A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes Jonathan Bardon
Episode 226 PARTITION
Lberal though he was, David Lloyd George headed a coalition government in 1920 which was overwhelmingly Conservative. Several prominent members of his cabinet on the eve of the Great War had pledged themselves to 'use all means which may be found' to prevent the setting up of a Home Rule parliament. By now, it was true, these Conservatives were prepared to accept Home Rule, but only if loyal Ulster remained within the United Kingdom.
At a crucial meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council in 1916 it had been agreed to seek partition of the six north-eastern counties. Since 1914 the bal¬ance of power had tilted away from Irish nationalists—especially because of, as Arthur Balfour, Lord President of the Council, put it, 'the blessed refusal of Sinn Feiners to take the Oath of Allegiance in 1918' The absence of 73 Sinn Fein MPS left only half a dozen demoralised Irish Party MPS in the Commons. And so Ulster Unionists essentially got the constitutional arrangement they desired.
In 1920 Ireland acquired a new frontier—through the decision of parliament, not by international accord. The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 allowed the exact positioning of Germany's borders in Upper Silesia, Schleswig, Marienwerder and Allenstein to be agreed after holding 'plebiscites' or referendums. Should Westminster also apply American President Woodrow Wilson's principle of self-determination by holding a referendum in Ulster? The cabinet committee on Ireland hastily dismissed this proposition. Balfour argued that referendums were only suited to vanquished enemies: 'Ireland is not like a conquered state, which we can carve up as in central Europe.'
The British government, however, could not ignore the prevailing spirit of the times. This, in part, explains the complexity of the solution it offered. The bill for 'the Better Government of Ireland' proposed two Irish parliaments, one for the six north-eastern counties to be called Northern Ireland, and another for the remaining twenty-six counties to be known as Southern Ireland. Both parts of Ireland were to continue to send representatives to Westminster. Without taking the trouble to consult Irish nationalists on the matter, Lloyd George assumed that they would find two Home Rule parlia¬ments less objectionable than a straightforward exclusion of the north-east.
Ulster Unionists publicly declared they were making a 'supreme sacrifice' by accepting a Home Rule parliament in Belfast. Actually the whole arrangement suited them very nicely. Those in the six north-eastern counties had no wish to see the Ulster counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal included in Northern Ireland. If they had been so inclined, the Unionist majority would be perilously thin, as the Co. Down MP, Captain Charles Craig, bluntly told the House of Commons: 'A couple of members sick, or two or three members absent for some accidental reason, might in one evening hand over the entire Ulster parliament and the entire Ulster position.'
Unionists soon got to like the idea of having their own parliament in Belfast. After all, the Labour and Liberal parties might form a government one day and decide to end partition. Having a parliament in Belfast might offer a protection against such an awful eventuality. As Charles Craig pointed out, 'We believe that if either of those parties, or the two in combination, were once more in power our chances of remaining a part of the United Kingdom would be very small indeed.'
Did Northern Ireland have to engulf the entire counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh? Tyrone and Fermanagh then had nationalist majorities. In 1914 the Ulster Unionist leader, Sir Edward Carson, had argued that the four most Protestant counties, with a population greater than that of New Zealand, would make a perfectly viable unit. He kept quiet on that issue now. Poor Law Unions, rather than counties, could have been used as a better guide to drawing the frontier.
On 23 December 1920 the Government of Ireland Act entered the statute book. Northern Ireland came into being, with elections due on 24 May 1921. Carson privately hated partition and had no liking for devolution in Northern Ireland: 'You cannot knock parliaments up and down as you do a ball, and, once you have planted them there, you cannot get rid of them.' But Carson was not going to fall out with the Ulster Protestants now. Instead he pleaded ill-health and graciously handed the leadership over to his faithful lieutenant, Sir ]ames Craig. Craig threw himself enthusiastically into Northern Ireland's first election:
Rally round me that I may shatter our enemies and their hopes of a republic flag. The Union Jack must sweep the polls. Vote early, work late.
The Union Jack did sweep the polls. Forty Unionists returned; and only six Sinn Fein and six Nationalists. By then it had become starkly obvious that the Government of Ireland Act had not solved the Irish Question. The most intense violence for more than a century now convulsed the whole island.

Jim Carroll