- I do face the difficulty
really facing anyone on this side of the Irish Sea that Britain has never been comfortable, I think governing Ireland
or any part of Ireland. And in 1886, Gladstone, the great liberal Prime Minister said that the long vexed and troubled relations between Great Britain and
Ireland exhibit to us the one and only conspicuous failure of the political genius of our race to confront and master difficulty and obtain in a reasonable
degree the main ends of civilized life. And secondly, I think there's a feeling that the British have
never understood Ireland. In 1912, an Irishman wrote
to the "Manchester Guardian," as the "Guardian" then was, claiming that 99
Englishmen out of a hundred knew nothing about Ireland, and that to the average Englishman, Ireland means a troublesome
island somewhere in the Atlantic where the natives run
half naked over bogs, flourishing shillelaghs, whilst behind them all lurks
a mysterious conspirator known as the priest. I hasten to say this
has never been my view. Now Ireland was joined to the rest of the United Kingdom in 1801 after Acts of Union passed by the British and Irish parliament. The Act was carried in the Irish
parliament by corrupt means and in virtue of a promise
of Catholic emancipation, a promise not honored till 1829. And the union never achieved
general acceptance in Ireland. The Catholic population
of Ireland regarded itself as belonging to a concord and stigmatized people ruled by coercion, especially after the famine of the 1840s in which a million died and
another million emigrated. Ireland lost in total around
a quarter of her population. And the arrangements for governing Ireland were quite different from those in any other
part of the kingdom. Because although Ireland
sent MPs to Westminster, her executive and
administration were in Dublin. The head of the executive was the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in effect the Secretary
of State for Ireland. And he was usually a member
of the British cabinet. He tended to spend nine months
of every year in London. And after 1871, no Irishman
by birth was appointed and some were total
strangers to the country. Ireland was administered by boards with members nominated
by the chief secretary, almost always belonging to the Unionist and Protestant ascendancy. Arrangements for preserving law and order were also quite different from those in the rest of the country. The Royal Irish Constabulary, by contrast with police forces elsewhere, was a national and centralized force used for internal security and
seen by many Catholics as in effect an army of occupation because most of its offices belonged to the Protestant minority. For almost the whole of the 19th century, Ireland was governed by
special coercive legislation, which had no counterpart in
the rest of the United Kingdom. And the Crimes Act of 1887
allowed the lord left tenant to prohibit organizations
he thought dangerous and to allow offenses of agrarian violence to be tried by a
magistrate without a jury. And that act remained on the Statute Book until Irish independence in 1922. So the government of
Ireland was in form free, but in reality autocratic. The Catholic majority, although represented
through MPs in the Commons, played hardly any role in governing or administering the country. Ireland, by contrast
with Scotland and Wales, was not integrated with the
rest of the United Kingdom. Now in 1885, the Third
Reform Act extended the vote to agricultural workers, giving Ireland, for the first
time, a popular franchise. And when the legislation
was being prepared, the home secretary of the
liberal government said, "There would be declared
to the rest of the world in larger print what we
all know to be the case, that we hold Ireland by
force and by force alone, as in the days of Cromwell. Only, we are obliged to hold
it by a force 10 times larger than he found necessary. We have never governed and
we never shall govern Ireland by the good of its people." And after 1885, nearly every Irish constituency
outside Ulster returned to the Commons a member of
the Irish Parliamentary Party, a party whose main policy was home rule, what would now be called devolution, giving Ireland responsibility
for her domestic affairs, while leaving foreign policy defense, economic policy and social
security with Westminster. Now until 1914, the Irish Party always won at least 81 of the 103
Irish constituencies and won almost every constituency outside the province of Ulster. So what was the Irish question? It's become a rather tired joke. As soon as the English thought they had answered the question, the Irish changed the question. But in reality the question
hardly changed at all, though it had two parts to it. The first part of the question asked whether a liberal society had the right to rule an unwilling geographically
concentrated minority through a form of
government that it rejected. Ireland was, as we've seen,
governed by those opposed by the majority of her representatives. And whether liberals or conservatives were in power in London, the chief secretary and
the Irish administration were in the hands of a party which had only minority
support in Ireland. Irish representatives, unless they belonged to the
minority Unionist community, played no part in the
government of their country. The constitutional implication of the Anglo Irish Union of 1800 had been the legal equality of Ireland with the rest of the kingdom. But to most in Ireland, the relationship seemed
one of subordination. Ireland seemed a
dependency, not a partner. John Morley, a leading liberal and a former chief Secretary
of Ireland said in 1902 that the government of
Ireland was, and I quote, "A very good machine
for governing a country against its own consent." And Ireland was ruled not by consent, but by a mixture of
paternalism and coercion. Now from 1886, the liberal answer to the Irish question was
home rule or devolution. But a bill of 1886 was defeated
in the House of Commons, 93 liberals refusing to support it. A second bill in 1893 passed the Commons, but was defeated in the Lords. In 1912, the Asquith liberal government introduced a third bill, and by then the absolute veto of the House of Lords had been removed. The Lords could do no more
than delay legislation for two parliamentary sessions. So home rule would become law in 1914. Now, home rule, the liberals hoped, would transform Irish
attitudes towards the union, which would then become,
in Gladstone's words, "A union of hearts." But many otherwise liberal people, liberally minded people
were opposed to home rule since they believed that even
though tainted by corruption, the union with Ireland
was the consummation of a long historical process uniting the British Isles
under one parliament. Many remembered the American
Civil War from the 1860s in which the South had seceded, but had been forcibly reunited with the rest of the United States. Gladstone, the liberal prime minister who first formulated home rule proposals, had actually supported the
