time their confidants and allies—on farther reflection we feel disposed to make some allowance on the score of circumstance and necessity, for a duplicity which, in the end, brought about, as duplicity in public affairs ever does, its own punishment.
In Ulster as well as in Leinster, the ascendency of the Earl of Kildare over the native population was widespread and long sustained. ”

“ Nevertheless, such speeches as those of the Archbishop of York, Earl Grey, the Duke of Devonshire, and Lord Londonderry, were not without effect on opinion outside. Earl Grey, an admitted authority on federal constitutions, urged that if, as the Government were continually assuring the country, Home Rule was the first step in the federalisation of the United Kingdom, there was every reason why Ulster should be a distinct unit in the federal system. ”

“ The generally disturbed state of Ulster, the threatened combination between Shane O'Neill and the Scots, the escape of Brien O'Conor from Dublin Castle, the uncertain attitude of the Earl of Kildare, the return of Teige and Donough O'Brien, and the defeat recently inflicted by them, with the assistance of the Earl of Desmond, on Conor at Spancel Hill, led people to anticipate a universal insurrection of the Irish. ”

“ But all that mountainous headland is inhabited by folk who still keep the Gaelic speech alive among them, and whose remote forbears owned in far distant times the overlordship of Ireland's most famous champion, when Ulster had a pagan chivalry, the Red Branch Circle, which is to Irish legend what the story of Arthur's knighthood is to British romance, or the tale of the Nibelungs to Germany. ”

“ Indeed, to those who set out to judge Irish political conditions without troubling themselves about anything more ancient than their own memory can recall, the most fundamental factor of all—the line of cleavage between Ulster and the rest of the island—- is more than unintelligible. ”

“ Dense crowds cheering and shouting, and waving hats and handkerchiefs, occupied every coign of vantage, and though the Queen had only four hours to spend in the city, she contrived, under competent guidance, to see many of the more interesting places and institutions which illustrate the strong character of the mixed race whose energy, ability, pertinacity, and industry have made Ulster, with her unkindly soil and climate, the richest province in Ireland. ”

“ No people more ardently shared the touchingly expressed desire of the King that his coming to Ireland might "prove to be the first step towards an end of strife amongst her people, whatever their race or creed." So, too, when His Majesty told the Ulster Parliament that he "felt assured they would do their utmost to make it an instrument of happiness and good government for all parts of the community which they represented," the Ulster people believed that the King's confidence in them would not prove to have been misplaced. ”

“ When Owen Roe O’Neill died the Irish nation was, in the words of Davis, “sheep without a shepherd when the snow shuts out the sky” and the flight of the Earls was the sign that the resistance of Ireland was over with the resistance of Ulster. In later times and under changed conditions Ulster retained the prerogative of leadership. The Volunteers who forced the Constitution of 1782 were largely Ulstermen; the leaders of the United Irishmen were to be found in Ulster and the compact of their Union was sealed on the mountain that rises above Belfast. ”

“ I have [pg viii] striven also to make it clear that the Nationalists of to-day are not the representatives of the leaders of that Parliament but of the party which fought against it and brought on the horrors of the Rebellion; that the Union was a political necessity, if the connection between the British Islands was to be maintained at all; and that if the people of Ireland have not derived all the benefits from the Union which they might have done, it is their own fault, as the history of Ulster during the last century has shown. ”

“ It is folly to put the blame on the Nationalists alone, or on the Ulstermen alone. The conditions do not mix. They are antagonistic.
And, though the ideals of Ulster are not the ideals of the rest of Ireland, must Ulster be punished for her ideals? Ulster asks the privilege of being loyal to Britain. Must she then be punished for her {254} loyalty and punished by Britain? That is a question which Americans who are so frequently called upon to interfere in the Irish question never ask themselves, because it is never presented to them. ”

“ Give us a kingdom for ourselves and our posterity. It shall be so, said the king. What part of Ireland will you give us? said they. The Ulstermen, said the king, have ever been hostile towards me and towards our fathers. Go and conquer their kingdom, and it shall be yours.
The Collas then went to Connacht, which was still the homeland of the new Tara dynasty, raised an army there, invaded Ulster, were victorious, and captured the Ulster capital. The conquered territory comprised the present counties of Armagh, Monaghan, Tyrone, and the greater part of Fermanagh and Derry. ”

“ And at the last the King stood up and cried, “True is the message that the head has brought. Ulster lies bound before her enemies, while we rust here in sleep. By all the gods my nation loves, I swear, unless the stars of heaven shall fall upon our heads, or the strong solid earth give way beneath our feet, I and my chiefs will restore each captive woman to her child [150] and home, each cow to her own meadow, and each stolen piece of land to its own lords, so that in shame with heavy loss the foes of Ulster shall return to their own country.” ”

“ You are not even accurate in your history when you speak of Ulster's traditions and the blood our forefathers spilt. Over a century ago Ulster was the strong and fast place of rebellion, and it was in Ulster that the Volunteers stood beside their cannon and wrung the gift of political freedom for the Irish Parliament. ”

