Des Daltonwriting at the beginning of May probes behind the discourse on the centenary of the Orange State.

The very fact that the birth date of the Six-County State is a site of contestation reflects the wider and even more fundamental questions that surround its very legitimacy as a political entity. Monday, May 3, was flagged this week as marking the centenary of the foundation of the Six-County State. 

The logic being that it was on this date in 1921 that the “Government of Ireland Act 1920” formally became law. However, other dates also vie for this lamentable accolade. These are; December 23, 1920, the date when the Act was formally passed by the British Parliament at Westminster; and June 25, 1921, when the Six-County Parliament was formally opened by the King of England, George V at Belfast’s City Hall. What is incontestable is that this piece of British legislation sowed the seeds of sectarian discrimination, division and recurring conflict and death which continue to bedevil the Irish people a century on.

On December 23, the British “Government of Ireland Act”, or to give it its long title, “An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland”, was enacted as law. The act was the fruit of the Long Committee which had been set up by Lloyd George to draft a Fourth Home Rule Bill. The committee was chaired by Walter Long, First Lord of the Admiralty and a former chairman of the Ulster Unionist Council. It therefore came as no surprise that the outlook of the committee would be decidedly unionist.

Not only were nationalists not represented on the committee but they were not even consulted on its deliberations. The only Irish political representative consulted during the drafting of the bill was the leading Ulster Unionist, James Craig. The bill was never about solving the Irish question, merely the Ulster Question, as the historian Cormac Moore points out.

Throughout the decade of centenaries, the Leinster House political establishment has variously dated the foundation of their state to either Easter 1916 or the establishment of the First Dáil on January 21, 1919. The reality of course is that the foundation moment of the 26-County State lies in neither of those events. Rather its foundation moment is to be found in the enactment of the “Government of Ireland Act.” In essence the bill proposed the partition of Ireland and the establishment of two parliaments, north and south: Stormont and Leinster House. Both parliaments were intended to usurp the democratically elected All-Ireland Parliament, the First Dáil Éireann. Despite the democratic mandate given to the First Dáil by the Irish people, the British Government never accepted its legitimacy, or that of its lawful successor the Second Dáil, as representative assemblies of the Irish people.

A Council of Ireland, comprising 20 members of the Northern, Southern and Westminster Parliaments was also proposed as a fig leaf to distract from the effective sundering of the historic Irish nation. Significantly the new northern state would not be based on the nine counties of Ulster. The bill proposed the exclusion of Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan. The leader of Irish Unionism, Sir Edward Carson did not mince his words in spelling out the sectarian rationale behind this decision: 

There is no use our undertaking a Government which we know will be a failure. […] If we were saddled with these three counties…you would bring in from these three counties into the Northern Province (Sic) an additional two hundred and sixty thousand Roman Catholics.

The effect was to leave 70,000 Protestants, the vast majority of whom were unionist, within the proposed Southern Irish State. Ulster Unionist MP, Thomas Moles likened their abandonment to a sinking ship with lifeboats sufficient for only two-thirds of the crew. Cormac Moore argues that this decision shattered any semblance of unity within unionism throughout Ireland.

The British government sent out overtures to the government of the All-Ireland Republic suggesting their willingness to begin negotiations. Their real intent was exposed in the new act, dubbed by the Freeman’s Journal, “The Dismemberment of Ireland Bill”. Despite the opposition of the vast majority of the Irish people to partition in any form, the British Government pressed ahead with preparations for the establishment of the new Six-County State, even before The Government of Ireland Act became law in December 1920. In September, a new post of “assistant under-secretary” for the Six-County area was setup with the task of creating the structures for a functioning government for the Six-County area. Likewise, permission was given to set up a new police force, the Ulster Special Constabulary, to police the new state. This new police force would draw many of its recruits from the ranks of the UVF.

Nationalist Ireland would ignore the new act, with even the unionist Irish Times declaring “The bill has not a single friend in either hemisphere outside Downing Street.” The Irish Independent was adamant that the new act “was no basis for peace.” In less than a year the full ramifications of the act would become all too apparent.

One hundred years on we can see all too clearly what those ramifications were. The Decade of Centenaries is now arriving at some of the most potent and politically charged centenaries in our historical calendar. They mark the events which would so profoundly impact the Irish people for the rest of the 20th Century and into the 21st. The iniquitous “Government of Ireland Act 1920” ignored the democratically expressed will of the Irish people for national sovereignty and independence, sowing the seeds of a century of conflict resulting in the deaths of thousands of our people. The partition of Ireland and the creation of the gerrymandered Six-County State set in train 50 years of sectarian discrimination, coupled with political and economic oppression the legacy of which a new generation is still grappling with today.

Des Dalton is a long time republican activist.

