On the Question of Partition, February 7 1939

But still I feel that in the absence of any person better qualified than myself to express that necessary point of view, I must do my best to give expression of it. Even if I must speak occasionally in inverted commas, at all events, I will try to give what I believe to be an honest account of the real feelings and sentiments of my Ulster co-religionists. In doing so, I shall take an attitude of what I might call philosophic detachment both to their sentiments and feelings and to Irish national sentiments and feelings. In taking that attitude I will depart from my usual custom, which is, to speak as a person who is fully a member of the national household. I prefer to speak from a more detached point of view and to exercise the privilege of being a somewhat semi-foreign element in the national household.

I think that the question should he approached in as realistic a manner is possible and in doing so perhaps the best thing I can do is to give briefly some personal reminiscences, the application of which to the questions at issue will, I hope, become apparent in due course.

I was at school in Dungannon in one of the old Royal schools and in that capacity I had as school-fellows people coming from the same sort of people as myself -- the "daoine macanta" of Protestant Ulster. One of these people has since risen to high office in the British Treasury. Another, who rubbed shoulders with me, is now British Consul-General in Tunis. A third, who was at school with me, is now Governor of the Central Provinces of India. And another family with which I am particularly well acquainted contributed three sons to the Indian Civil Service; two became medical men in England, and only one was able to pursue a career in Ireland.

Now, those academic or scholastic or official distinctions were only possible for these school-fellows of mine because they had the invaluable possession of British citizenship. As to that I believe there is 100% opposition not only in Protestant Ulster but even in that part of political Ulster which is not Protestant to anything which would involve the loss or even the jeopardising of that substantial privilege of British citizenship.

The people whom I have in mind, these school-fellows and college-fellows of mine, who have achieved considerable distinction in many walks of life, in their outlook on Irish affairs adopted for the most part a liberal point of view and were, like me, in the fullest sympathy with the national ideal, in so far as it was a desire to obtain the completest possible form of national autonomy within the fabric of the British Commonwealth of Nations. You may, I think, divide the Protestant community roughly into two-thirds who take a strictly sectarian outlook on all questions of the hour, and another one-third, who are more representative of what I might call the Ulster liberal tradition. But in this matter of British citizenship, and of the value which they attach to it, the liberal one-third think and feel precisely similarly to the other two-thirds, whose outlook is much more sectarian and much more inclined to extremism.

Now, if I understand the policy of the Government aright, it is that if and when we succeed in effecting the unity of all Ireland, on that day there will be declared a republic of all Ireland, and not until that day. Now, if that means anything at all it seems to me that from that day this possession of British citizenship, which is rightly prized up there, will cease to be their possession, and it also means that so long as Partition exists and so long as no republic is declared, we here enjoy the de facto privilege of British citizenship which our Northern fellow-countrymen continue to enjoy de jure. Now, Partition is a very high price to pay for anything, but it is, in my view not too high a price to pay for the de jure possession of British citizenship up there and the de facto possession of British citizenship down here.

I come now to what I might call the less rational grounds of objection to reunion on the part of my Ulster co-religionists, and, in doing so, I should like to analyse faithfully and truthfully the mentality and the outlook on life of my Ulster friend and neighbours, with, perhaps occasional remarks, by way of levelling up the balance, not altogether complimentary to the outlook on life of some of my Nationalist friends.

The Ulsterman's mind proceeds by a kind of philosophic dichotomy to divide up everything into two classes. He argues, rather illogically perhaps, that everything must be either white or black, or perhaps I should rather say that he argues that everything must be orange or green. He does not readily admit any half tones or shades between those two extremes, and when he first takes a peep at life he is aware of a great division of mankind into two, and only two classes, known in Ulster frankly, as Protestants and Papishes. You will observe the preservation of the seventeenth century term "Papishes" and that it is still the ordinary Ulsterman's term by which he describes his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen.

I am using the term here in inverted commas, so to speak, by way of explanation of some of the things I shall say. He finds it extremely difficult to use any sort of description other than Protestants and Papishes, or to recognise any other sort of division, but when the facts are too strong for him he will admit that there are such things as rotten Protestants. I have the honour to belong to that category myself, and I think that some of my colleagues in this House and elsewhere would also be regarded, in certain Ulster quarters. as qualifying for that epithet.

