There are times when rebellion is a clear duty. It is generally agreed that the Protestants of Ireland were justified in their rebellion against the government of King James II, as the outlook was so uncertain, and the king's attitude so notorious, that a too great regard for legality on their part might have led to the loss not merely of their privileges but of their liberties.

It certainly was a doubtful issue then whether Protestantism or Roman Catholicism was to be the official religion in Great Britain and Ireland, and in those days not to be of the official religion was a much more serious matter than it is now, when the principles of religious toleration have been almost universally accepted, and nearly every town of a few thousand inhabitants has the chapels of at least four or five different religious bodies. All the progress of two hundred years cannot be wiped out in a day, and the common argument that the civil and religious liberties of Protestants are in danger requires something more than a reference to the events of 1688 to justify it. Let us compare the state of things then and now.

In those days Protestantism was in very real danger. France was the most powerful country in Europe, and France was strongly Catholic. Even in England the Protestant interest was infinitely less strong then than now. The king was a Roman Catholic. The people of England had on three previous occasions: under Henry VIII, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, shown their willingness to acquiesce in the religion of the Court, and, the King's power being then far greater than it is now, they might possibly in any case have been dragooned into compliance.

The population of England differed by only a few mi1lions from that of Ireland, and Ireland was predominantly Catholic. If King James had won in Ireland, he would have carried the war into England and Scotland, and if successful would have established his religion as the State religion.

The Irish Protestants by their resistance at Derry and Enniskillen prevented the success of that scheme. They were thus instrumental in keeping the upper hand for Protestantism, not only in Ireland but in England and Scotland as well. Is there any analogy in the present condition of affairs?

The population of Great Britain is now ten times that of Ireland, and only three fourths of Ireland is Catholic. Great Britain is at present predominantly Protestant. The British Empire has come into being, throughout which the principles of religious toleration are recognised, while the majority of its inhabitants are Protestants of one kind or other.

France is strongly anti-clerical, a Protestant empire has been established in Germany, and the political system of Europe has ceased to turn on questions of religion, or indeed in most cases to take any account of it at all. Consequently Protestantism is in no danger in Great Britain or anywhere else.

Even if Catholicism were as strong in Europe as it was in the seventeenth century, while Ireland remains an island and Britain commands the sea, Protestantism in Ireland can be in no danger. The next largest naval Powers at the present day being Germany, which is Protestant, and France, which is anti-Catholic, under no conceivable circumstances is Protestantism in Ireland in any danger of being seriously interfered with, quite independently of the fact of such interference having gone out of fashion.

The Irish Parliament which it is proposed to create is a strictly subordinate Parliament, dependant for income and its very existence on the Imperial Parliament, in which there is an overwhelming Protestant majority.

Consequently, however bigoted Irish Catholics may be, and most people who live among them find them easy enough to get on with, so long as they agree to differ on matters of religion, it would be the height of bad policy on their part to indulge in any action which might be construed as an injustice to Protestants (active persecution is out of the question) and self-interest, if nothing else, will induce them to steer a fairly straight course; no Protestant seriously apprehends that he will be interfered with in the exercise of his religion unless it should take the form of attempting to convert Catholics, which is a somewhat risky proceeding even under present conditions.

An attempt on the part of Catholics to convert Protestants would lead to equally unpleasant consequences; but, so far as I am aware, such attempts are never made except in the single case of the offspring of mixed marriages with which I shall deal separately.

What the Irish Protestants really fear is, not that they will be persecuted in the exercise of their religion, but that they will be excluded from public appointments, and will be subject to petty acts of administrative unfairness. I think that the probability of either of these two events taking place is by no means proved, but let us assume for the sake of argument that they do take place to some extent.

When reduced to this form, it seems almost superfluous to inquire if it is worth while to plunge the country into civil war in order that a few Protestants rather than Catholics shall hold public appointments. What difference does it make to the average Protestant whether Mr Campbell or Mr I O'Brien is Lord Chancellor, or Sir E Carson or Mr Moriarty Attorney-General? (1) The number of public appointments in the direct gift of the Government is not by any means unlimited, while in regard to those under the control of local bodies, if the question of religion exercises any influence in filling them, it will do so whether there is Home Rule or not.

