109-577: The Orange Volunteers ( OV ) or Orange Volunteer Force ( OVF ) is a small Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland . It was formed in 1998 by loyalists who opposed the Belfast Agreement and the loyalist ceasefires. Over the following year it carried out a wave of bomb and gun attacks on Catholics and Catholic-owned properties in rural areas, but since 2000 has been relatively inactive. The group has been associated with elements of
218-638: A devolved region within the United Kingdom and to resist the prospect of an all-Ireland republic . Within the framework of the 1998 Belfast Agreement , which concluded three decades of political violence, unionists have shared office with Irish nationalists in a reformed Northern Ireland Assembly . As of February 2024, they no longer do so as the larger faction: they serve in an executive with an Irish republican ( Sinn Féin ) First Minister . Unionism became an overarching partisan affiliation in Ireland late in
327-630: A series of car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan , in the Republic. This killed 34 civilians, making it the deadliest attack of the Troubles. The strike brought down the agreement and power-sharing government. Loyalists were involved in the major protest campaign against the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement . They saw it as a breach of sovereignty, because it gave the Republic an advisory role in some Northern Ireland affairs. The many street protests led to loyalist clashes with
436-929: A united Ireland independent of the UK. Unlike other strands of unionism, loyalism has been described as an ethnic nationalism of Ulster Protestants and "a variation of British nationalism ". Loyalists are often said to have a conditional loyalty to the British state so long as it defends their interests. They see themselves as loyal primarily to the Protestant British monarchy rather than to British governments and institutions, while Garret FitzGerald argued they are loyal to 'Ulster' over 'the Union'. A small minority of loyalists have called for an independent Ulster Protestant state, believing they cannot rely on British governments to support them (see Ulster nationalism ). The term 'loyalism'
545-642: A Belfast parliament (they did not develop an express nationalism of their own), but in summarising The Case Against Home Rule (1912), L. S. Amery did insist that "if Irish Nationalism constitutes a nation, then Ulster is a nation too". Faced with the eventual enactment of Home Rule, Carson appeared to press this argument. On 28 September 1912, Ulster Day, he was the first to sign, in Belfast City Hall, Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant . This bound signatories "to stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our position of equal citizenship in
654-517: A Catholic tradition of support for the union, focused on the value of stability and of empire, survived the first home-rule crisis. But it did not share the majority unionist conviction that any measure of devolution within the United Kingdom must lead to separation. Nor did it supply unionism with the equivalent of the Protestants who, individually, played a prominent role in home-rule and separatist politics. A handful of Irish Conservatives, drawn from
763-542: A Catholic, had helped devise a scheme for administrative devolution involving an Irish council of both elected and nominated members. Balfour, now prime minister, was obliged to disavow the scheme and Wyndham, pressed to deny his complicity, resigned. The uproar assisted the Liberal return to office in December. The road to Catholicism's identification with constitutional Irish nationalism was "far from smooth and immediate", and
872-405: A The Government of Ireland Bill that was largely of his own drafting. Unionists were not persuaded by his inclusion of measures to limit the remit of a Dublin legislature and to reduce the weight of the popular vote (the 200 or so popularly elected members were to sit in session with 28 Irish Peers and a further 75 Members elected on a highly restrictive property franchise). Regardless of how it
981-518: A constructive course. He pursued reforms intended, as some saw it, to kill home rule with "kindness". For the express purpose of relieving poverty and reducing emigration, in the Congested Districts of the west Balfour initiated a programme not only of public works, but of subsidy for local craft industries. Headed by the former Unionist MP for South Dublin , Horace Plunkett , a new Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction broke with
1090-762: A low-level tenant-landlord war came to Westminster in 1852 when the all-Ireland Tenant Right League helped return 48 MPs to Westminster where they sat as the Independent Irish Party . What the Young Irelander Gavan Duffy called the League of North and South soon fell apart. In the South the Church approved the Catholic MPs breaking their pledge of independent opposition and accepting government positions. In
1199-588: A minority within the United Kingdom may have passed. In 1830, the leader of the Catholic Association , Daniel O'Connell , invited Protestants to join in a campaign to repeal the Union and restore the Kingdom of Ireland under the Constitution of 1782 . At the same time, the security in Ireland for emancipation was a fivefold increase in the threshold for the property franchise . O'Connell's Protestant ally in