right of the South to secede. But Joseph Chamberlain, a liberal Unionist who opposed home rule, was on the side of the North, and many liberal minded
people agreed with him. Germany and Italy had also
been reunited by force, and many liberal minded
people had little sympathy with those who might want
to break up those countries. Now, opponents of home
rule believed it was but an unstable halfway house, a slippery slope to independence, which in the 19th century, both liberals and conservatives opposed. Liberals saw home rule as
preventing independence, not as a means towards it. But a Dublin parliament Unionist argued, would provide an additional
forum for Irish nationalists. Inadequacies in the government or administration of Ireland
would always be attributed to the British government's failure to provide sufficient funds or concede sufficient powers
to the Irish parliament, and the Dublin parliament
would give nationalists greater leverage to propose and agitate. Moreover, home rule would not be accepted by Irish nationalists
as a final settlement, despite what they said. Their ultimate, albeit unspoken objective, critics suggested, was not a mere revision of
the legislative relationship, but independence. And speaking at Cork in 1885, a nationalist leader Charles
Stewart Parnell said, "No man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a notion. No man has the right to say to his country thus far shalt thou go and no further." An independent Ireland
would, so many believed, constitute danger to Britain as a hostile base for enemy troops, as it had been during
the Rebellion of 1798 when part of the country had
been occupied by French troops. Whether opponents of home rule were right that it would've led to
Irish independence can of course never been known. The same argument that devolution
is a mere halfway house towards independence is currently
being tested in Scotland. But in Scotland the jury is still out. We don't yet know. Opponents of home rule
believed it would lead, not only to the disintegration
of the United Kingdom, but also the disintegration of the empire. "If Ireland goes," Lord Salisbury, the late 19th century
conservative prime minister said, "India will go 50 years later." Now in fact, India became
independent in 1947, just 25 years after Ireland
became independent in 1922. Both were to be partitioned and arguably had been held
together only by British rule. So the first part of
the Irish question asks, how is Ireland to be
governed in a liberal polity? But there's a second part of the question, occasioned by the presence of
a large Protestant minority amounting to just over a
quarter of the population. Now in most of Ireland, the Protestants were a scattered minority. But in the province of Ulster, which constituted nine counties, as you can see on the map, they were a majority of around 56%. In three of the counties of Ulster, Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan, which are now part of independent Ireland, they were a distinct minority comprising between a fifth and
a quarter of the population. In Fermanagh and Tyrone, the Protestants were a
more substantial minority, comprising around 45% of the population. But in the remaining four counties, Antrim, Armagh, Down and Londonderry, they were in the majority. And in Antrim and Down,
and overwhelming majority. Now, nationalists tended to believe that the Protestant minority
had been planted there by James I in the early 17th century to subjugate the Catholics and were therefore an
alien element in Ireland. But Unionists argued
there had been an English and Scottish presence in Ulster
well before the 17th century and before the Reformation. Indeed there had, they insisted, been a Scottish presence in
Ulster from earliest times, and immigration from Scotland
had been fairly continuous as centuries before 1609. Nor had the plantation in the 17th century covered
the whole of Ulster, since three of its counties,
Antrim, Down and Monaghan, which is now in Ireland, had not been plantation counties at all. But the Protestant population had come to occupy the more fertile areas, and the Catholics, the less fertile areas. And the Protestants had
come to assume the character of a dominant minority
enjoying monopoly of power. The Ulster Protestants
felt their main links to be with Scotland and the
rest of the United Kingdom, rather than with the Catholic
population of Ireland, from whom they felt separate,
not only in religion, but also in nationality and ethnicity. And unlike the majority in Ireland, they accepted the premise on which the act of union had been based, as an expression of a
single British nationhood. Now, while in the rest of Ireland, the Protestant population
was largely concentrated amongst the better off, in Ulster it embraced every social class. Now in the 19th century, differences between Ulster and the rest of Ireland were accentuated as Belfast became an industrial city. While in agriculture, there was a different system
of land tenure in Ulster from that pervading in other provinces. Now, from the end of the 18th century, the rise of Irish nationalism and the growth of a modern sense of Irish identity
exacerbated the conflict. And although some Irish
nationalist leaders, for example, Parnell himself, were Protestants, Irish nationalism came to be identified with the Catholic majority. And by 1886, the terms
Catholic and Nationalist and Protestant and Unionist had become largely interchangeable. And it's this super imposition of a nationalist conflict
upon a religious one which explains the persistence and depth of the Irish problem. So the conflict between
the two communities in Ireland had deep historical roots. In 1918, Lloyd George was to declare that what had begun as a family quarrel had degenerated into a blood feud. The Protestants were determined to resist submission
to a Dublin parliament, which entailed rule by men
they regarded as disloyal, a view intensified when nationalist MPs
cheered enemy victories in the Borough War. Protestants also believe that a nationalist
government would be corrupt and priest ridden. "Home rule," they said,
"would mean Rome rule." And Ulster Unionists regarded home rule as being tantamount to
expulsion from United Kingdom. They were not mollified by being told that home rule
was not the same as separation. And 21st century experience
with Scotland may show that they were right. It is too early to tell. Now the scattered Protestant
minority outside Ulster comprising largely the
middle and upper classes would find it difficult
to resist home rule. But in Ulster where
opposition to home rule came from every section of society, Unionists could certainly resist by force. But the basic aim of Unionists
was not to secure partition, but to defeat home rule. If Ulster succeeds the Unionist leaders that Edward Carson declared in 1911, the home rule is dead. And it's rather ironic that his statue is outside the
