A unionist history of Northern Ireland
The editors of a new book on unionism blame the South, Northern Catholics and IRA
Fri, Feb 19, 2021, 06:06
Patrick J Roche and Brian Barton
July 1935: Statue of Edward Carson (1854-1935), unionist leader and founder of the Ulster Volunteer Force at Stormont Castle, seat of the Northern Ireland Parliament. Photograph: Fox Photos/ Getty Images
Northern unionists have never claimed to be a separate “nation”. From the outset they supported the union with Britain for a variety of rational and valid reasons.
They felt an instinctive loyalty towards Britain, the “nation” into which they and their ancestors had been born and which, in their view, embodied civil and political liberty. They valued the security of belonging to its Protestant majority. They shared an acute sense of being different from Ireland’s nationalist population not only in religion, but in ethnic origins, culture and political aspirations.