The retention of '6 counties' by Britain in 1921

jonniebgood1

MarchDub wrote: »

The 'traditional' industries of shipbuilding and linen were already past their peak stage by the 1920s and things just got worse. A government report in 1928 showed a world wide decline in demand for linen coupled with an inefficient method of production - it was very labour intensive.

Harland and Wolff only survived the 1920s because of Government guaranteed loans - via the Northern Ireland Loans Guarantee Bill of 1922.

There is a decent analysis of the need for increased finance for the NI social state (unemployment payments) and the haphazerd way this was decided on in this link to a preview of "Home Rule: An Irish History, 1800-2000" By Alvin Jackson: http://books.google.ie/books?id=2sljCBmuJkMC&pg=PA207&dq=history+northern+ireland+finance&hl=en&sa=X&ei=04mrT_PsOYWDhQeJq-ydCg&ved=0CHUQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false Refer pages 205- 207.

MarchDub

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

There is a decent analysis of the need for increased finance for the NI social state (unemployment payments) and the haphazerd way this was decided on in this link to a preview of "Home Rule: An Irish History, 1800-2000" By Alvin Jackson: http://books.google.ie/books?id=2sljCBmuJkMC&pg=PA207&dq=history+northern+ireland+finance&hl=en&sa=X&ei=04mrT_PsOYWDhQeJq-ydCg&ved=0CHUQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false Refer pages 205- 207.

Yes, it is an unknown. I like the quote:

Richard Crossman confirmed this insight: "No Chancellor knew the formula by which Northern Ireland gets its money. In all the years this formula has never been revealed to politicians, and I am longing to see whether now we shall get to the bottom of this very large, expensive secret”.

From my own sources I have a figure of 27% unemployment for the insured workforce for the years 1931-39 for Northern Ireland. 1938 was the worse year in that decade with an unemployment figure of just 30%, the highest figure for the whole of the UK.

thecommietommy

MarchDub wrote: »

The lower paid jobs in the linen mills and the docks were held by Catholics - and Harland and Wolff and Shorts Engineering had employment figures that showed a workforce of around 90% Protestant.

I remember reading in Micheal Farrells excellent The Orange State how even in low paid jobs like the dockers their was still rampant discrimination as the dockers jobs were divided betwen the full time dockers who were unionist and the dockers who selected for a day's work as they hung a street corner were Catholic.

To hold onto their economic advantage they pledged to resist Home Rule. On 23 Sep 1911 Edward Carson made the following statement to a crowd of around 50,000 from the Unionists and Orange Lodges "We must be prepared ourselves ...the morning that Home Rule passes, to become responsible for the government of the Protestant Province of Ulster".

Yes, Carson was a typical orange bigot through and through, but of course we have the unionist apologists such as old wooly head Sir Garret Fitzgerald who campaigned for a plaque to Carson where he was born on Harcourt Street, Dublin in his ' honour ' :rolleyes:

MarchDub

thecommietommy wrote: »

Yes, Carson was a typical orange bigot through and through, but of course we have the unionist apologists such as old wooly head Sir Garret Fitzgerald who campaigned for a plaque to Carson where he was born on Harcourt Street, Dublin in his ' honour ' :rolleyes:

Well seeing as how Carson was also partly responsible for sending Oscar Wilde to prison for two years hard labour, solitary confinement on charges of 'gross indecency', it would make a bizarre counterpoint to Wilde's statue in Merrion Square.

golden lane

thecommietommy wrote: »

I remember reading in Micheal Farrells excellent The Orange State how even in low paid jobs like the dockers their was still rampant discrimination as the dockers jobs were divided betwen the full time dockers who were unionist and the dockers who selected for a day's work as they hung a street corner were Catholic.


Yes, Carson was a typical orange bigot through and through, but of course we have the unionist apologists such as old wooly head Sir Garret Fitzgerald who campaigned for a plaque to Carson where he was born on Harcourt Street, Dublin in his ' honour ' :rolleyes:

dockers were once an elite in dublin.....you had to have a button to get work...

there was also eliteism in other trades...........

the chosen few......

thecommietommy

golden lane wrote: »

dockers were once an elite in dublin.....you had to have a button to get work...

there was also eliteism in other trades...........

the chosen few......

