On This Day / October 25, 1921

Summary: On This Day – 25th October 1921, Dáil Minister Ernest Blythe urged Belfast Catholics to remain in the city, promising they would not be deserted by Nationalists elsewhere in Ireland. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.

Northern TD’s Views | On This Day – 25th October 1921

MR ERNEST Blythe, Minister of Trade in Dáil Éireann, delivered an important address in St Mary’s Hall, Belfast last night before a very large and enthusiastic audience. Mr A Savage, City Councillor, presided.

Mr Blythe, who was enthusiastically received, said what was sometimes called the Ulster Problem arose from the hostility of the big majority of the Protestant population of two or three counties in the North-East towards the Catholic minority. The problem had grown up within the past 100 years.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not that line which marked off differences of creed and of political parties and, in 1798 and for a great number of years afterwards, perhaps half the Protestant population were with the Catholics of Ireland in their desire for freedom.

Even during the Fenian times there were very large numbers of Ulster Protestants who were Republicans.

During the Home Rule movement religious and political division tended to coincide and he said that the difficulty created by that division was one for which the late Parliamentary Party was largely responsible.

‘The Nationalists of Belfast were in the forefront of the battle and, if they could be got rid of, the Unionists would be in a very strong position.

But the Nationalist population were not going to oblige them by clearing out.’ (Applause.)

Mr Blythe advised the Catholics of Belfast to ‘stick right here’ (Applause.)… It would be an injury to the cause of Ireland and a triumph for the enemy for any considerable section of the Catholics of Belfast to allow themselves to be forced out and he assured them that the Nationalists of the remainder of Ireland would not desert them. (Cheers.)

If the negotiations now proceeding it is possible to get a satisfactory and honourable settlement, that settlement will be obtained and accepted.

(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Ernest Blythe (1889-1974), from a Protestant farming background in Co Antrim had come to separatism via the Gaelic League, later joining the IRB, Irish Volunteers, becoming the only Ulster Protestant to serve as a Minister in the Dáil.

As a reporter in Newtownards between 1908 and 1911 he combined his secret IRB activities with Orange Order membership.

From his cell in Crumlin Road Jail in 1919 he was critical of the declaration of a Republic, seeing partition as the real issue facing the Dáil.

Strongly pro-Treaty, he advocated a ‘peace policy’ towards the Northern government in 1922.

A fluent Gaeilgeoir, Blythe saw the language as the shared heritage of both traditions here. He lost his Monaghan seat in 1933 and later became manager of the Abbey Theatre.)

On This Day – 25th October 1921

Further Reading on Irish History:

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