Northern Ireland parliament at Stormont because he was
strongly against partition. He was an Irish Unionist who believed that religious antagonisms
would be less strong in a United Kingdom. Whereas for example, Catholics and Protestants
disagreed with each other strongly in Glasgow or in Liverpool, the disagreements wouldn't
be as fierce as they would be in an independent Ireland. Now, Unionists believed that without industrial
Ireland centered on Belfast, an Irish parliament would not be viable, and so home rule would not be viable. But once it became clear that the southern Unionists
could not prevent home rule, Unionists were determined to
save Ulster from the wreckage. And partition, which began as
a tactic to defeat home rule, was to become for Unionists
a compromised solution. Very much a second best. The first best was keeping Ireland within the United Kingdom. Now to many on this side of the Irish Sea, Ulster seemed to have right on her side. The case for home rule, after all, was based upon self-determination. But did not Ulster also have
a right to self-determination? Ireland, after all, contained one 15th of
the British population, Ulster one quarter of
the Irish population. The Irish nationalist
said they did not want to be ruled by Westminster. The Ulster Protestants
said they did not wish to be ruled by Dublin. Now the appeal of Irish, of Ulster Unionists
was a very powerful one at a time when British identity was still to a large extent defined by religion because Britain before 1914
was a Protestant country, while Catholics still
faced a considerable degree of social discrimination. Religion then was much more important in defining British
identity than it is now. Now the Irish nationalist said they did not regard themselves
as British, but as Irish, and their Irish identity
was, they believed, incompatible withdrawal from Westminster. The Ulster Protestants
replied they were British. The nationalist insisted that Ireland was a unity
comprising a single nation. Ireland being an island must, they argued, remain under a single unit of government. But that view, Unionists argued, ignored the realities of ethnicity, religion and nationality. Now for one point of view, the Ulster argument was stronger than that of the
nationalists because Ulster, unlike the nationalists, was not asking for privilege, the privilege of a separate legislature within the United Kingdom. All they were arguing
for was the maintenance of their existing constitutional position as citizens and taxpayers
of the United Kingdom. Now in 1886, Joseph Chamberlain,
the liberal Unionist, insisted that Ireland
consists of two nations. But for an Ulster Unionist, Ulster could not by definition
be a separate nation. The essence of unionism
was that Ulster was part of the British nation. So Ulster did not seek a home
rule Parliament of her own. What she wanted was continued
rule from Westminster as part of the United Kingdom. In the words of the Ulster
Solemn League and Covenant, signed in 1912, Unionists sought, and I quote, "To preserve for ourselves
and our children, our cherished position
of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom." The nationalist claim
was based on nationhood, the Unionist claim on citizenship. Now, while the Unionists
neither understood, nor sympathized with
the nationalist claim, few liberals understood, or sympathized with the Unionist claim, nor did they understand the
strength of Ulster's case. Many liberals regarded Ulster Unionists as a disaffected minority within Ireland and were prepared to offer extensive
guarantees of minority rights in the home rule constitution. But the Ulster Unionist
did not regard themselves as a minority in Ireland, but as part of the majority
within the United Kingdom. They were not therefore to be conciliated by minority guarantees, however generous. They would not under any circumstances accept rule from Dublin. What then would happen in Ulster when home rule reached the Statute Book? Could she resist home rule? The Ulster questions seemed to raise for many fundamental questions of identity and allegiance, lying beyond the to and
fro of electoral politics. The majority in Westminster had no right, Unionists believed, to
extrude a part of the country against its wishes, and Ulster had an absolute right to remain in the United Kingdom for as long as its people wished. Were that right to be threatened, Unionists believed that
Ulster had every right to disobey the law since the contract binding them to government
had been broken. Their loyalty was contractual
rather than unconditional. It depended upon the British government respecting their constitutional position. Now, Ulster's stance
was strongly supported by many Ireland army officers, a number of whom came
from Anglo Irish families and were steeped in the history
of the American Civil War, which was part of the
syllabus at Sandhurst. And indeed Ulster
Unionists were accustomed to assume the mantle of Abraham Lincoln, especially since July, 1913
marked the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Home rulers, on the other hand, were seen as rather like the secessionist in the American Civil War. Now in July, 1912, the conservative leader
Andrew Bonar Law declared at a rally in Oxfordshire, "They the liberals may perhaps
carry their home rule bill through the House of Commons. But what then? I said the other day
there are stronger things than parliamentary majorities." And he ended his speech
with fighting words. He said, "I can imagine
no length of resistance to which Ulster can go in which I should not be
prepared to support them, and in which in my belief
they would not be supported by the overwhelming majority
of the British people." And this and other speeches were thought by supporters of home
rule to be outrageous. And indeed Bonar Law as
lead of the opposition was suggesting it was permissible to resist an act of parliament by force. He insisted what he was
saying was little different from what had been said before and indeed in line with the Whig doctrine of
resistance to oppression. Bonar Law used the
analogy of 1689, asking, "How can the descendants of those who resisted King James II
say they have not a right if they think fit to resist the imposition of a government put upon them by force?" Even further, he was to declare that not only would the Army refuse to obey orders to march against Ulster, but he would encourage
them in this course. In November, 1913, speaking in Dublin, he repeated the analogy with 1689, declaring that James II had
behind him the letter of the law just as completely as Mr. Asquith has now. In order to carry out
his despotic intention, the king had the largest army which had ever been seen in England. What happened? There was no civil war. Why? Because his own army