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#17328545902541308-522: A paramilitary campaign to force a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Loyalist paramilitaries attacked the Catholic community as alleged retaliation for IRA actions, and the vast majority of their victims were random Catholic civilians. During the Troubles there were incidents where British security forces colluded with loyalist paramilitaries , such as the attacks by the Glenanne group . Signed in 1973,
1417-568: A republican front. Loyalist opposition was led primarily by Ian Paisley , a Protestant fundamentalist preacher. They held counter-protests, attacked civil rights marches, and put pressure on moderate unionists. Loyalist militants carried out false flag bombings that were blamed on republicans and civil rights activists. This unrest led to the August 1969 riots . Irish nationalists/republicans clashed with both police and with loyalists, who burned hundreds of Catholic homes and businesses. The riots led to
1526-640: A separation of north and south, with Belfast as the capital of its own "distinct kingdom". In response to the First Home rule Bill in 1886, Radical Unionists (Liberals who proposed federalising the relationship between all countries of the United Kingdom) likewise argued that "the Protestant part of Ulster should receive special treatment . . . on grounds identical with those that support the general contention for Home Rule" Ulster Protestants expressed no interest in
1635-605: A stroke in 1898 to democratically elected councils), the old landlord class had the terms of their retirement fixed by the Wyndham Land Act of 1903. This reduced, but did not in itself resolve, agrarian tensions, even in the north. In 1906, Thomas Russell, MP , the son of an evicted Scottish crofter , broke with the Conservatives in the Irish Unionist Alliance to be returned to Westminster from South Tyrone as
1744-511: A subsequent trial, WPSU organiser Dorothy Evans created an uproar by demanding to know why James Craig, then arming Ulster Volunteers with German rifles, was not appearing on the same weapons and explosives charges. In August 1914, suffragists in Ulster suspended their agitation for the duration of the European war. Their reward was a women's franchise in 1918 and (six years after it was granted in
1853-1056: A total membership of around 30,000, an all-time high. According to the Parades Commission, a total of 1,354 loyalist parades (not counting funerals) were held in Northern Ireland in 2007. The Police Service of Northern Ireland uses different statistics, and recorded a total of 2,863 parades in 2007. Of these, 2,270 (approximately 80%) were held by loyalist marching bands. [REDACTED] Category Does not include organisations focused on Unionism which do not mention British nationalism in their official makeup. Does not include organisations supportive of Unionism or Scottish independence without mentioning nationalism in their official makeup. Does not include organisations supportive of Unionism or Welsh independence without mentioning nationalism in their official makeup. Unionism in Ireland Unionism in Ireland
1962-663: A trade regime, the Northern Ireland Protocol , that advances an all-Ireland agenda. In February 2024, two years after their withdrawal collapsed the devolved institutions, on the basis of new British government assurances they returned to the Assembly to form the first Northern Ireland government in which unionists are a minority. In the last decades of the Kingdom of Ireland (1542–1800), Protestants in public life advanced themselves as Irish Patriots. The focus of their patriotism
2071-507: Is a political tradition that professes loyalty to the crown of the United Kingdom and to the union it represents with England , Scotland and Wales . The overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority , unionism mobilised in the decades following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to oppose restoration of a separate Irish parliament . Since Partition in 1921, as Ulster unionism its goal has been to retain Northern Ireland as
2180-653: Is justified?" In Northern Ireland there are a number of Protestant fraternities and marching bands who hold yearly parades. They include the Orange Order and Apprentice Boys of Derry . These fraternities, often described as the "Loyal Orders", have long been associated with unionism/loyalism. Yearly events such as the Eleventh Night (11 July) bonfires and The Twelfth (12 July) parades are strongly associated with loyalism. A report published in 2013 estimated there were at least 640 marching bands in Northern Ireland with
2289-576: Is usually associated with paramilitarism . Ulster loyalism emerged in the late 19th century, in reaction to the Irish Home Rule movement and the rise of Irish nationalism . Ireland had a Catholic majority who wanted self-government, but the province of Ulster had a Protestant and unionist majority, largely due to the Plantation of Ulster . Although not all unionists were Protestant, loyalists emphasised their British Protestant heritage. During