A civil war based on this ground is rather in the nature of locking the stable door after the steed is stolen, and to have been effective should have been fought when the Unionists passed the Local Government Act of 1898.

After all, the average Protestant, not possessed of aristocratic connections, can console himself with the reflection that so far as he is concerned, it makes very little difference who holds the appointments, since in any case it will not be he, and may even venture to hope that it will be easier to overcome the handicap of religion in the future than it has been to overcome that of the absence of blue blood and aristocratic connections in the past.

I shall show presently that, although the Local Government Act has been in force for fifteen years, there is still a very considerable number of Protestants in the service of the local bodies in those counties where the majority of the population is Catholic, whereas it is a notorious fact that in predominantly Protestant parts of Ulster hardly a single Catholic is employed in a position carrying a decent salary.

For posts of hewers of wood and drawers of water, there is of course no discrimination, and even the most zealous political Protestants take anybody they can get. Would the Catholics be held justified in rebelling against the Union on the ground that it has deprived them of their fair share of appointments in Ulster, or even in Ireland as a whole, which was the case until the last few years, and still is to a very large extent? To ask such a question is to answer it.

There remains the question of administrative unfairness. It is not a subject on which one can dogmatise, for the simple reason that it is almost entirely a matter of opinion, and there are hardly any materials to go on as to the extent to which it will take place, or whether it will take place at all.

I would point out, however, that even if in certain cases the persons in authority are so ill-advised as to indulge in it, the scope of their action will be limited by law, public opinion, the presence of a large number of Protestant members in the Irish Parliament, and, in the last resort, by the presence of representatives of the Irish Protestants in the British Parliament, whose future attitude towards the Irish Parliament will largely depend on the wisdom and ability with which it conducts its business.

There are many reasons, financial and otherwise, why an Irish administration should keep on good terms with Westminster, and to go out of its way to fulfil the dismal prophecies of the opponents of Home Rule would be an act of folly of which the Irish leaders are hardly likely to be guilty.

Acts of administrative unfairness can be indulged in by local bodies as well as by governments, but their number must have been extremely rare, or more would have been heard of them at a time when every such incident furnishes political capital of the highest quality, and supplies the concrete instances which pass current as proofs of a general argument.

As I write, I notice a statement by the Right Rev Dr Plunkett, Protestant Bishop of Tuam, in his address to the Protestant Synod, in which he is reported to have expressed the conviction that under Home Rule it would not be the fault of the Catholic people of the West if the happy relations that exist between them and their Protestant neighbours did not continue with increasing warmth. I do not know the politics of Dr Plunkett, or whether he has any, but it is a notorious fact that the intensity of the apprehension said to be felt by Irish Protestants varies almost directly according to their numerical preponderance. If anyone doubts this, let him compare the tone of a Unionist paper published in Dublin, such as the Irish Times, with that of one of the Unionist papers published in Belfast.

In other words, where the Protestant element in the population is most feeble and most unprotected against injustice, it is sympathetic or indifferent, while where it is in overwhelming preponderance, and well able to take care of itself under all circumstances, it is violently hostile. Do the Ulster Protestants ever ask themselves if they are not to some extent to blame for this estrangement of feeling? Does the public celebration with bands and banners of victories over their fellow-countrymen in the past tend to promote racial harmony? I have yet to learn that the British inhabitants of the Transvaal flaunt in the faces of the Boers the surrender at Paardeberg, or that those in Canada treat the French Canadians as an inferior race on the strength of the victory on the Heights of Abraham. (2)

Do the French Republicans go out of their way to remind the population of La Vendée that they crushed them 120 years ago when they happened to take the other side in the civil dissension that then prevailed, and are prepared to do it again as often as necessary?