Possibly, however the eliteism that may have existed in Dublin was not based on secterianism like in the north - apart from Guinness's !!!! See the discussion below if your interested

"However it is a fact that right until the 1960s there were no Roman Catholic managers. In fact it's well known that the first Catholic manager appointed in Guinness was in fact Gay Byrne's brother, Edward. "
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=59563838&postcount=8

MarchDub

thecommietommy wrote: »

I remember reading in Micheal Farrells excellent The Orange State how even in low paid jobs like the dockers their was still rampant discrimination as the dockers jobs were divided betwen the full time dockers who were unionist and the dockers who selected for a day's work as they hung a street corner were Catholic.

Yes, sectarian attitudes dominated work conditions in both work conditions and hiring practices in the Belfast docks. Amongst the daily hire workers there was even a sectarian divide - Protestants were usually assigned to the cross-channel docks where work was more guaranteed [I mean available] whereas Catholics were sent to work in the more dangerous deep sea docks – where employment was less available and accidents, frequently fatal, were more frequent.

Larkin's strike/lockout of 1907 brought out much of this kind of thing into the open.

golden lane

thecommietommy wrote: »

Possibly, however the eliteism that may have existed in Dublin was not based on secterianism like in the north - apart from Guinness's !!!! See the discussion below if your interested

"However it is a fact that right until the 1960s there were no Roman Catholic managers. In fact it's well known that the first Catholic manager appointed in Guinness was in fact Gay Byrne's brother, Edward. "
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=59563838&postcount=8

does it matter what religion you are............there was a working elite in dublin............with an underclass, who either emigrarted, or remained unemployed.........

the result is the same...........

thecommietommy

golden lane wrote: »

does it matter what religion you are............there was a working elite in dublin............with an underclass, who either emigrarted, or remained unemployed.........

the result is the same...........

It certainly did matter what religion you were in the north east as my grandparents and thousands of others who were on the receiving end knew only too well.

thecommietommy

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Unfounded opinion. You have posted 5 times on this thread now without adding anything other than a wikipedia link as a basis for your opinion. I am not fully sure if you are tring to 'troll' on this thread or if this is really your knowledge on the subject. In anycase you should either abide by the forum charter or if you do not wish to do this you should not bother posting. My preference would be that you deal with the subject matter using sourced information as detailed in the stickied thread on forum guidelines.

Nothing whatsoever unfounded in stating the glaringly obvious that discrimination existed in the north before partition and that far from unionsit discrimination been a reaction to the percentage of Catholics been a " threat ", the smaller the percentage of Catholics the greater the secterianism in North Armagh, North Down, Belfast etc

And since your at it, I also notice that most of your posts haven't had a link to back up your opinion, nor have any of the others who have posted been asked to back up their opinions with links either. Seems I'm a special case when I criticise your posts though.

History is more complex than the type of schoolbook 'all Unionists are bad' type excuse for the problems in Northern Ireland that you are extolling. It is a far more complex issue than that and the purpose of the thread was/ is to investigate these complexities along with the reasonsfor retaining the '6 counties' may have been of benefit to the British, i.e. financial reasons etc.

Unionism is a secterian supremacist ideology, like the KKK in America or apartheid South Africa, I make no apologies in criticising it. I let people judge for themselves with the quotes below on what the real nature of unionism is -

'A man in Fintona asked him how it was that he had over 50 percent Roman Catholics in his Ministry. He thought that was too funny. He had 109 of a staff, and so far as he knew there were four Roman Catholics. Three of these were civil servants, turned over to him whom he had to take when he began.' Sir Edward Archdale, Unionist Party, Minister of Agriculture, Stormont,1925
Reported in: Northern Whig, 2 April 1925

"Another allegation made against the Government and which was untrue, was that, of 31 porters at Stormont, 28 were Roman Catholics. I have investigated the matter, and I find that there are 30 Protestants, and only one Roman Catholic there temporarily."
J. M. Andrews, Unionist Party, Minister of Labour, Stormont, 1933
Quoted in: Harrison, Henry (1939), Ulster and the British Empire 1939: Help or Hindrance?, London: Robert Hale.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/discrimination/quotes.htm

jonniebgood1

thecommietommy wrote: »

Nothing whatsoever unfounded in stating the glaringly obvious that discrimination existed in the north before partition and that far from unionsit discrimination been a reaction to the percentage of Catholics been a " threat ", the smaller the percentage of Catholics the greater the secterianism in North Armagh, North Down, Belfast etc

And since your at it, I also notice that most of your posts haven't had a link to back up your opinion, nor have any of the others who have posted been asked to back up their opinions with links either. Seems I'm a special case when I criticise your posts though.

Except you chose to ignore your initial post content.