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#17328545902542398-520: The News Letter , a Belfast-based newspaper with a unionist editorial stance, sought the view of the Protestant community on a recent upsurge in loyalist paramilitary violence . The poll found that 42 per cent of callers responded "Yes" to the question: "Do you support loyalist paramilitary violence?" Over 50 per cent of callers chose "Yes" in response to the question "Do you believe there are any current circumstances in which loyalist paramilitary violence
2507-638: The American War of Independence , of the Irish Volunteers and, as that militia paraded in Dublin, the securing in 1782 of the parliament's legislative independence from the British government in London. In the north-east, combinations of Presbyterian tradesmen, merchants, and tenant farmers protested against the unrepresentative parliament and against an executive in Dublin Castle still appointed, through
2616-696: The Conservative and Orange-Order candidates of the landed Ascendancy . But as the Irish party-political successors to O'Connell's Repeal movement gained representation and influence in Westminster, Cooke's call for unity was to be heeded in the progressive emergence of a pan-Protestant unionism. Up to, and through, the Great Famine of the 1840s, successive governments, Whig and Tory, had refused political responsibility for agrarian conditions in Ireland. The issues of
2725-535: The Glenanne gang ), giving weapons and intelligence to loyalists, not taking action against them, and hindering official investigations. The modus operandi of loyalist paramilitaries involved assassinations, mass shootings, bombings and kidnappings. They used sub machine-guns , assault rifles , pistols , grenades (including homemade grenades), incendiary bombs , booby trap bombs and car bombs . Bomb attacks were usually made without warning. However, gun attacks were more common than bombings. In January 1994,
2834-671: The Greysteel massacre by the UDA and Loughinisland massacre by the UVF. The main loyalist paramilitary groups called a ceasefire in 1994, shortly after the Provisional IRA's ceasefire and beginning of the Northern Ireland peace process . This ceasefire came under strain during the Drumcree dispute of the mid-to-late 1990s. The Protestant Orange Order was blocked from marching its traditional route through
2943-667: The Home Rule Crisis (1912–14), loyalists founded the paramilitary Ulster Volunteers to prevent Ulster from becoming part of a self-governing Ireland. This was followed by the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and partition of Ireland : most of Ireland became an independent state, while most of Ulster remained within the UK as the self-governing territory of Northern Ireland. During partition, communal violence raged between loyalists and Irish nationalists in Belfast , and loyalists attacked
3052-660: The Irish Free State ) equal voting rights in 1928 . In 1911 a Liberal administration was once again dependent on Irish nationalist MPs. In 1912 the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith , introduced the Third Home Rule Bill . A more generous dispensation than the earlier bills, it would, for the first time, have given an Irish parliament an accountable executive. It was carried in the Commons by a majority of ten. As expected, it
3161-597: The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP). In his first ministry (1868-1874), the Liberal premier William Ewart Gladstone had attempted conciliation. In 1869, he disestablished the Church of Ireland , and in 1870 introduced the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act . In both measures conservative jurists identified threats to the integrity of the union. Disestablishment reneged on the promise of "one Protestant Episcopal Church" for both Britain and Ireland under Article V of
3270-469: The Irish Trades Union Congress as tantamount to support for Home Rule. Yet loyalist workers resented the idea that they were the retainers of "big-house unionists". A manifesto signed in the spring of 1914 by two thousand labour men, rejected the suggestion of the radical and socialist press that Ulster was being manipulated by "an aristocratic plot". If Sir Edward Carson led in the battle for
3379-507: The Irish Volunteers to ensure home rule was implemented. Home rule was postponed by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Both loyalists and nationalists fought in the war , with many Ulster Volunteers joining the 36th (Ulster) Division . By the end of the war, most Irish nationalists wanted full independence. After winning most Irish seats in the 1918 general election , Irish republicans declared an Irish Republic , leading to
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3488-572: The Irish War of Independence between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British forces. Meanwhile, the Fourth Home Rule Bill passed through the British parliament in 1920. It would partition Ireland into two self-governing polities within the UK: a Protestant-majority Northern Ireland , and a Catholic-majority Southern Ireland . During 1920–22, in what became Northern Ireland, partition
