On This Day / December 2, 1920
Go BackReproduced with permission from The Irish News.
19201202
Reference Date
19201202
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 2nd December 1920, Sir Ernest Clark urged tolerance toward Northern Ireland’s Catholic minority, while a Lords amendment seeking to move Tyrone, Fermanagh and Derry to the Southern Parliament was rejected. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Need for ‘tolerance’ stressed| On This Day – 2nd December 1920
SPEAKING in Belfast, Sir Ernest Clark, CBE, Assistant Under Secretary [for Ireland) said that the future of this country depended upon good government. He was a mere outsider.
How were they to make this northern part of Ireland the best governed, most prosperous, most go-ahead and most tolerant part of the Empire? (Applause.)
They would not have a great deal of success unless they remembered they had to carry with them a minority who ould hamper them and who could help them too.
Let them not forget that with regard to the 400,000 Roman Catholics in this province. that there were 300,000 Protestants in Ireland outside this province, and whatever measure they meted to the men within their borders, it will be measured again to their friend or brother outside!
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: As ‘midwife” to the new NI state, responsible for laying its constitutional and security foundations in close consultation with the UUC, the English-born Clark was well aware that he was creating a “Protestant state” in which nationalist fears did not feature.
His plea tor tolerance towards the minority would fall on deaf ears.)
Vain attempt to revise partition
IN THE House of Lords yesterday Lord Killanin [a Southern peer] moved an amendment to omit from the Northern Parliament the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh and the Borough of Derry with the object of enabling these places to come under the Southern Parliament.
He considered that to include these areas in the Ulster Parliament would be unjust unreasonable and unwise. Ulster has had her own wav in every detail of the Bill. (Both counties showed clear Nationalist majorities].
The Marquis of Crewe [Liberal] could not understand why the Government should insist on the Six Counties and pile up unnecessary trouble.
Lord Farnham (Cavan] supported the amendment but urged that the excluded counties should embrace the whole nine counties of Ulster.
The Nationalist section hated and detested the Bill but, he believed, would accept the amendment.
The Lord Chancellor (Birkenhead) said he did not think they would dispute that the main trend of business of these two counties lay in the direction of Belfast, and not in the South.
A minority could prove to be a corrective. He did not know that they had ever proposed to limit the area to four counties.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Last-ditch attempts in the Lords to alter the territory of the new NI state were doomed to failure given Craig’s demand for a six county unit.
The Cavan landlord, Lord Farnham, had lost the nine-county argument at the UUC while Terence O’Neill’s Liberal grandfather, Lord Crewe was astute in suggesting the danger of coercing nationalist heartlands.)
On This Day – 2nd December 1920
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19201202
Reference Date
19201202
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Listen Along in Éamons Voice
Summary: On This Day – 2nd December 1920, Sir Ernest Clark urged tolerance toward Northern Ireland’s Catholic minority, while a Lords amendment seeking to move Tyrone, Fermanagh and Derry to the Southern Parliament was rejected. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Need for ‘tolerance’ stressed| On This Day – 2nd December 1920
SPEAKING in Belfast, Sir Ernest Clark, CBE, Assistant Under Secretary [for Ireland) said that the future of this country depended upon good government. He was a mere outsider.
How were they to make this northern part of Ireland the best governed, most prosperous, most go-ahead and most tolerant part of the Empire? (Applause.)
They would not have a great deal of success unless they remembered they had to carry with them a minority who ould hamper them and who could help them too.
Let them not forget that with regard to the 400,000 Roman Catholics in this province. that there were 300,000 Protestants in Ireland outside this province, and whatever measure they meted to the men within their borders, it will be measured again to their friend or brother outside!
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: As ‘midwife” to the new NI state, responsible for laying its constitutional and security foundations in close consultation with the UUC, the English-born Clark was well aware that he was creating a “Protestant state” in which nationalist fears did not feature.
His plea tor tolerance towards the minority would fall on deaf ears.)
Vain attempt to revise partition
IN THE House of Lords yesterday Lord Killanin [a Southern peer] moved an amendment to omit from the Northern Parliament the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh and the Borough of Derry with the object of enabling these places to come under the Southern Parliament.