If you have a problem with my correction then you should contact me by PM or if you feel that you are being singled out as a 'special case' then contact the boards.ie Dispute Resolution Procedure to discuss. It should not be used to derail a thread as this inconveniences other users. If this warning is ignored then I will have to consider further action which as I stated previously I prefer not to have to do.

Elmer Blooker

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

Did ireland make much of a political effort to get the 6 counties back?

No, nothing. The new Free State government effectively handed power to the bishops in Maynooth which gave the Six County state legitimacy - The Unionists were proved right when they said "Home rule is Rome rule"

MarchDub

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

No, nothing. The new Free State government effectively handed power to the bishops in Maynooth which gave the Six County state legitimacy - The Unionists were proved right when they said "Home rule is Rome rule"

This is just a wild personal statement without any historic sources for backing up whatsoever -

thecommietommy

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Except you chose to ignore your initial post content.

If you have a problem with my correction then you should contact me by PM or if you feel that you are being singled out as a 'special case' then contact the boards.ie Dispute Resolution Procedure to discuss. It should not be used to derail a thread as this inconveniences other users. If this warning is ignored then I will have to consider further action which as I stated previously I prefer not to have to do.

Not derailing the thread, just replying to your accusation that the points I made about unionism was an " unfounded opinion ". You are the one inferring the unionists only lashed out at the nationalists when they seen the Catholics as a " threat ". If any thing at all the opposite happened when unionists attacked small communities of Catholics in places like Lisburn, Larne, Belfast with confidence due to their much greater numbers where nationalists posed little threat to them whatsoever.

MarchDub

I have to say that Tommy is making a valid point - there have been a number of statements made on the thread that have no source backing up at all, including the 'idea' that numbers of Catholics in the six county post-partition demographic lead to discrimination. A historically groundless notion.

Elmer Blooker

MarchDub wrote: »

This is just a wild personal statement without any historic sources for backing up whatsoever -

Example: The first piece of legislation passed by the Free State government was The Censorship Act 1923.

thecommietommy

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

Example: The first piece of legislation passed by the Free State government was The Censorship Act 1923.

And how was that Rome Rule ? Stopping guys from looking at nudey pics etc

MarchDub

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

Example: The first piece of legislation passed by the Free State government was The Censorship Act 1923.

It might then surprise you to learn that we had censorship under the British which had been in many ways far more restrictive - including publishing political points of view. Newspapers were frequently being shut down.



Edit: And the Censorship of Films Act of 1923 [presume you mean this] was not by a long shot the first piece of legislation passed by the Dail.

jonniebgood1

thecommietommy wrote: »

Not derailing the thread, just replying to your accusation that the points I made about unionism was an " unfounded opinion ". You are the one inferring the unionists only lashed out at the nationalists when they seen the Catholics as a " threat ". If any thing at all the opposite happened when unionists attacked small communities of Catholics in places like Lisburn, Larne, Belfast with confidence due to their much greater numbers where nationalists posed little threat to them whatsoever.

For clarity what I referred to as unfounded opinion was your description of OP (me) as follows:

thecommietommy wrote: »

..... way beyond the OP's capablity to understand :rolleyes: He'll continue to persist it's all because the poor unionists were ' threatened ' and insecure, balme the victim regardless. Even a gang of schoolboy bullies wouldn't try the excuse " we attacked him because our gang seen him as a threat " :rolleyes:

The post implied that I had suggested that Unionists were victims in some type of way in the development of NI.
I made no such suggestion, thus I see such an opinion as unfounded.

What I did suggest was that the larger the % Catholic in NI, the more of a threat they were to Unionism (I will return with the intention to substantiate this opinion as I do not see it as groundless). This should not be mistaken as excusing sectarian discrimination in any way.

jonniebgood1

MarchDub wrote: »

the 'idea' that numbers of Catholics in the six county post-partition demographic lead to discrimination. A historically groundless notion.

I would argue that the percentage of Catholics/ Nationalists in NI meant that greater discrimination was to transpire than if for example a 4 county entity had been formed. A lower % of Nationalists would have eliminated the need for some forms of discrimination, take political representation for example. The areas subject to the most controversial gerrymandering were typically areas that contained large areas of Nationalists. This was most apparent in local elections and the adoption of first past the post over the PR system that existed after the Government of Ireland act. The result was areas that had been in Nationalist control pre 1922 ending up in Unionist control when comparable elections (i.e. no boycott of voting) in the 1930's were completed. It should be noted that these were mostly areas where the higher % of Catholics were located.