refused to fight for him. And these were not idle threats. Even before the Home Rule Bill had been introduced in the Commons, Sir Edward Carson told Ulster Protestants to be prepared the
morning home rule passes to become responsible for the government of the
Protestant province of Ulster. The people of Ulster, Bonar Law told the prime
minister in July, 1914, knew they had a force
which would enable them to hold the province. And with opinion divided in this country, that is the rest of Britain, it was quite impossible that any force could be sent against them that would dislodge them. Therefore, they knew that they
could get their own terms, and it was certain they would
rather fight than give way. In other words, Ulster would
unilaterally declare separation from the Irish parliament once home rule was on the Statute Book. Now if Ulster was determined
to resist home rule by force, the British government
could only include them in a home rule bill by an
even greater display of force, which would require use of the army. And this raised a number of questions. The first was whether the army, some of whose senior officers were themselves Irish Protestants, would observe orders to coerce Ulster into a Dublin parliament. The second was whether the
British people would be prepared to support coercing Ulster. The third and perhaps
most important question was how Ulster could be permanently held under a Dublin parliament
against its wishes. The answer could only be by British armed forces subduing her and turning her into a conquered province, while a home rule parliament was being established in Dublin. And then once that parliament
had been established, the Protestants of Ulster
would somehow accept home rule so that the troops could be withdrawn. Now, one only has to
state such an assumption to appreciate how absurd it was. So from the beginning, the liberal government appreciated that it might well have to exclude Ulster from the Home Rule Bill. But exclusion did not,
liberals then believe, implied permanent partition. Of the four dominions then in existence, only New Zealand had not been partitioned. The others, Canada, Australia, and South Africa had all
begun with partition, but were now unified, but unified by consent
rather than by force. But exclusion raised a difficult question. What was Ulster? What counties should in fact be excluded? Now in March, 1914, Asquith, the liberal prime
minister, suggested a compromise. He proposed that on the petition of 1/10th of the electorate, any county in Ulster could choose to vote itself out of
a home rule parliament for a period of six years. After that period had ended, it would automatically be included, unless Westminster decided otherwise. Since there would be two general elections during that six-year period, it was open to British electors to decide if they wished to alter
these arrangements. Now the practical
consequence of that would be that just four counties, Antrim, Armagh, Down and
Londonderry would be excluded. But the Unionists demanded
more than the four counties, and Carson rejected
Asquith's compromise saying, "We do not want sentence of death with a stay of execution for six years." Unionists objected to the fact that after the six-year period, Ulster would be compelled to
enter a home rule parliament. They insisted Ulster could
enter such a parliament only on the basis of consent. Under Asquith's proposal, the British voter would
be required to consent in the two general elections
during the six-year period, but Ulster's consent would not be needed. So there seemed to be a deadlock and a real threat of civil war. And at this stage, Winston Churchill, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty in the liberal government,
added fuel to the flames. And in a speech which he thought
himself was conciliatory, actually contributed to
the danger of violence. In March, 1914, he said, "If Ulster seeks peace and
fair play, she can find it. She knows where to find it." That was the conciliatory
part of his speech, but it was drowned out by
the confrontational part, which as so often with Churchill, was the more memorable. "The government's offer
was," he said, "it's last. I do not say in detail, but in principle, rebellion or disaffection in
Ulster will be firmly put down. Were the Unionists to persist in rejecting the government's
offer," Churchill went on, "This would show that they
prefer shooting to voting. They would rather use the
bullets than the ballot." He then attacked the conservatives. "There is no measure of military force which the Tory Party
will not readily employ. They denounce all
violence except their own. They uphold all law except
the law they choose to break. They always welcome the
application of force to others, but they themselves are to remain immune. They are to select from the Statute Book, the laws they will obey and the laws they will resist." He ended with a magnificent peroration. He said, "If there is no wish for peace, if every concession that is
made is spurned and exploited, if every effort to meet their
views is only to be used as a means of breaking down home rule and of barring the way
to the rest of Ireland, if Ulster is to become a
tool in party calculation, if the civil and parliamentary systems under which we have dwelt and our fathers before
us for so many years are to be brought to the
crude challenge of force, if the government and the
parliament of this great country and greater empire is to be
exposed to menace and brutality, if all the loose wanton and reckless chatter we have
been forced to listen to all these many months is in the end to disclose a sinister
and revolutionary purpose, then gentlemen," he concluded, "I can say to you, let
us go forward together and put these grave matters to the proof." Now, never one to waste a good phrase, Churchill was to repeat this last sentence in his challenge to
Hitler in January, 1940. Now, this speech won in great
popularity among liberals, but it inflamed the Unionists
who were led to believe that the government was about
to embark on drastic measures by arresting Carson and
other Unionist leaders and overhauling Ulster through
a display of military force. And it then rapidly became clear that senior army officers
would not take part in any coercion of Ulster. To try to achieve a settlement, King George V called a
conference at Buckingham Palace in June, 1914. The issues had, it seemed, been narrowed to matters
relating to exclusion, the length of time for which
Ulster was to be excluded and the area to be excluded. The conference first considered
the area to be excluded, but it never managed to consider the length
of time of exclusion, since it rapidly became deadlocked on the question of the
area to be excluded. Nationalists insisted on a vote by county, which would mean that just four
counties would be excluded. Unionists insisted on a clean
cut of the whole province, that is nine counties, three
of which are now in Ireland. The conference then