The fact is that principles and methods are applied in Ireland, which in any other part of the world would be considered, to put it mildly, the height of bad taste, and, in view of the manner in which they keep open old wounds, would probably be sternly suppressed by law (3). In the South and West, where nothing of this sort takes place, the two sections of the population usually live in harmony and friendship. It is only in the North, and only, I might almost add, at certain seasons in the year, that the relations are strained.

If the Protestants of the North were to follow the example of one of the Bishops of their own Church, and treat the rest of the nation as fellow-countrymen and not as hereditary enemies, the result would probably surprise them. Their present attitude reminds one irresistibly of the words of the French naturalist 'this animal is very vicious; if one attacks it it defends itself'.

Assuming, however that Protestantism is in as much danger now as it was in 1688, the question remains are the Unionists of Great Britain to be relied on to defend the interests of Protestantism? The Roman Catholics of Great Britain who are not of Irish descent are Unionists almost to a man. The English Catholic peers voted against the Home Rule Bill in the House of Lords. The Catholics of England oppose Home Rule because, as they say, if Ireland obtains Home Rule the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland will be lessened. The Duke of Norfolk, the chief Roman Catholic peer in Great Britain, is a Unionist. His brother, Lord Edmund Talbot, is Chief Whip of the Unionist Party.

The following extracts from his speeches will therefore, I hope, be received in Ulster with the respect due to his position, even if it should lessen that for the men who meekly take their orders from him when in England but become good political Protestants the moment they set foot in the province for whose interests they feel such great concern. Lord Edmund Talbot is reported to have stated as follows:

'Things of a most offensive character, things displaying most narrow-minded ignorance and bigotry, had been uttered and written against his (the Catholic) religion by those who were undoubtedly strong opponents of Home Rule, not by responsible leaders of the Unionist Party, but by what he might term the third-rate type of lecturer, who found it conveniently easy to dilate in anger and venom on matters of religion, either through incapability or lack of intelligence to understand the question as a whole.'

In a speech at Liverpool on the 22nd October, 1912, the same speaker is reported to have expressed the following sentiments with reference to the probable effect of Home Rule on the position of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland :-

'If I am compelled to look on the question as a Roman Catholic from a Roman Catholic point of view alone in regard to its bearing on Roman Catholic religion in Ireland, then I say without hesitation, looking at the actual Bill now before us, that I can hardly conceive any greater disaster to the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland than that this Bill should become law.'

The South African war has scarcely escaped the memory of present-day Ulster men. The Boers were Dutch, or French Huguenots, by descent, and Presbyterians in religion. Except for a slight Scotch element on his part they belonged to the same race as William of Orange, and were of the same religion as practically one-half of the Protestants of Ulster.

When that war was just begun, the Lieutenant of an English county, presumably a Unionist, expressed sentiments of such a kind about President Kruger and the psalm-singing characteristics which he shared with many Ulster Presbyterians, that I cannot refrain from quoting them. They should form interesting reading for those who have signed the Ulster Covenant, and those who held special services in connection with it. He said :--

'Neither you nor I believe in these perpetual appeals to Providence in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Neither do we believe in these continual quotations from Scripture. We do not believe, either you or I or anybody else here, in the man who holds the Bible in one hand and the Mauser rifle in the other. And another bit of advice I should like to give you is this:- if you meet a gentleman, a somewhat aged gentleman, whose name begins with a K, anywhere down Pretoria way, I ask you to make him sing Psalms out of the wrong side of his mouth, and as to his cant, drive it down his throat with a dose of lyddite and three inches of bayonet to keep it there.'

It is now pretty generally admitted that that war was quite unnecessary and was a huge mistake from first to last. It was brought about by a Unionist Government in the interests of some South African financiers and mine owners, most of whom were not even Christians. The South African Boers were and are one of the most intensely Protestant peoples on earth. It is hard to believe that the party which wantonly forced on a war with a people of the same race as William III and the same religion as the Scottish Covenanters, and did so, moreover, at the bidding of financiers, many of whom were German Jews, has or ever had any special enthusiasm for the cause of Protestantism as such.