In the matter of Papishes, I think, he does make a distinction between what I might call Papishes in the abstract and what he would call, although not so politely, epithetical Papishes. Apart, however, from that tendency to divide thing into absolutely two classes, he finds it extremely difficult to think in terms of half lights and shadows.

Perhaps I might illustrate that outlook on life by telling a story which may he already familiar to some Senators. The story is connected with a certain Sunday school in Belfast, in which a teacher was explaining to these Protestant children that God had made everybody whereupon one little boy piped up: "Did He make the Papishes?" The teacher had to admit, rather reluctantly, that He had, whereupon the small boy thought for a bit and then said "Well, He will regret it".

In other words -- I am speaking now of the two-thirds of the common people of Protestant Ulster -- they regard the Roman Catholics as rather a regrettable mistake on the part of the Almighty, and our real problem is to try to educate them out of that point of view. I do not myself see how some of the methods which have been practised are going to produce that desirable education. In their present mentality, if you did succeed in bringing them into a united Ireland, the effect would be somewhat similar to bringing a bag of weasels into a cage of canaries. They would he most difficult and troublesome fellow-citizens, and I doubt very much if we would have a moment's peace if we did succeed in bringing them in.

That brings me to one of the most fantastic of all the fantastic points of view expressed about this matter, and that is the view that the Northern people are puppets in the hands of their Belfast Government and that the Belfast Government is a puppet in the hands of the Machiavellian British Government. Nothing could be further from the truth. These Northern Protestants are essentially and fundamentally democratic and egalitarian in their outlook. They have their political leaders, but they differ in their attitude to political leadership diametrically from what the attitude is here and, indeed, in other countries.

Here, one's followers follow their leader, but up there the leaders must follow their followers, and the Ulster Protestants have a short way with leaders who try to lead them anywhere they do not want to go. Therefore, if ever we are to make peace with Northern Ireland it will not he via the British Government or even via the Belfast Government. It will only he by direct contact between the people of this area and the Protestant democracy of Ulster.

Another point which was mentioned in the course of the debate rather roused my primeval Ulster racial instincts. That was the view maintained that these Ulster people are foreigners. There were some references to the brood of the settlers and the Ulster brood, and what not. Well, now, consider for a moment that if they were foreigners, if they were common or garden English people, for example, with their well-known English characteristic of complete indifference to their past history and their complete readiness to give and take and compromise on almost anything -- if the Ulster Protestants were like the ordinary Englishmen, would they not have made accommodation with you long ago and have come in and effected a reunion of Ireland?

The Ulsterman's trouble is that he is not a foreigner, or, at all events, not English, but that he is more Irish than the Irish themselves. For one thing, they share with you a belief in the sacred right of rebellion. They are ready to believe that there are occasions when, in obedience to a higher law, men are justified in appealing to force and to resist the law of the State as it is for the time being.

Now, I might illustrate that belief of theirs in the sacred right of rebellion in at least four instances. After all, when they manned the Walls of Derry, were they not rebelling against their lawful sovereign, King Seamus II, and, as regards the people outside the Walls of Derry, were they not subjects and soldiers of a king? There were no republicans in those days, but the Ulster people in those days took the point of view that rebellion is sometimes justified and they fought for an ideal of a monarchy which should be in some respects a crowned republic and in which the king, in the last resort, should be amenable to the will of the people. In other words the men behind the Walls of Derry were better republicans than were the besiegers, whereas those resisting them at that time were defending a theory of kingship in which the king claimed the right to practise tyranny even in defiance of the will of the people.

That was not the last and only time they rebelled. The chief difference between Ulster and Irish rebellions is that the Ulster rebellions are generally so overwhelmingly successful that the rebels become loyalists and the loyalists become rebels before you have time to turn round.

Their cousins who emigrated from misgovernment and commercial restrictions in Ulster, in order to form part of the American colonies, took part in the success of the rebellion which led to the freedom of the United States of America. Coming down the time of the Irish Volunteer movement, the Ulster People were prominent in that movement also, and although it gave rise to no actual violence, it was undoubtedly an exercise in the the sacred right of rebellion.