considered dividing Ulster, but it came to be deadlocked on Tyrone. John Redmond, the nationalist leader, said he could never agree to Tyrone being excluded from home rule. Carson, the Unionist leader, insisted he could never agree to Tyrone being included in home rule. There was a similar
deadlock over Fermanagh. Carson then proposed six-county exclusion so that both Tyrone and
Fermanagh would be excluded from home rule. But that too was unacceptable
for nationalists. This was in fact the first
time for the six-county Ulster, the current Northern Ireland, was suggested as a proper
unit for exclusion. In an attempt to break the deadlock, Asquith with great diffidence said that if the conference could agree on everything except Tyrone, some impartial authority might be selected who would undertake the task
of fairly dividing Tyrone. That too was rejected both by
nationalists and by Unionists. The conference broke down. It had not even discussed time limit. On the day before the conference ended, Asquith wrote a very revealing letter to his girlfriend, Venetia Stanley, of what he said was that
most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity
of man, the county of Tyrone. The extraordinary
feature of the discussion was the complete agreement in principle of Redmond and Carson. Each said, "I must have
the whole of Tyrone or die, but I quite understand
why you say the same." The speaker who incarnates bluff
unimaginative English sense of course cut in. When each of two people say
they must have the whole, why not cut it in half? They would neither of them
look at such a suggestion. Nothing could have been
more amicable in tone or more desperately fruitless in result. "Aren't they a remarkable
people," Asquith said, "and the folly of thinking
that we can ever understand, let alone govern them." Now after the conference, Asquith made a further concession, saying if county option was agreed, he was prepared to allow
continued exclusion after six years of significant concession. The Home Rule Bill became law on the 15th of September, 1914, six weeks after the First
World War had begun. But its operation was to be suspended until the end of the war. And Asquith promised he would
reintroduce an amending bill in the next parliamentary session before home rule came into effect, so that it could be modified
with general consent, and Ulster, however
defined, could be excluded. He insisted it would be
absolutely unthinkable amidst this great
patriotic spirit of union to use force, any kind of force, for what you call a coercion of Ulster. But what was to count as
Ulster was still not defined. Now, many historians believe that Britain was near to
civil war in 1914 over Ulster. And in my book I explain why
I do not share that view. There was certainly a threat
of armed revolt from Ulster, but Ulster posed a threat of civil war only if she could command support from this side of the Irish Sea. And by 1914, that was becoming doubtful. Conservatives were being
increasingly worried as to the international
implications of the Ulster conflict and fearful that enemy powers
might take advantage of it. The conservatives would not
have pressed their Ulster policy were it of damage of
the unity of the country in the face of a hostile Germany. They were aware that precipitated action would lose the support of
public opinion in Britain. But in any case, what would
Ulster be rebelling against? By August, 1914, her right to exclusion had
been accepted by liberals and also, though
unwillingly, by nationalists. Ulster's important concession that there would be exclusion
on the basis of county option without time limit gave the Unionists much of what they were fighting for. There was admittedly no agreement on the area to be excluded, but as Lloyd George was later to put it, men would die for the empire, but not for Tyrone and Fermanagh. There would no doubt have been
riots and fighting in Ulster and perhaps elsewhere in Ireland, and the borders of the excluded area might well have been
eventually determined by force, but the fighting would
probably not have spread to this side of the Irish Sea. The Ulster Unionist, to be successful, would've needed wide
support outside Ireland. And the public on this side of the Irish
Sea would've asked itself why there should be a battle for something that had already been
in principle conceded. Unionists outside Ireland would not have supported armed rebellion against an act of parliament, which was giving Ulster
much of what it sought, and the public would not
have supported either. It was therefore not
clear who would fight who in a civil war in Britain, nor what they would be fighting about. Liberals and conservatives were in fact much closer in Irish matters than others were prepared to admit. At the outbreak of war, home rule, on the basis of partition, appeared a fait accompli. And perhaps a Dublin parliament, which would follow as Redmond hoped, conciliatory and consensual
policies would not in the end have appeared as dangerous to the Protestant population
of Ulster as had been believed, in which case Ireland
could have been reunited just as Canada and Australia and South Africa had been reunited after initially being partitioned. Carson, the Unionist leader, certainly hoped this would prove the case. He was, as I've said, an Irish Unionist who hoped
to avoid home rule entirely. He saw home rule as a second best, but partition as a third best. And he hoped that home rule could, with conciliation on both sides, be a prelude to the
restoration of Irish unity. So in 1914, home rule seemed almost to have answered the Irish question. When war broke out, Redmond, the nationalist leader declared
the government could take all British troops out of Ireland. Nationalists would
themselves defend Ireland, joining with Ulstermen to do so. Unionists cheered in parliament and waved their order papers. On 18th of September, 1914, the day on which parliament was prorogued, the labor MP Will Crooks asked MPs to sing "God Save the King." The nationalists joined in, and Crooks cried out, "God save Ireland," to which Redmond replied,
"And God save England too." At Woodenbridge, County Wicklow, on the 21st of September, Redmond said, "This war is undertaken in
defense of the highest principles of religion, morality, and right." And on the 15th of September, when the Commons was
debating the home rule and suspensory bills, he declared, "In this war,
I say for the first time, certainly for over a hundred years, I feel that Ireland's interests are precisely the same as yours. She feels and will feel that the British democracy
has kept faith with her. She knows this is a just war. She has moved in a very special way by the fact this war is undertaken in the defense of small
nations and oppressed peoples." He was thinking, of course,
of Belgium and Serbia. Now the promise of home
rule then did much, for a short time at least, to mollify historically