He considered that to include these areas in the Ulster Parliament would be unjust unreasonable and unwise. Ulster has had her own wav in every detail of the Bill. (Both counties showed clear Nationalist majorities].
The Marquis of Crewe [Liberal] could not understand why the Government should insist on the Six Counties and pile up unnecessary trouble.
Lord Farnham (Cavan] supported the amendment but urged that the excluded counties should embrace the whole nine counties of Ulster.
The Nationalist section hated and detested the Bill but, he believed, would accept the amendment.
The Lord Chancellor (Birkenhead) said he did not think they would dispute that the main trend of business of these two counties lay in the direction of Belfast, and not in the South.
A minority could prove to be a corrective. He did not know that they had ever proposed to limit the area to four counties.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Last-ditch attempts in the Lords to alter the territory of the new NI state were doomed to failure given Craig’s demand for a six county unit.
The Cavan landlord, Lord Farnham, had lost the nine-county argument at the UUC while Terence O’Neill’s Liberal grandfather, Lord Crewe was astute in suggesting the danger of coercing nationalist heartlands.)
On This Day – 2nd December 1920
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
19201202
Reference Date
December 2, 2020
Publication Date
Listen Along in Éamons Voice *
Summary: On This Day – 2nd December 1920, Sir Ernest Clark urged tolerance toward Northern Ireland’s Catholic minority, while a Lords amendment seeking to move Tyrone, Fermanagh and Derry to the Southern Parliament was rejected. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.
Need for ‘tolerance’ stressed| On This Day – 2nd December 1920
SPEAKING in Belfast, Sir Ernest Clark, CBE, Assistant Under Secretary [for Ireland) said that the future of this country depended upon good government. He was a mere outsider.
How were they to make this northern part of Ireland the best governed, most prosperous, most go-ahead and most tolerant part of the Empire? (Applause.)
They would not have a great deal of success unless they remembered they had to carry with them a minority who ould hamper them and who could help them too.
Let them not forget that with regard to the 400,000 Roman Catholics in this province. that there were 300,000 Protestants in Ireland outside this province, and whatever measure they meted to the men within their borders, it will be measured again to their friend or brother outside!
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: As ‘midwife” to the new NI state, responsible for laying its constitutional and security foundations in close consultation with the UUC, the English-born Clark was well aware that he was creating a “Protestant state” in which nationalist fears did not feature.
His plea tor tolerance towards the minority would fall on deaf ears.)
Vain attempt to revise partition
IN THE House of Lords yesterday Lord Killanin [a Southern peer] moved an amendment to omit from the Northern Parliament the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh and the Borough of Derry with the object of enabling these places to come under the Southern Parliament.
He considered that to include these areas in the Ulster Parliament would be unjust unreasonable and unwise. Ulster has had her own wav in every detail of the Bill. (Both counties showed clear Nationalist majorities].
The Marquis of Crewe [Liberal] could not understand why the Government should insist on the Six Counties and pile up unnecessary trouble.
Lord Farnham (Cavan] supported the amendment but urged that the excluded counties should embrace the whole nine counties of Ulster.
The Nationalist section hated and detested the Bill but, he believed, would accept the amendment.
The Lord Chancellor (Birkenhead) said he did not think they would dispute that the main trend of business of these two counties lay in the direction of Belfast, and not in the South.
A minority could prove to be a corrective. He did not know that they had ever proposed to limit the area to four counties.
(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Last-ditch attempts in the Lords to alter the territory of the new NI state were doomed to failure given Craig’s demand for a six county unit.
The Cavan landlord, Lord Farnham, had lost the nine-county argument at the UUC while Terence O’Neill’s Liberal grandfather, Lord Crewe was astute in suggesting the danger of coercing nationalist heartlands.)
On This Day – 2nd December 1920
Further Reading on Irish History:
List of other On This Day columns
Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive
On This Day is a daily column in the Irish News looking back either 50 or 100 years. The column was compiled by Dr Éamon Phoenix from the mid 1980s until autumn, 2022. The Foundation is very grateful to the Irish News for giving permission to reproduce Eamon’s columns. Funding gratefully received from Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs and the Magill Trust.
* The Foundation has worked hard to recreate Eamon’s distinctive voice through AI. Since this is an emerging technology, occasional imperfections may be audible.