The following councils, which nationalists won under PR, were captured by unionists under the post-1922 electoral arrangements:

Londonderry County Borough Tyrone County
Fermanagh County Enniskillen Urban District [4]
Cookstown Rural District Dungannon Rural District
Lisnaskea Rural District Magherafelt Rural District
Omagh Rural District Strabane Rural District
Omagh Urban District (from 1935) Armagh Urban District (from 1946)

.....

To these they added after the war Limavady Rural District, which they had not held under PR. This made a total of eleven local authorities in nationalist hands out of seventy-three. Not only was this a smaller number than the unionists won from them after the abolition of PR, but they were less important. The post-1922 electoral changes cost the nationalists control of a county borough and two counties; the largest local authority left in their hands was Newry Urban District, with a population of 12,000. The change is startling enough to raise the strongest suspicions of gerrymandering.

The fate of Londonderry County Borough aroused the most bitterness. It had a substantial, and growing, Catholic majority - by 1961 Catholics were more than 60 per cent even among the adult population (Hewitt, 1981: 366). Yet unionists won back control under the ward division imposed in 1923, and when, after some years, it looked as if the nationalists might capture one of the unionist wards, the boundaries were redrawn so as to perpetuate unionist rule (Buckland, 1979: 243-6).
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/discrimination/whyte.htm

It then follows as a natural assumption that gerrymandering as a tool of political discrimination was directed at constituencies that had a higher % Catholic population. Areas where there were lower % Catholics were not subject to the same level of boundary change.

Dr.Nightdub

Gerrymandering wasn't a unionist invention, nor was it limited to areas where nationalists would have constituted a "natural majority."

According to the 1911 Census, Catholics constituted 24% of the population of Belfast, yet electoral boundaries in the city were redrawn in successive elections prior to the formation of the Northern Ireland Government, in such a way as to rapidly whittle away nationalists’ representation – they had held one Westminster seat out of four in the city prior to 1918 (Joe Devlin's seat), this was reduced to one seat out of nine in 1918, then further reduced to one seat out of sixteen in 1921 (the first election for the Parliament of Northern Ireland).
Source: Michael Laffan, The Partition of Ireland 1911-1925 (Dundalk, Historical Association of Ireland, 1983), p69

MarchDub

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

I would argue that the percentage of Catholics/ Nationalists in NI meant that greater discrimination was to transpire than if for example a 4 county entity had been formed. A lower % of Nationalists would have eliminated the need for some forms of discrimination, take political representation for example. The areas subject to the most controversial gerrymandering were typically areas that contained large areas of Nationalists. This was most apparent in local elections and the adoption of first past the post over the PR system that existed after the Government of Ireland act. The result was areas that had been in Nationalist control pre 1922 ending up in Unionist control when comparable elections (i.e. no boycott of voting) in the 1930's were completed. It should be noted that these were mostly areas where the higher % of Catholics were located.

It then follows as a natural assumption that gerrymandering as a tool of political discrimination was directed at constituencies that had a higher % Catholic population. Areas where there were lower % Catholics were not subject to the same level of boundary change.

This is not history in terms of hard historic fact - it's just supposition and projection. . We can say that something happened historically and document it, but not that it might not have happened if...that just gets us into 'what ifs' and 'maybes' or the "I think it was because' and so on with a variety of opinions....it could all have happened no matter what the percentages were...bigotry is just like that.

And the point I made in my own post on the matter is that there were ample amounts of discrimination against the Catholic population in Ulster for centuries before partition - both in the economic and the political sphere. It got worse if anything when they had a degree of independence from Westminster to draw their own political shape via Stormont.

jonniebgood1

Dr.Nightdub wrote: »

Gerrymandering wasn't a unionist invention, nor was it limited to areas where nationalists would have constituted a "natural majority."

It was more widely practiced in areas where the numbers of nationalists was a higher percentage, where they had more chance of representation.

MarchDub wrote: »

This is not history in terms of hard historic fact - it's just supposition and projection. . We can say that something happened historically and document it, but not that it might not have happened if...that just gets us into 'what ifs' and 'maybes' or the "I think it was because' and so on with a variety of opinions....it could all have happened no matter what the percentages were...bigotry is just like that.

And the point I made in my own post on the matter is that there were ample amounts of discrimination against the Catholic population in Ulster for centuries before partition - both in the economic and the political sphere. It got worse if anything when they had a degree of independence from Westminster to draw their own political shape via Stormont.

The constituencies that had their boundaries changed are recorded facts. That the most controversial of these constituency boundary changes were in areas with a high % Nationalist is not a fact but I would think it is quite clearly the case in all but the most pro-Unionist of agenda. To call this a supposition suggests it is unclear.