But in our own day we have the example of the Ulster Volunteers, who claimed the right to resist by force the imposition Home Rule. It is not for me to say whether they were right or wrong on that occasion. But it is a matter of historic fact that certain important consequences happened in Europe and in Ireland following on that Ulster threat of rebellion and one of those was the movement of the Irish Volunteers which culminated in the Insurrection of Easter Week. So that you who represent the ideals and the spirit of the men of Easter 1916 should look on those Ulster Volunteers as, in a particular sense, your spiritual progenitors, because if they had not taken the line they took you would not have taken the line you took. And many of you owe your position in public life to the line line they took under the leadership of Sir Edward Carson.

That being the case, I think you should in that event inaugurate an annual pilgrimage, like the pilgrimage to the grave of Wolfe Tone, and that pilgrimage should be be the Cathedral in Belfast, where the body of Lord Carson lies.

A second Irish characteristic of Ulster is that Ulster has a tendency to take a somewhat romantic view of things. The tendency of Ulstermen is to dramatise the situation. That is one of the things that makes them somewhat difficult to deal with and unreasonable at times.

Ulstermen have a third characteristic which brings them close to you in their essential spiritual and moral outlook, and that is their willingness to sacrifice their real material interests out of regard for some sentimental consideration or some principle which they hold is worthy of sacrifice. That characteristic might he illustrated in your case by your otherwise unjustifiable economic war. But in their case also their willingness to sacrifice material interests for sentimental considerations is shown by the fact that Derry City has preferred to remain in the Six-County area though everyone of their commercial interests dictated that she should form part and parcel of what is now Eire. But Derry happens to be one of their holy cities, one of the Meccas of their faith, and they would lose a lot in real wealth before they would sacrifice Derry or Enniskillen for any material consideration.

Another mental characteristic of my Ulster friends is their absolute refusal to accept even the evidence of their own senses if that evidence tells against what they regard as their principles or perhaps only their pre-conceived ideas. That characteristic might he illustrated by the story of the Ulsterman who was visiting the zoo in Dublin. He was looking at the cage in which there was a giraffe. Someone near him heard him muttering these words: "There is no such animal, there is no such animal." He refused to believe in its existence in spite of ocular demonstration. We might leave it to an Ulster person to retort that the Southern Irish are sometimes capable of somewhat similar behaviour.

Senator MacDermot the other day stated what was the truth, that the mother-tongue of nine-tenths of the people of National Ireland is the English language. I could feel the Senators almost squirming in their chairs with annoyance an indignation. They failed, like the Ulsterman on the subject of the giraffe to accept the evidence of their eyes. They felt inclined to say that there was no such animal, or that what in their hearts they knew to he the truth was not true.

So much for similarities in temperament between my Ulster co-religionists and Irish Nationalists. But perhaps the greatest similarity of all, and the most Irish of all their characteristics, is their downright refusal to be governed by other Irishmen. That has been a characteristic and a most regrettable characteristic of Irishmen in all ages, that some of them have been willing to prefer foreign rule rather than the temporary triumph of a rival Irish faction. They would not allow a rival Irish faction to rule over them. So there have been Dermot MacMurroughs down through all the ages of Irish history. Therefore, there is nothing very remarkable in the fact that these Ulster Irishmen refuse to he governed by other Irishmen. So much for the similarities.

We now come to the contrast between Ulster and Ireland. The most obvious contrast is the well-known loyalty to the Crown which the Protestant Ulsterman believes in and practices. People have said that the Ulster people are equally loyal to the "half-crown" as they are to the Crown. If you said that to the average Ulster Protestant he would probably not reject the insinuation; he would say it is only part of their typical Ulster sanity; that they are able to reconcile their material and temporal welfare with their feelings and emotions.