“ Between the establishment of the Connacht dynasty in East Meath and in Tara, the ancient seat of the North Leinster kings, and the overthrow of the Ulster kingdom, there is a period of more than half a century, during which the Ulster power stood at bay. Of this state of things we have a very remarkable record, not written on paper, but graven on the face of the country. The Ulster kings endeavoured to defend themselves against further aggression by fortifying their entire frontier except where it was already protected by strong natural obstacles such as lakes, forests or broad rivers. ”

“ What England would not do for the South in 1862, we now do against England our ally, against Ulster, our friend in our Revolution, and in support of England’s enemies, Sinn Fein and Germany.
Ireland has less than 4,500,000 inhabitants; Ulster’s share is about one third, and its Protestants outnumber its Catholics by more than three fourths. Besides such reprisals as they saw wrought upon wounded soldiers, they know that the Green Irish who insist that Ulster belong to their Republic, do so because they plan to make prosperous and thrifty Ulster their milch cow. ”

“ So far from Irish Nationalists wishing to oppress Ulster, I believe that there is hardly any demand which could be made, even involving democratic injustice to themselves, which would not willingly be granted if their Ulster compatriots would fling their lot in with the rest of Ireland and heal the eternal sore. I ask Ulster what is there that they could not do as efficiently in an Ireland with the status and economic power of a self-governing dominion as they do at present. ”

“ Among chariot-chiefs and champions, among poets and learned men, among the lords and nobles of Ulster, have I been reared, and they have taught me courage and skill and manly gifts. In birth and bravery I am a match for any chariot-chief; I direct the counsels of Ulster, and at my own fort at Dun Dalgan they come to me for entertainment. Not as one of the common herd do I stand before thee here to-day, but as the favourite of the King and the darling of all the warriors of Ulster. ”

“ Nay, Ulster, you, for very shame
Should cede your long monopoly of that name.
Loyal—to whom—to what? To power, to pelf,
To place, to privilege, in a word, to self.
They who assume, absorb, control, enjoy all,
Must find it vastly pleasant to be "loyal."
Lord Randolph Churchill's famous jingle: "Ulster will fight. Ulster will be right," inspired a prophetic forecast of the result of such action, in which Ulster does fight and is defeated ”

“ Of Ireland's luck and leave the shamrock broken
Of one green leaf, when four brought joy upon it,
As Ulster lost—from Munster, Leinster, Connacht.
But Ulster lost with each green sod still crying
For those dear dead who left us dreams undying
Of Ireland's needs, O'Neill whose heart took fire
And joined the sacred flames of Hugh Maguire.
Shall we not cry “Lamh Dearg abu” and glory
In Cromwell's fall, in reading Clonmel's story,
Or by the “Yellow Ford” who cheered most loudly
As hand from hand we passed the same flag proudly? ”

“ In November, 1772, the Lord Lieutenant proclaimed a pardon to “the wicked and dangerous insurgents who in July, 1770, assembled themselves in arms in large numbers in the counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Derry, and Tyrone.” It was too late.
The Belfast “News Letter” of the 16th April, 1773, computed that “within forty years past 400,000 people have left this kingdom to go and settle in America.” In the three years from 1771 to 1773 alone, 101 ships left Ulster ports, carrying over 30,000 emigrants. ”

“ At all events, the autumn produced more than the usual plethora of political meetings addressed by "front bench" politicians on both sides, each answering each like an antiphonal choir; scraps of olive-branch were timidly held out, only to be snatched back next day in panic lest someone had blundered in saying too much; while day by day a clamorous Liberal Press, to whom Ulster's loyalty to King and Empire was an unforgivable offence, alternated between execration of Ulster wickedness and affected ridicule of Ulster bluff. ”

“ As for the King himself, his mind was so confused with the magic sleep in which he had lain, that he remembered not the dead from the living, but stood, calling on the dead to come to his aid, as though they had been yet alive.
Throughout all the land he sent heralds to call together his men-at-arms; and with one heart and mind the men of Ulster responded to his call. Troop on troop they flocked to Emain, from North and West and East, each mighty leader surrounded by his host clad in the kilt and colours of his clan. ”

“ During the five years preceding the Revolutionary War more than thirty thousand Ulstermen crossed the ocean and arrived in America just in time and in just the right frame of mind to return King George's compliment in kind, by helping to deprive him of his American estates, a domain very much larger than the acres of Ulster. ”

“ The virtues of Ulster are economy and industry and determination. They have an unreasoning decision, a blind enthusiasm, in political and religious matters that carries them along in a way that will never be copied by the more thoughtful and more depressed Southern. ”

“ Others who took part—in addition to local men like Mr. Thomas Sinclair and Mr. John Young, whose high character always made their appearance on political platforms of value to the cause they supported—were Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Salisbury, Mr. James Campbell, Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord Willoughby de Broke, and Mr. Harold Smith; while the Marquis of Hamilton and Lord Castlereagh, by the part which they took in the programme, showed their desire to carry on the traditions which identified the two leading Ulster families with loyalist principles. ”

“ But I do desire to assert that, in my humble opinion, it is the Scotch, or alien population of Ireland, which has been at the root of Ireland’s principal troubles throughout the past century. Ulster may be a fine kingdom, the wealthiest, most industrious, and the wisest and happiest in the country, if you like. Yet it is Ulster that bars the way in all matters that make for the real good of Ireland. ”