The Unionist party in England is admittedly the clerical party. They used their position in 1902 to pass an Education Bill establishing the principle of denominational education in English primary schools, and did so with the assistance of the votes of Irish Unionist members, who in this respect as in many others, did not reflect the feelings of their constituents. This Bill outraged the feelings of Nonconformists in England, and the Protestantism of English Nonconformists is just as strong as that of Irish Unionists.

While the Unionist Party in general suffers from the odium of the passing of that Act, Irish Unionists will appeal in vain to English Nonconformists to help them in their present difficulties.

But it is not merely in English affairs that the Unionists are a clerical party. The whole of Irish primary and secondary education is run on denominational lines. This is perhaps as much a result of the circumstances arising from the Union as of deliberate policy on the part of the Unionists; but I have yet to learn that the Unionist Party when in power made any attempt to check the influence of the priest in education, be he Catholic, Episcopalian, or Presbyterian; or when in opposition made any protest against its continuance.

Not only is this the case, but the Unionist Party has before now made appeals to the Roman Catholic Bishops in Ireland, and there is reason to believe, even to the Vatican itself, in order to win over to their side the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.

In 1886, on the rejection of the Home Rule Bill and the return of the Conservatives to power, an agrarian agitation known as the 'Plan of Campaign' was started in Ireland. Whether Rome was actually appealed to by the British Government is an open question; there are good grounds for believing that such an appeal was made, unofficially of course. At any rate one Mgr Persico was sent by the Holy See to Ireland in July, 1887, to investigate and report. The result was a rescript from Rome, issued in April, 1888, condemning the Plan of Campaign and boycotting, on the ground that they were contrary both to natural justice and to Christian charity.

This was not the only occasion on which the Unionist Party tried to utilise the authority of the priest in politics. In a letter quoted in the 'Life of Lord Randolph Churchill' (vol ii, p4, Oct 14, 1885), we read how that statesman proposed to Lord Salisbury to win over the Church to Unionism. He writes:-

'I have no objection to Sexton and Healy knowing the deliberate intention of the Government on the subject of Irish education, but it would not do for the letter or communication to be made public, for the effect of publicity on Lancashire would be unfortunate...... It is the bishops entirely to whom I look in future to mitigate or postpone the Home Rule onslaught. Let us only be enabled to occupy a year with the education question. By that time I am certain Parnell's party will have become seriously disintegrated. Personal jealousies, Government influences, Davitt and Fenian intrigues, will be at work upon the devoted band of eighty. The bishops, who in their hearts hate Parnell, and don't care a scrap for Home Rule, having safely acquired control of Irish education, will, according to my calculation, complete the rout. That is my policy, and I know it is sound and good, and the only possible Tory policy.'

And again he wrote:--

'My opinion is that if you approach the archbishops through proper channels, if you deal in friendly remonstrances and active assurances ... the tremendous force of the Catholic Church will gradually and insensibly come over to the side of the Tory Party.'

But in 1886, as 'the tremendous force of the Catholic party' had not come over to his side, he '..decided to play the Orange card, which, please God, will prove a trump...'.

When he came to Belfast and raised the famous cry in the Ulster Hall that 'Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right' he had only just returned from making overtures to the 'Scarlet Woman'.

When we consider the position of the Roman Catholic Church in Irish education to-day in the light of the above revelations of Unionist principles and policy, it is not difficult to see that the real Rome Rule party in Ireland is not the Home Rule party, but the party which is determined at all costs to maintain the Union, and finds this the most practical means of doing so.

In future when Unionist speakers wax eloquent about the twin causes of Protestantism and the Union, Irish Protestants will, I hope, be in a better position, to estimate the value of such statements.