embittered Anglo Irish relations. And whether home rule in
the absence of the war would've proved a final settlement of the Irish question is, of
course, impossible to know. It might well have
stimulated an Irish demand for dominion status, independence within the Commonwealth, as was eventually to be achieved, but after much fighting in the
Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. Without the war, there might have been a peaceful
evolution to this status rather than the conflict
that were to ensue, the Easter Rising of 1916,
the Anglo Irish Gorilla War, the Black and Tans, and
the Irish Civil War. Britain seemed to have
accepted that in future, Ireland would be governed
by consent, not by force. And the Irish government
had recognized partition in international law since 1922, but as a regrettable necessity. Though partition was not to be fully and formally accepted
by Irish nationalists until the Belfast or Good
Friday Agreement of 1998, in which both Ireland and Britain accepted that Irish unity could only be achieved when a majority in Northern
Ireland consented to it. Irish voters agreed in a referendum to amend Articles 2 and 3
of the Irish Constitution, which had laid claim to the
whole island of Ireland. And it may be argued that the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement needed a retrospective
mandate for partition and retrospective
legitimation of the solution so torturously reached by 1914, a solution which recognized,
as far as was possible, the right of self-determination of both nationalists and Unionists. But the war changed everything. And after the war, home
rule was to be implemented, ironically only in the six
counties of Northern Ireland, which would in fact have
preferred continued rule from Westminster. But home rule was no longer acceptable to nationalist opinion. By 1918, the Irish Parliamentary Party had been electorally
obliterated by Sinn Fein, which sought independence. And Ireland outside the six
counties moved to independence in 1921 after the gorilla war, and then in 1949 left the Commonwealth, even though the Commonwealth by then would not have
threatened Ireland's status as a republic, nor the role of her head of state. And Ireland together
with Burma and Myanmar, are the only countries
once ruled by Britain, which are not now in the commonwealth. And relations between Britain and Ireland became more distant. Ireland supported Britain's
war effort in 1914, but not in 1939 when she remained neutral. And after the 1914-18
War, the Irish problem, which appeared to have
been solved, reappeared. In Churchill's graphic words from his book on the war
called "The World Crisis," "Then came the Great War. Every institution almost
in the world was strained. Great empires have been overturned. The whole map of Europe has been changed. The mode of thought of men,
the whole outlook on affairs, the grouping of parties all
have encountered violent and tremendous changes in
the deluge of the world. But as the deluge
subsides and waters fall, we see the dreary steeples
of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again. (audience laughs) The integrity of their quarrel is one of the few institutions
that have been unaltered in the cataclysm which
has swept the world." Though it wasn't unaltered, it was, I think, strengthened. Ireland settled down
after a brutal civil war to become a parliamentary democracy. Northern Ireland emerged as a statelet comprising six counties. Until 1972, it was run by the Unionists, but not in the spirit of
conciliation as Carson had hoped. Instead, there was gross
discrimination against Catholics, particularly in housing and employment. And this led in the 1960s to the growth of a Civil Rights Movement, and then to the upsurge of terrorism by the provisional IRA, which sought to secure Irish
unity by violent means. But in 1998, the British and Irish governments
negotiated the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement,
a huge step forward. It was accepted by both governments that Irish unity could only
be achieved by consent. In the absence of such consent, it was agreed that in Northern Ireland, the nationalist minority, as well as the Unionist majority would enjoy a guaranteed
place in governing Ulster so that discrimination against
the minority would end. Now, in recent years, pressures for Irish unity have
increased for two reasons. The first is Brexit, the
second is demographic change. Now, Brexit has made Irish
unity appear more plausible because in the Brexit referendum of 2016, Northern Ireland proved more favorable to Britain's continued membership than any part of the United
Kingdom, except Scotland. 56% in Northern Ireland voted
to remain and 44% to leave. So the majority in Northern
Ireland could argue that Northern Ireland was
being extruded from the EU against its will. So in Northern Ireland, as in Scotland, the Brexit referendum seemed to offer encouragement to nationalists. There was clearly a large majority on the island of Ireland
for EU membership, since Ireland herself remained an enthusiastic member of the EU. And Northern Ireland would
find it easier than Scotland to rejoin the EU, since if Irish unity came about, she would be joining with
an existing member state, and unlike Scotland, would not have to
renegotiate her membership. Northern Ireland's
position would be analogous to that of East Germany, which also became automatically
part of the European Union when in 1990 she joined with West Germany. So Northern Ireland is
unique in the United Kingdom because it's the only
part of the United Kingdom that could rejoin the
European Union automatically without needing to renegotiate entry. Now, the Ireland and
Northern Ireland protocol, which is part of the
EU withdrawal agreement between Britain and the EU, negotiated by Boris Johnson in 2020, provides further
encouragement to nationalists because under its provisions, Northern Ireland remains
in the EU Internal Market and also in effect in
the EU Customs Union. So the island of Ireland
becomes a single economic unit. Ties with the rest of the
United Kingdom are loosened since there is a regulatory
and customs border in the Irish Sea. Now, most Unionists in Northern
Ireland reject the protocol, but nationalists can argue that the economic unity of
Ireland should be accompanied by political unity. Now, after the Brexit referendum, one Irish commentator went
so far as to suggest that, "for the first time in my life, the prospect of a united
Ireland is not only credible, but inevitable." Polls in Ireland show
a majority for unity, and Unionists need no longer fear that it would mean rule by Rome, since following the exposure
of sexual abuse scandals in Ireland by the Catholic clergy, the position of the church
has been gravely weakened. But according to a poll in the "Irish Independence"
in April, 2011, sorry, 2021, I beg a pardon, the majority favoring unity