If the Ulsterman were historically minded he might retort that Irish Nationalists also were loyal to the Crown. He would say that "Ulstermen are loyal to the Crown, and it pays us to be, but you were only loyal to the Crown when it did not pay you to he loyal. You were loyal to the Crown in the time of Charles I, and you lost two-thirds of your landed property because of this loyalty. You were loyal to the Crown in the time of James II, and you lost the other one-third in consequence." In fact, he might say that the tendency to regard monarchical institutions with veneration has been a characteristic of the Irish race for the first 600 or 700 Years of Anglo-Irish relations. Ulstermen might and do say that it was they, in fact, who intruded republicanism into Ireland at the end of the eighteenth century. But having no further use for it then, they passed it over to another section of the Irish, and in the common phrase "sold them a pup". You might perhaps say that Ulstermen found the monarchical institution a considerable political convenience. They value it and venerate it as such. And they might retort that we down here are much more monarchical in our outlook than they are, and that we are much more hierarchical in our outlook than they are, but have not the sense to make the most of these loyalties and prefer republicanism as a political convenience.

Another aspect of the matter in connection with this real loyalty of Protestant Ulster to the Crown is this:- there is a certain sense of exclusiveness, a certain sense of being different, a certain sense of monopoly about the Ulster position and the fact that they have reason to believe that they have that monopoly of loyalty to the Crown makes them enjoy that loyalty ten times as much as they would enjoy it if loyalty to the Crown were as common south of the Border as it is north of the Border.

They get a kick out of their loyalty to the Crown precisely because the other side at all events say that they are not loyal to the Crown. If that be psychologically the case and if you want to turn the Crown from what it now is, a wedge of division between North and South, into being a bond of union, the correct way of doing it is for loyalty to the Crown to become general throughout the country. In that case you would take the wind out of the Northman's sails so far as his loyalty to the Crown is a symbol of division, and you might get the situation in which the Crown would he what it was always intended to be, a principle of union.

Before I sit down I want to make a few brief remarks on what I may regard as the more recent history of this question of reunion. I have been in personal touch with my own friends and relations in Northern Ireland, most of whom, like me, belong to what they call the liberal tradition and are quite unaffected by a sectarian outlook, and what I have to say now will be based entirely on the impression derived from conversation with such quite un-influential people in Northern Ireland.

Undoubtedly, under Mr Cosgrave's Government things were going well down here and the people up North were favourably impressed by the rapid improvement in the general economic situation which took place then. I know that they were rather less opposed to the idea of reunion with us in, say, the year 1930 than they had been in the year 1921. But at the same time they have a natural instinctive caution, and they said.. "Ah, wait until de Valera gets in and then you will see what you will see". Well, they did wait until de Valera got in and in the first few years I confess that I consider that the effects of his general policy did much to widen the gulf that had been narrowing in the previous years, but it might have been worse.

I must admit that if we could divorce the personality of the Taoiseach from some of the policies associated with his government, then in my view that personality is not necessarily a liability, and may even he an asset from the point of view of this question of Northern reunion. I think there is a kind of sneaking admiration for the personality of the Taoiseach, even in the most unexpected Protestant circles up there, and if I am right in that view it is at all events something to be set the credit side of the account.

I think this whole question of Partition should he approached now not in the light of past history, but in the light or rather, in the shadow of the present international situation, and that being so, what our Northern should ask themselves is: would reunion, based on consent, tend the strengthen the cause of democracy, and the unity of the British Commonwealth of Nations or otherwise: would it make it easier for Irish influences, both at home and abroad to be exercised on the side of democratic nations whose future safety is now gravely imperilled; in other words would it facilitate or otherwise Anglo-Irish-American co-operation in foreign policy? Now, as I have said already, the Northman is capable of sacrificing material considerations for a cause which he considers sufficiently worthy. It is for us to prove to him that these causes -- the cause of freedom and democracy in the world as a whole -- are sufficiently worthy to ask him to make whatever material sacrifices may be the result of union with us, for the sake of those causes, but I can assure you that we have our work cut out for us.

In his reply, I hope that the Taoiseach will speak not at all as the leader of Fianna Fail and not even as the head of the Executive Government, but rather as a distinguished President of the League of Nations Assembly, and I hope, as a future President and Viceroy of a reunited Kingdom of Ireland.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999