In view of the facts adduced above, it is surely not too much to assert that the Unionist Party as a whole has no genuine enthusiasm for the cause of Protestantism as such, and that if they seem at present to lend a sympathetic ear to the religious fears of Irish Protestants, it is only because they have in view some ulterior object which they hope to gain by the exploitation of those fears.

Is it not possible that once more, as in 1886, the Unionist Party has 'decided to play the Orange card, which, please God, will prove a trump'? It is surely worth while for the Ulster Protestant to inquire what are the reasons why English Unionism is at present apparently so enamoured of his Protestantism. The reasons will appear in the sequel. It is also worth his while to enquire what are the evils he proposes to avoid by accepting the role of a card in the Tory pack.

The idea that Home Rule will lead to the wholesale oppression of Protestantism as such in Ireland is generally scouted in responsible circles and in the debates on the Home Rule Bill in Parliament has been disclaimed by the recognised leaders of the Unionist Party. The Cork Constitution of May 2nd 1911, which is a Unionist paper circulating in the South of Ireland, and which may be supposed to know what it is talking about, in quoting a statement in a letter from a Tipperary Quaker to the effect that 'whatever legislative changes might take place, there would be nothing to prevent Protestants and Roman Catholics from living harmoniously together', added the following:- 'Few will be found to take serious objection to this statement, for it is not so much religious as political intolerance that is feared by the minority in Ireland.'

In other words, a Nationalist body, whether County Council or Parliament, will elect Nationalists to places of power and emolument, just as Unionist County Councils and Parliaments elect Unionists. It is only natural that the respective political parties should prefer to advance their own adherents to positions of which they have the gift. If this is political intolerance, practically a11 party government is political intolerance, and political intolerance is the keynote of the English constitutional system as it is worked at present.

Under the Local Government Act of 1898 opportunities for such intolerance were given to the Catholics in the greater part of Ireland. The Irish Unionists before the passing of that Act declared that they feared it worse than Home Rule. According to the 'ABC of Unionism' their fears were justified. 'In the three provinces outside of Ulster there are only fifteen Unionists on the twenty-four County Councils of those provinces. The Nationalists number 684. In Ulster, where Unionists are better able to hold their own, the division is about equal, as between Unionists and Nationalists'. This, like many other political arguments, sounds very impressive till one comes to analyse it, on which it appears that in Ireland, as elsewhere, people prefer to elect as their representatives those who are in sympathy with them, rather than those whose views are opposed to theirs, and that the mass of the Irish electors are Nationalists. In Ulster the number of persons elected on each side is roughly in proportion to the number of voters belonging to each political party. Ireland would indeed be an isle of saints were any other result possible.

The question is not whether Unionists are not elected as such where the majority of the voters are Nationalists, but whether Protestants are excluded merely on account of their religion. Of this there is no evidence, and the analogy of the Irish representation in Parliament, where nine of the Nationalist members are Protestants, while Parnell, for many years the idol of a large part of the country, was one, goes to show that religion in itself is no bar in Ireland any more than it is in Britain, and that the essential thing in each case is to find constituents with whose views and aspirations one is in sympathy, or who can be persuaded to that effect.

But the real question is not so much whether Protestants get elected to local bodies where the Nationalist element predominates, as whether Protestants as such are excluded from public appointments in the gift of such bodies. In fairness it must be admitted that the existing local bodies took over the staffs appointed under the former regime, under which, I fear, a preference was in many instances given to Protestants. Since 1898, however, these local councils have had the power of dismissing their former officials as well as of making new appointments. So far from carrying out wholesale dismissals of Protestant officials, the Nationalist councils have in every case treated them fairly, and have in more than one ease given them substantial increases of salary.