in the Republic was reduced to 46% were to involve
an increase in taxes, and it falls to 13% where
Ireland to take on the subsidy by which the United Kingdom
supports Northern Ireland. And the British would clearly
not continue that subsidy. As Sir Edward Carson argued
in the pre-1914 debates, divorce is not generally
accompanied by wedding presence. (audience laughs) And it would be a mistake to believe that all of the 56% in Northern Ireland who voted to remain in
the Brexit referendum were also supporters of Irish unity. It is, in particular, highly unlikely that the 34%
of self-designated Unionists who voted to remain
were also voting to join with the rest of Ireland. But there is a second
factor favoring Irish unity, the facts of demographic change, which have led for the first time to a Catholic majority
in Northern Ireland. Protestants had already
lost their cultural and electoral dominance. Unionists no longer have a majority either amongst Northern Ireland
MPs at Westminster, or in the Northern Ireland assembly where Sinn Fein is the largest party, as indeed it is in Ireland. And according to the 2021 census, the Protestants are no longer in a demographic majority either, 45.7% of the resident
population in Northern Ireland, the Catholics or brought up as Catholics, compared to 43.8% as Protestants. Catholics now outnumber
Protestants in an entity designed to secure a permanent Protestant majority. So unity could be brought about through the facts of demography. But we must be careful in
interpreting these figures, for the Catholic population
of Northern Ireland is by no means unanimous
in its desire for unity. And the percentage of votes for the two main nationalist parties, Sinn Fein and the Social
Democratic and Labour Party has remained strikingly stable, 40% in the 1998 assembly election and slightly less, 38% in 2022. Sinn Fein's success has been largely due to switches from the other
main Nationalist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, rather than conversions from
outside the nationalist camp. The Unionist vote by contrast
is split between the DUP, the Ulster Unionist Party and
traditional Unionist voice, while some Unionists vote
for the Alliance Party, which is neutral on the border. But perhaps more important than that, the census figures probably mask the growth of secularization in both Protestant and
Catholic communities. Northern Ireland's constitutional future is more likely to be determined, not by Sinn Fein or the
Democratic Unionist Party, but by those in the
secularized middle ground. And perhaps it is fair to say
that neither nationalists, nor Unionists have yet
made a convincing case to that middle ground for
the option they favor. But even if demographic change were to bring about Irish unity, it would be dangerous without
strong Unionists consent, since it would otherwise
leave a large disaffected and possibly violent Unionist
minority in the Republic. It is dangerous to assume that Unionists, even in the minority, would accommodate themselves
peacefully to a united Ireland, especially an Ireland which
Sinn Fein could come to power, as it has in the north. And in the past, both British governments
and Irish nationalists have underestimated
Unionists intransigence, the resistance to home rule before 1914, the resistance to the
Sunningdale Agreement after 1973, which provided for power sharing between the two communities
in Northern Ireland and resistance currently to the protocol which caused rioting in Ulster in 2021, rioting which ended only out of respect when the Duke of Edinburgh died. In 1993, the then Taoiseach
Albert Reynolds declared that stability and
wellbeing will not be found under any political system
which is refused allegiance or rejected by a significant minority of those governed by it. And that was true of Northern Ireland in the years of Unionist dominance. It could also be true of a united Ireland, which contained the largest
affected Unionist minority, and perhaps calls for Irish
unity undermine the prospects for reconciliation between the two communities
in Northern Ireland, a reconciliation which
is desperately needed between communities, some of which lead very separate lives. Now the fundamental problem in Ireland has in a sense been the same since the nationalist claim
was raised in the 19th century. It is that there is no way
of drawing lines on the map which does not leave at least one group with a nationalist or Unionist as part of a disaffected minority in at least one of the
polities so created. The problem was blurred when
Britain was a member of the EU, since the border in Ireland was
becoming of less importance. But Brexit has reinstated
the importance of that border and reemphasized the conflict between nationalist and
Unionist identities. What then is the answer? After 1918, it was clear the
answer could not be found in forcing Irish nationalists to remain within a polity
that they rejected. But the Belfast or Good
Friday Agreement shows that complete separation
is not the answer either, and that the Northern Ireland
problem can only be resolved through closer relationships
between Britain and Ireland. In the 19th century, the Irish nationalist
Henry Grattan accepted that total separation of
Ireland was not the answer, declaring, "The channel forbids union. The ocean forbids separation." The Belfast or Good Friday
Agreement constituted recognition by both Britain and Ireland
that the manifold links between the two countries
could not be contained within a framework which would make them as
foreign to each other as, for example, Chile and Nigeria. In the 19th century, Gladstone, the great liberal prime
minister also appreciated that neither total separation, nor partition could have themselves resolved the Irish problem. Instead, a permanent
solution would require both the recognition of
separate national identities, but also their transcendence in a wider framework through institutions which while expressing
separate identities, also provided for expression
of the ultimate interconnection between all the peoples
living in these islands. That permanent solution
has still to be achieved. Thank you. (audience applauds) - [Spectator 1] Given
the population changes in Northern Ireland, is a referendum on
independence now inevitable? And if so, when might it happen? - Well, thank you. As I said, I don't think it is inevitable. I don't think anything's inevitable. I think someone once said
nothing's inevitable, except death and taxes. But I don't think it is inevitable. And I don't know to what extent the whole of the Catholic population
favors Irish unity. There's no pressure, I
think, at the moment, even from the Sinn Fein Party, for an immediate referendum
on that question. I think there's no doubt that Brexit and the demographic changes have made Irish unity more likely. But I don't think it's
