On This Day / September 17, 1920

Envoy to ‘Ulster’

SIR Ernest Clarke, the new Assistant Under-Secretary for Ulster, arrived in Dublin yesterday and will proceed to Belfast to take up his duties.

Inquiries at Dublin Castle elicited a categorical denial that the appointment is a first step towards Irish partition; it is purely a matter of administrative expediency.

There is no intention on the part of the Government to establish a separate administrative responsibility in Ulster, or a new office with executive autonomy.

Sir Ernest will work through the Under-Secretary [Sir John Anderson] in Dublin.

One of his first activities will be to secure law and order as a necessary prelude to good government in Ulster.

At Dublin Castle yesterday, Sir Ernest Clarke said that he had no political or religious prejudices and by strict impartiality he hoped to enlist the aid of all creeds and classes in restoring order.

To say that his appointment is a preliminary step towards the partition of Ireland was, he added, quite untrue.

Loyalist Force a ‘Precursor of Civil War’

THE executive of the National Liberal Federation passed a series of resolutions on Ireland.

They attributed the deplorable state of anarchy in that country to the denial of self-government, declared that further measures of coercion would aggravate the situation and expressed dismay at the suggested raising of a voluntary armed force in Ulster as giving official status to Sir Edward Carson’s illegal Volunteer Army [UVF] and as being the sure precursor of civil war in Ireland.

They reaffirmed the Federation’s belief in Dominion Home Rule as a solution to the Irish problem.

[Dr Phoenix notes: Despite his protestations of impartiality between the two communities in the North, Ernest Clarke’s remit was to establish a separate administrative and policing authority for the six counties on lines acceptable to Craig and the Unionists.

He did little to restore the 8,000 expelled Catholics to their jobs. He is remembered as the ‘midwife to the Ulster state’.]

Short Strand Man Wins Appeal

AT THE Belfast Recorder’s Court yesterday an appeal was heard by Bernard Quinn, Anderson Street, against a sentence one month’s imprisonment for disorderly behaviour.

Constable Brennan stated that Quinn was in the centre of a crowd at Short Strand.

Quinn was shouting, ‘Up the rebels’ and called upon witness to fight.

He also said if he had a rifle and bayonet he would do what was being done to the police in Tipperary.

He was under the influence of drink. Quinn had been in the army and had some young children. If he went to jail they would suffer.

The Judge ordered that the sentence be reduced to a fine of ten shillings.