An inquiry into the subject of appointments made since 1900 revealed the following state of affairs:-

In the case of 176 public Boards: County Councils, City and Town Councils, Urban and Rural District Councils, and Boards of Guardians; since 1900 187 public appointments have been given to Protestants. Not only so, but nearly 400 Protestants have been elected as members of those bodies. The case of the Clonmel Corporation is very striking. I append a list of the Protestants who have been appointed by that body since 1900:-

Borough Analyst: £10 (per annum)
Consulting Gas Engineers: 25 gns, 30 gns
Assistant Gas Manager: £120
Head Master Technical School: £200
Art Master Technical School: £125
Commercial Teacher Technical School: £125
Manual Instructor Technical School: £155
Secretary and Headmaster Technical School: £260
Veterinary Surgeon for Corporation horses: £13

Clonmel is, it must be borne in mind, in a county where Roman Catholics form nearly 95% of the population.

Is it too much to hope that what Clonmel does to-day the rest of the country will do to-morrow or the day after? Or even if it should not, is it so very unjust that people who have been almost entirely excluded from public appointments for 350 years should follow the example of their opponents in acting on the principle that charity begins at home?

If this is a sufficient ground for civil war, the United States would have one after each Presidential election involving a change of party, when there is a redistribution of appointments practically from top to bottom in the whole public service, and all the Irish rebellions that have taken place would have been held justifiable if the leaders only had had sense enough to have stated their case properly.

The direst results were apprehended from the Local Government Act of 1898, so much so that the Unionist Party thought it necessary to protect at least one section of the population from the consequences of its own revolutionary legislation, by stereotyping the amount of the landlord's contribution to the rates and transferring it to the tenant, whose rent was reduced by a corresponding amount, while at the same time an Imperial grant of £750,000 was given in aid of Irish local finance.

As a matter of fact, the terrible oppression and waste that were apprehended from the action of the local bodies never took place. So far from having mismanaged everything, as it was alleged they would, the Local Government Board Reports bear witness to their efficiency. That for the year 1903, when, be it noted, the Unionist Government was still in office, states:-

'The general administration of the Local Government Act by County and District Councils continues on the whole to be satisfactory, and the manner in which the several local bodies transact their business calls for no special observation. The collection of rates has been efficiently carried on. Very great and very creditable improvements have taken place in the care of the sick.'

There is no need to look up official reports for evidence of this; the fact is patent. Anyone whose memory extends back for ten or fifteen years cannot fail to have noticed the great improvement in roads, in hospitals and dispensaries, in sanitation and all departments of public effort, that has taken place during the period. Why, at least until the experiment has been tried, should it be assumed that Ireland is almost unique amongst the civilised countries of the world in having an inherent incapacity to govern itself? It has never had the chance of trying, as even when it had an independent Parliament, the executive was not subject to the Parliament, but was controlled from England, and the trouble that led to the loss of its legislative independence was largely due to the action of the executive in going its own way, in total disregard both of the Parliament and of the public opinion of the country.

The Irish Unionists feared the Local Government Act worse than Home Rule, and their fears turned out to be entirely groundless. Those in regard to Home Rule may turn out equally so, and at any rate, unless the Nationalists possess greater cohesion among themselves than they do at present, they have quite a respectable chance of being able to play the same part at Dublin as the Nationalists have done at Westminster, and control the situation by the possession of the casting vote.

They would probably be a very influential party under any circumstances, and further on I shall indicate a modification in the scheme of representation which I have no doubt their leaders could obtain for the asking, which would lead to such a distribution of political power that Ulster not merely would have nothing to fear, but in combination with the moderate elements in the other provinces would generally be in a position to rule the country.

Are Irish Protestants so wanting in self-confidence and in regard for their own dignity that they must spend so much of their lives in shouting before they are hurt that nobody any longer troubles to listen to them? If they possess even half the virtues their leaders claim on their behalf, they will come out on top under any circumstances, and would be extremely ill-advised to put themselves in the wrong by taking the violent measures they are asked to do, until it is seen whether any necessity for them is likely to arise.

Notes and References Ch 2

2. This key paragraph, and the one which follows, need to be brought to the attention of the Protestant community in Portadown, in the infamous Garravaghy Road context.

3. Under the current Race Relations Act in Britain is is unlikely that dominance-asserting parades of whites would be allowed in the black communities of London.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1998