necessarily inevitable. The nationalists say, Sinn Feins certainly say that they, that Unionist identity could be preserved in a united Ireland, but that isn't easy in a country which is a republic
outside the Commonwealth because for many Unionists
the monarch is very important. And I think perhaps the death of the Queen and the accession of the
new king has emphasized that point amongst unions. So I think that might be a
bit of a stumbling block, though I don't think it's inevitable. - Do you think as well... I mean, some of my Irish friends
always feel that there's a, we don't want to inherit
the troublesome minority in the north. Do you think that- - Well, in the 1970s when he
was leader of the opposition, Harold Wilson, the leader
of the Labour Party, said to Jack Lynch the Taoiseach that Britain was intending
to withdraw her troops from Northern Ireland if there was peace. It would agreed to the
secession of Northern Ireland in 15 years. And Jack Lynch was rather shocked by that and a bit frightened. I think he wasn't eager at that time. Well, Northern Ireland, of course, then was very violent indeed. - [Spectator 2] Why is the
Northern Ireland protocols proving so difficult to resolve? - Well, it raises very
difficult constitutional issues because Northern Ireland
from some points of view, is not part of the United Kingdom in terms of the enactment of law. For instance, it has... Its VAT rules are those of the EU, so that when Rishi Sunak as chancellor passed a
measure exempting Britain, reducing VAT on various energy matters, it did not apply. I think I'm right. Please correct me if I'm not. It did not apply in Northern Ireland. And Northern Ireland
Internal Market is subject to the rules of the European Union on which it is not represented. So Northern Ireland has
the problem of being taxed without representation. That's the issue which led to the breakup
of the American colonies. And furthermore, Internal Market rules
where the dispute's decided by the European Court of Justice, which is a foreign court from the point of view
of the United Kingdom now because we are outside the European Union. So it does raise very
serious constitutional issues for Northern Ireland. There are also arguably economic problems, though you may say Northern
Ireland's got the best, best of all world by being
in the EU Internal Market. But I think the Unionists consider it raises constitutional issues, which threaten their position
in the United Kingdom with a regulatory and customs
border in the Irish Sea. And you have to ask the
other members of the EU whether the French would agree to a customs and regulatory border cutting Alsace-Lorraine off from France or the Germans cutting
Bavaria off from Germany. And there's an irony in it really, because traditionally Irish
nationalists were opposed to the partition of Ireland, but they're not necessarily opposed to the partition of the United Kingdom. So I think there are
very, very serious issues which need somehow to be resolved. - You've emphasized several
times the importance or the impact of Brexit
on some of these issues, the way in which the British
government at the time relied upon the tiny group of
people called the DUP. That must have had a
disproportionate political impact on the consequences for
both Ireland and the UK. How do you feel about that? - Well, that was after
Brexit occurred of course. And one of the problems that
Theresa May had was that... I think the main reasons for
rejection of her proposals with regard to Brexit, which would've kept Britain
in the EU Customs Union, was the question of the backstop, which MPs would not accept. It seemed to give the
Irish government a veto over certain matters
relating to Northern Ireland. And I think without that, Theresa May's deal would've got through. Now Boris Johnson signed a different deal, which makes Northern Ireland economically in effect separate from the
rest of the United Kingdom. It's ironic that a strong Unionist leader signed that agreement. Whether he read it isn't
clear, but he signed it. He signed it. (audience laughs) But both John Major and Tony Blair, who were antagonists politically, spoke in Northern Ireland
before the referendum and said, "If Britain leaves the EU, this will make the Irish problem
more difficult to resolve." Now in a sense, Northern Ireland listened 'cause it voted strongly to remain in, but it was outvoted by
the rest of the country. And Northern Ireland, Scotland, and London were the only three areas which voted to remain. But it's fair to say
something not often noticed. Their turnout rates
were amongst the lowest. Three of the four lowest turnout rates were in Northern Ireland,
Scotland, and London. If turnout rates had been higher, the result might have been different. - [Spectator 3] Thank you so much for a fantastic overview
and lecture, professor. One thing that I was going to ask was, on the subject of referendum, is that they held a referendum, I think in 1970 or 1971 about, for reunification in Northern Ireland. I was quite surprised
to see that when I... - Yeah, there was a border poll. I think it was 1973. But it wasn't helpful because
the minority population, the Catholic population did not vote. So it gave a huge majority for staying in the United Kingdom. But the reason for that, there was a reason for
them deciding not to vote because it was obvious
there was a majority staying in the United Kingdom because that, that was the basis on which Northern
Ireland had been created, that it had a Protestant majority. But now, as I say, it doesn't have a Protestant majority. That's changed. So you may argue that
basis has been undermined. But there certainly was a border poll, the first local referendum. That in a way did prove
an important precedent because it proved a precedent for our first European referendum, which was in 1975, which yielded a two-one
majority of staying in the European community. But without the '73 border pole, there might not have been as much pressure in the rest of the country for a referendum on the Common Market, as the European Union then was. But the maligned fate which
infects the Irish problem, I'd say particularly in 1914 when I think it was very
near to a settlement... And also you could argue
from this point of view, Brexit is a maligned fate
that I think the lines between being British and Irish
were becoming very blurred by the European Union. And just as it had achieved
a reconciliation originally between France and Germany, it might have helped do that
between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland. But Brexit, I mean, there maybe other good reasons for Brexit, I'm not arguing against that. But Brexit did make life
more difficult, I think, on the island of Ireland. - Thank you very much indeed. I think we should invite
you back in a hundred years to have another go to
answering the question. And in the meantime, may I invite you to thank
Professor Bogdanor once more for a wonderful lecture. - Thank you, thank you. (audience applauds)