3597-617: The Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union —sought to connect. With Gladstone's conversion to home rule, politicians who had held aloof from the Order now embraced its militancy. Colonel Edward Saunderson , who had represented Cavan as a Liberal, donned an Orange sash "because", he said "the Orange society is alone capable of dealing with the condition of anarchy and rebellion which prevail in Ireland". In February 1886, playing, in his own words,
3706-690: The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), attacked Catholics over a two-year period before calling a ceasefire. Loyalist representatives had helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and it was backed by the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party and UDA-linked Ulster Democratic Party . However, wider loyalist support for the Agreement was tenuous from the outset, and these parties received many fewer votes than
3815-580: The Loyalist Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association . David Ervine , at the time a leading member of the Progressive Unionist Party , described the group as little more than a gang of Protestant fundamentalists and drug-dealers. In 1998 and 1999, the Orange Volunteers were led by Clifford Peeples , a Protestant pastor from Belfast. One of the group's first actions was a synchronized attack on 11 Catholic churches. Peeples defended
3924-547: The Orange Order and has a Calvinist fundamentalist ideology. OV's original leader was Clifford Peeples . The OV are a Proscribed Organisation in the United Kingdom under the Terrorism Act 2000 and have been included on the U.S. State Department's, "Terrorist Exclusion List", since 2001. The OV emerged during the 1998 Drumcree conflict when the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British Army prevented members of
4033-604: The Portadown Orange Order and their supporters from returning to the town centre down the Garvaghy road. However, there is evidence to suggest that they had been actively recruiting and training members since as early as 1985. The group is believed to be made up of dissident loyalists who disapprove of the Northern Ireland peace process and also of the more militant members of the Orange Order, including former members of
4142-640: The Republic of Ireland , by successive British governments. Following the 1998 Belfast Agreement , under which both republican and loyalist paramilitaries committed to permanent ceasefires, unionists accepted principles of joint office and parallel consent in a new Northern Ireland legislature and executive. Renegotiated in 2006, relations within this consociational arrangement remained fraught. Unionists, with diminishing electoral strength, charged their nationalist partners in government with pursuing an anti-British cultural agenda and, post- Brexit , with supporting
4251-732: The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), whom loyalists accused of enforcing the Agreement and betraying the Protestant community. This caused a rift between loyalists and the police, and there were numerous loyalist attacks on police officers' homes during the protests. From the late 1980s, there was a rise in loyalist paramilitary violence, partly due to anger over the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It also resulted from loyalist groups being re-armed with weapons smuggled from South Africa, overseen by British Intelligence agent Brian Nelson . From 1992 to 1994, loyalists carried out more killings than republicans. The deadliest attacks during this period were
4360-593: The Sunningdale Agreement sought to end the conflict by establishing power-sharing government between unionists and Irish nationalists, and ensuring greater co-operation with the Republic of Ireland. In protest, loyalists organised the Ulster Workers' Council strike in May 1974. It was enforced by loyalist paramilitaries and brought large parts of Northern Ireland to a standstill. During the strike, loyalists detonated
4469-582: The Third Home Rule Bill in 1912 sparked the Home Rule Crisis . Ulster unionists signed the Ulster Covenant , pledging to oppose Irish home rule by any means. They founded a large paramilitary force, the Ulster Volunteers , threatening to violently resist the authority of any Irish government over Ulster. The Ulster Volunteers smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition into Ulster from Imperial Germany . In response, Irish nationalists founded
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4578-607: The Ulster Unionist Council was established to bring together unionists in the north including, with 50 of 200 seats, the Orange Order . Until then, unionism had largely placed itself behind Anglo-Irish aristocrats valued for their high-level connections in Great Britain . The UUC still accorded them a degree of precedence. Castlereagh's descendant and former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , The 6th Marquess of Londonderry , presided over its executive. The Council also retained
4687-529: The deployment of British troops and are often seen as the beginning of the Troubles . The beginning of the Troubles saw a revival of loyalist paramilitaries , notably the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Their stated goals were to defend Protestant areas, to fight those they saw as "enemies of Ulster" (namely republicans), and thwart any step towards Irish unification . The Provisional Irish Republican Army waged