I agree with 2nd paragraph quotes as was the case for the whole of Ireland.

MarchDub

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

It was more widely practiced in areas where the numbers of nationalists was a higher percentage, where they had more chance of representation.



The constituencies that had their boundaries changed are recorded facts. That the most controversial of these constituency boundary changes were in areas with a high % Nationalist is not a fact but I would think it is quite clearly the case in all but the most pro-Unionist of agenda. To call this a supposition suggests it is unclear.

I agree with 2nd paragraph quotes as was the case for the whole of Ireland.

The objection that I made was the tone of the discussion on the thread that somehow discrimination happened as if the Unionists were, poor dears, being put upon by the presence of the nationalists/Catholics and that the very presence of Catholics was a major causation for the development of discrimination - as if such things had not gone on prior to the border going up, whereas it was in fact business as usual for the unionists to behave in this way. All opposition in any oligarchy can be seen as a 'threat' to those who want to have absolute, permanent power.

The rise of the Labour Party in the 1920 elections was of equal 'threat' to the unionists position as Labour had won control of Lurgan, and won seats in Lisbon and Bangor. So the entire response to the border going up was to ensure, in all possible ways, that the unionists always hold a majority in the Six County region - and, most especially also, the Border Commission wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.

Just prior to his death Michael Collins made these very complaints to Churchill at the way the quick redistricting was carried out after Stormont was established in 1920. Collins pointed out that this most especially was being done 'to oust the Catholic and Nationalists people of the Six Counties from their rightful share in local government" because in view of the upcoming Boundary Commission's role the unionists were determined 'to paint the Counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh with a deep Orange tint'.

Patrick Buckland gives details of the swift dis-enfranchising of Catholics by Stormont in The Factory of Grievances: Devolved Government in Northern Ireland. After Collins' death Cosgrave did not do anything about the changes being pushed through Stormont - and Royal assent was given to the changes in September 1922.

whitelines

Here's an interesting and user friendly article on discrimination in NI prior to 1969 - covering all aspects:

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/discrimination/whyte.htm

There's no mention of The Ku Klux Klan, so it won't suit everyone.

thecommietommy

whitelines wrote: »

Here's an interesting and user friendly article on discrimination in NI prior to 1969 - covering all aspects:

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/discrimination/whyte.htm

There's no mention of The Ku Klux Klan, so it won't suit everyone.

No " Pope financed the IRA " in it either ?

MarchDub

whitelines wrote: »

Here's an interesting and user friendly article on discrimination in NI prior to 1969 - covering all aspects:


There's no mention of The Ku Klux Klan, so it won't suit everyone.

thecommietommy wrote: »

No " Pope financed the IRA " in it either ?

So that makes it all good then -

HamletOrHecuba

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

Example: The first piece of legislation passed by the Free State government was The Censorship Act 1923.

Similar legislation existed on the UK mainland.

The Church of Ireland supported the Free State in banning divorce as well which gave Yeats and his arguments no end of trouble.

The idea that Protestantism equals whatever you are having yourself liberalism necessarily, especially Protestantism in Ireland historically and in Ulster even today is just not true.

If anything it could be argued that the Free State and the ROI after it bent over backwards to the Protestant minority who in return have shown absolutely no gratitude. Even though they get a special grant to send their kids to their own schools for instance the Church of Ireland forbids the flying of the Irish tricolour on its property.

MarchDub

HamletOrHecuba wrote: »

Similar legislation existed on the UK mainland.

.

Yes indeed, - in fact the Dail's 1923 Act concerning film censorship was simply a do-over of the UK's Cinematograph Act of 1909.

whitelines

The passion with which some address the issue of anti-nationalist discrimination on this thread baffles me. Of course NI was a cold house for nationalism, in the same way in which The Free State/ROI was a cold house for pro-British elements. That was quite simply the way things were in those days and indeed still are in many parts of the world, with the conquerers oppressing the conquered, people looking after their own ethnic, racial, or religious group above all others and the winner taking all. This is what's called human nature. Northern Ireland's nationalist minority had far more equality in all areas of life than similar groups elsewhere in the world, such as North American Indians, Australian Aborigines, The Maoris, blacks in Alabama, Christians in Muslim nations, etc, etc, etc.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the issue of nationalists in NI being discriminated against in pre-1969 NI is being used by some as a contemporary political tool for whatever reason. Or perhaps as some form of retrospective justification?