“Government of Ireland Act 1920” Sowed The Bitter Fruits Of Sectarian Discrimination, Division And Conflict

Des Daltonwriting at the beginning of May probes behind the discourse on the centenary of the Orange State.

The very fact that the birth date of the Six-County State is a site of contestation reflects the wider and even more fundamental questions that surround its very legitimacy as a political entity. Monday, May 3, was flagged this week as marking the centenary of the foundation of the Six-County State. 

The logic being that it was on this date in 1921 that the “Government of Ireland Act 1920” formally became law. However, other dates also vie for this lamentable accolade. These are; December 23, 1920, the date when the Act was formally passed by the British Parliament at Westminster; and June 25, 1921, when the Six-County Parliament was formally opened by the King of England, George V at Belfast’s City Hall. What is incontestable is that this piece of British legislation sowed the seeds of sectarian discrimination, division and recurring conflict and death which continue to bedevil the Irish people a century on.

On December 23, the British “Government of Ireland Act”, or to give it its long title, “An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland”, was enacted as law. The act was the fruit of the Long Committee which had been set up by Lloyd George to draft a Fourth Home Rule Bill. The committee was chaired by Walter Long, First Lord of the Admiralty and a former chairman of the Ulster Unionist Council. It therefore came as no surprise that the outlook of the committee would be decidedly unionist.

Not only were nationalists not represented on the committee but they were not even consulted on its deliberations. The only Irish political representative consulted during the drafting of the bill was the leading Ulster Unionist, James Craig. The bill was never about solving the Irish question, merely the Ulster Question, as the historian Cormac Moore points out.

Throughout the decade of centenaries, the Leinster House political establishment has variously dated the foundation of their state to either Easter 1916 or the establishment of the First Dáil on January 21, 1919. The reality of course is that the foundation moment of the 26-County State lies in neither of those events. Rather its foundation moment is to be found in the enactment of the “Government of Ireland Act.” In essence the bill proposed the partition of Ireland and the establishment of two parliaments, north and south: Stormont and Leinster House. Both parliaments were intended to usurp the democratically elected All-Ireland Parliament, the First Dáil Éireann. Despite the democratic mandate given to the First Dáil by the Irish people, the British Government never accepted its legitimacy, or that of its lawful successor the Second Dáil, as representative assemblies of the Irish people.

A Council of Ireland, comprising 20 members of the Northern, Southern and Westminster Parliaments was also proposed as a fig leaf to distract from the effective sundering of the historic Irish nation. Significantly the new northern state would not be based on the nine counties of Ulster. The bill proposed the exclusion of Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan. The leader of Irish Unionism, Sir Edward Carson did not mince his words in spelling out the sectarian rationale behind this decision: 

There is no use our undertaking a Government which we know will be a failure. […] If we were saddled with these three counties…you would bring in from these three counties into the Northern Province (Sic) an additional two hundred and sixty thousand Roman Catholics.

The effect was to leave 70,000 Protestants, the vast majority of whom were unionist, within the proposed Southern Irish State. Ulster Unionist MP, Thomas Moles likened their abandonment to a sinking ship with lifeboats sufficient for only two-thirds of the crew. Cormac Moore argues that this decision shattered any semblance of unity within unionism throughout Ireland.

The British government sent out overtures to the government of the All-Ireland Republic suggesting their willingness to begin negotiations. Their real intent was exposed in the new act, dubbed by the Freeman’s Journal, “The Dismemberment of Ireland Bill”. Despite the opposition of the vast majority of the Irish people to partition in any form, the British Government pressed ahead with preparations for the establishment of the new Six-County State, even before The Government of Ireland Act became law in December 1920. In September, a new post of “assistant under-secretary” for the Six-County area was setup with the task of creating the structures for a functioning government for the Six-County area. Likewise, permission was given to set up a new police force, the Ulster Special Constabulary, to police the new state. This new police force would draw many of its recruits from the ranks of the UVF.

Nationalist Ireland would ignore the new act, with even the unionist Irish Times declaring “The bill has not a single friend in either hemisphere outside Downing Street.” The Irish Independent was adamant that the new act “was no basis for peace.” In less than a year the full ramifications of the act would become all too apparent.

One hundred years on we can see all too clearly what those ramifications were. The Decade of Centenaries is now arriving at some of the most potent and politically charged centenaries in our historical calendar. They mark the events which would so profoundly impact the Irish people for the rest of the 20th Century and into the 21st. The iniquitous “Government of Ireland Act 1920” ignored the democratically expressed will of the Irish people for national sovereignty and independence, sowing the seeds of a century of conflict resulting in the deaths of thousands of our people. The partition of Ireland and the creation of the gerrymandered Six-County State set in train 50 years of sectarian discrimination, coupled with political and economic oppression the legacy of which a new generation is still grappling with today.

Des Dalton is a long time republican activist.

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