4796-575: The partition settlement of 1921 by which the rest of Ireland attained separate statehood , Ulster unionists accepted a home-rule dispensation for the six north-east counties remaining in the United Kingdom. For the next 50 years, the Ulster Unionist Party exercised the devolved powers of the Northern Ireland Parliament with little domestic opposition and outside of the governing party-political system at Westminster . In 1972,
4905-413: The "Orange card", Lord Randolph Churchill assured a "monster meeting" of the Anti-Repeal Union in Belfast, that English Conservatives would "cast in their lot" with loyalists in resisting Home Rule, and he later coined the phrase that was to become the watchword of northern unionism: "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right". Gladstone's own party was split on Home Rule and the House divided against
5014-416: The 1887 Act creating a new city-status municipal franchise for Belfast (piloted through the Commons by William Johnston ) conferred the vote on persons rather than men. This was eleven years before women elsewhere Ireland gained the vote in local government elections. The WSS had not been impressed by the women's Ulster Declaration or by the Ulster Women's Unionist Council (UWUC)—with over 100,000 members
5123-430: The 1973 Sunningdale Agreement and 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement . The paramilitaries called ceasefires in 1994 and their representatives were involved in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday Agreement . Since then, loyalists have been involved in protests against perceived threats to their cultural identity. Sections of the loyalist paramilitaries have attacked Catholics, taken part in loyalist feuds , and withdrawn support for
5232-508: The 1990s, loyalist paramilitaries have been responsible for numerous racist attacks in loyalist areas. A 2006 report revealed that 90% of racist attacks in the previous two years occurred in mainly loyalist areas. In the 1990s, the main loyalist paramilitaries called ceasefires . Following this, small breakaway groups continued to wage violent campaigns for a number of years, and members of loyalist groups have continued to engage in sporadic violence. A telephone poll conducted in March 1993 by
5341-428: The Act of Union (the Ulster Protestant Defence Association claimed breach of contract), and weak as they were, provisions for tenant compensation and purchase created a separate agrarian regime for Ireland at odds with the prevailing English conception of property rights. In the Long Depression of the 1870s the Land War intensified. From 1879 it was organised by the direct-action Irish National Land League , led by
5450-495: The Agreement, although their campaigns have not resumed. In Northern Ireland there is a tradition of loyalist Protestant marching bands , who hold numerous parades each year. The yearly Eleventh Night (11 July) bonfires and The Twelfth (12 July) parades are associated with loyalism. The term loyalist was first used in Irish politics in the 1790s to refer to Protestants who opposed Catholic Emancipation and Irish independence from Great Britain. Ulster loyalism emerged in
5559-413: The British government suspended this arrangement. Against a background of growing political violence, and citing the need to consider how Catholics in Northern Ireland could be integrated into its civic and political life, it prorogued the parliament in Belfast. Over the ensuing three decades of The Troubles , unionists divided in their responses to power-sharing proposals presented, in consultation with
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#17328545902545668-406: The Catholic gentry , were returned to the Commons before the 1884 Reform Act. A "unique place" was occupied by Sir Denis Henry (1864-1925). When he won his native South Londonderry seat in a 1916 by-election, he was the first Catholic to represent a unionist constituency in Ulster, and when he retained the seat in 1918, the future Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland was the last. In 1905,
5777-575: The Catholic minority in retaliation for Irish republican activity. Northern Ireland's unionist governments discriminated against Catholics and Irish nationalists. Loyalists opposed the Catholic civil rights movement , accusing it of being a republican front. This unrest led to the Troubles (1969–98). During the conflict, loyalist paramilitaries such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA) often attacked Catholics, partly in retaliation for republican paramilitary actions. Loyalists undertook major protest campaigns against
5886-431: The Catholic part of Portadown . Catholic residents held mass protests against the yearly march, seeing it as triumphalist and supremacist , forcing police to halt the march. Loyalists saw this as an assault on Ulster Protestant traditions, and held violent protests throughout Northern Ireland. In Portadown, thousands of loyalists attacked lines of police and soldiers guarding the Catholic district. A new UVF splinter group,
5995-608: The Church of Rome", then undergoing its own devotional revolution. The leading Presbyterian evangelist, Henry Cooke took the occasion to preach Protestant Unity. In 1834, at a mass demonstration hosted upon his estate by the 3rd Marquess of Downshire , Cooke proposed a "Christian marriage" between the two main Protestant denominations (Anglican and Presbyterian). Setting their remaining differences aside, they would cooperate on all "matters of common safety". Presbyterian voters tended to favour reform-minded Whigs or, as they later emerged, tenant-right and free-trade Liberals , over
6104-403: The IRA drew most of its support from the Catholic community. Such retaliation was seen as both collective punishment and an attempt to weaken the IRA's support; some loyalists argued that terrorising the Catholic community and inflicting a high death toll on it would eventually force the IRA to end its campaign. According to then Prime Minister Tony Blair , "The purpose of loyalist terrorism
6213-470: The North, the Protestant tenant righters, William Sharman Crawford and James MacKnight had their election meetings broken up by Orangemen . For unionism the more momentous challenge lay in the wake of the Reform Act 1867 . In England and Wales it produced an electorate that no longer identified instinctively with the conservative interest in Ireland and was more open to the "home-rule" compromise that nationalists now presented. Ireland would remain within
6322-443: The Northern Ireland population was Roman Catholic, with 62% belonging to the three major Protestant denominations ( Presbyterian 31%, Church of Ireland 27%, Methodist 4%). The Unionist governments of Northern Ireland discriminated against the Irish nationalist and Catholic minority. A non-violent campaign to end discrimination began in the late 1960s. This civil rights campaign was opposed by loyalists, who accused it of being
6431-487: The Plantation of the province. Eastern Ulster was also more industrialised and dependent on trade with Britain than most other parts of Ireland. Although not all Unionists were Protestant or from Ulster, loyalism emphasised Ulster Protestant heritage. It began as a self-determination movement of Ulster Protestants who did not want to become part of a self-governing Ireland, believing it would be dominated by Catholic Irish nationalists. The British government's introduction of
6540-433: The South. The British government, which had had to deploy its own forces to suppress the rebellion in Ireland and to turn back and defeat French intervention, decided on a union with Great Britain. Provision for Catholic emancipation was dropped from the Act of Union pushed with difficulty through the parliament in Dublin. While a separate Irish executive in Dublin was retained, representation, still wholly Protestant,
6649-417: The Troubles, and were responsible for about 48% of all civilian deaths. Loyalist paramilitaries killed civilians at far higher rates than both Republican paramilitaries and British security forces. Soldiers from the locally-recruited Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) colluded with loyalist paramilitaries, such as taking part in loyalist attacks (e.g.
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#17328545902546758-417: The Troubles, and were the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA)/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). They, and most other loyalist paramilitaries, are classified as terrorist organisations . During the Troubles, their stated goals were to combat Irish republicanism – particularly the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) – and to defend Protestant loyalist areas. However,
6867-419: The UDA drew up a 'doomsday plan', to be implemented should British troops be withdrawn from Northern Ireland. It called for ethnic cleansing and re-partition , with the goal of making Northern Ireland wholly Protestant. Some loyalist paramilitaries have had links with far-right and Neo-Nazi groups in Britain, including Combat 18 , the British National Socialist Movement , and the National Front. Since
6976-506: The UWUC that draft articles for an Ulster Provisional Government included votes for women. The nationalists would make no such undertaking with regard to a Dublin parliament. The marriage was short lived. In March 1914, Carson , after being door-stepped for fours days by the WSPU, ruled women's suffrage too divisive an issue for unionists. There followed a series of arson-attacks on unionist-owned and associated property that culminated in Lillian Metge 's bombing of Lisburn Cathedral . In
7085-407: The Ulster Women's Declaration; 237,368 men signed the Solemn League and Covenant . Unionist women had been involved in political campaigning from the time of the first Home Rule Bill in 1886. Some were active suffragettes . Isabella Tod , an anti-Home Rule Liberal and campaigner for girls education, was an early pioneer. Determined lobbying by her North of Ireland Women's Suffrage Society ensured
7194-585: The Union it was "because we, the workers, the people, the democracy of Ulster, have chosen him". The majority of the signatories would have been organised in British-based unions, and could point to the growing political weight of British labour in reform measures such as the Trade Disputes Act 1906 , the People's Budget 1910 , and the National Insurance Act 1911 . Nationalists did not seek to persuade them that collective bargaining, progressive taxation and social security were principles for which majorities could be as readily found in an Irish parliament. At what
7303-405: The United Kingdom but with a parliament in Dublin exercising powers devolved from Westminster. Meanwhile, in Ireland, a combination of the secret ballot and increased representation for the towns, reduced the electoral influence of land owners and their agents, and contributed to the triumph, in 1874 , of the Home Rule League . Fifty-nine members were returned to Westminster where they sat as
7412-485: The United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland". In January 1913, Carson declared for the exclusion of Ulster and called for the enlistment of up to 100,000 Covenanters as drilled and armed Ulster Volunteers . On 23 September, the second Ulster Day, he accepted Chairmanship of a Provisional Government organised by Craig. If Home Rule were imposed "we will be governed as
7521-497: The attack on the grounds that the churches were "bastions of the Antichrist ". On 27 November 1998, eight masked OV members brandishing guns and grenades staged a "show of strength" for a local journalist. The gunmen began the meeting with a Bible reading and ended it with prayers. They produced a "covenant" that said: "We are defenders of the reformed faith. Our members are practising Protestant worshippers". They went on to state: "We are prepared to defend our people and if it comes to
7630-468: The attacks listed above, the OV have also sent numerous death threats to members of Sinn Féin. These include Gerry Adams , Alex Maskey , Gerry Kelly , Francie Molloy , Caitríona Ruane , Cara McShane and Mary McArdle. In a series of police raids aimed at dissident loyalists in Autumn 1999, eight arrests were made, weapons, pipe bombs and ammunition were recovered and a search of Stoneyford Orange Hall in County Antrim uncovered military files containing
7739-522: The bill, which did allow for Irish MPs, was passed by a narrow majority in the Commons but went down to defeat in the overwhelmingly Conservative House of Lords . The Conservatives formed a new ministry. Gladstone's Tory successor in 1886, Lord Salisbury , believed his government should "leave Home Rule sleeping the sleep of the unjust". In 1887 Dublin Castle was given standing power to suspend habeas corpus . However, as Chief Secretary for Ireland , Salisbury's nephew Arthur Balfour determined upon
7848-575: The champion of the Ulster Farmers and Labourers Union. With the Cork City MP, William O'Brien , Russell helped initiate a programme that built some 40,000 one-acre labourer-owned cottages. During the constructivist 1890s, and before a Liberal government revived the prospects for home rule, unionists appeared more at ease with interest in Irish culture. The first Ulster branch of the Gaelic League
7957-512: The crunch we will assassinate the enemies of Ulster. Ordinary Catholics have nothing to fear from us. But the true enemies will be targeted, and that's a lot wider than just Sinn Féin and the IRA ". They vowed to target IRA prisoners released as part of the Belfast Agreement and claimed responsibility for a string of attacks on Irish nationalist -owned businesses a month beforehand. In addition to
8066-534: The early 20th century. In 1912, the Ulster Volunteers were formed to stop the British Government granting self-rule to Ireland, or to exclude Ulster from it. This led to the Home Rule Crisis , which was defused by the onset of World War I . Loyalist paramilitaries were again active in Ulster during the Irish War of Independence (1919–22), and more prominently during the Troubles (late 1960s–1998). The biggest and most active paramilitary groups existed during
8175-423: The group were convicted of a range of terrorist offences, including possession of an automatic rifle, in December 2000. Ulster loyalism Ulster loyalism is a strand of Ulster unionism associated with working class Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland. Like other unionists, loyalists support the continued existence of Northern Ireland (and formerly all of Ireland) within the United Kingdom, and oppose
8284-502: The largest women's political organisation in Ireland. Elizabeth McCracken noted the failure of unionist women to formulate "any demand on their own behalf or that of their own sex". Yet in September 1913 McCracken was celebrating a "marriage of unionism and women's suffrage". Following reports that the militant Women's Social and Political Union (WPSU) would begin organising in Ulster, the secretary of Ulster Unionist Council had informed
8393-417: The late 19th century, in response to the Irish Home Rule movement and the rise of Irish nationalism . At the time, all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom . Although the island had a Catholic majority who wanted self-government, the northern province of Ulster had a Protestant majority who wanted to maintain a close union with Britain , a political tradition called Unionism. This was largely due to
8502-596: The leadership of the tenant-right movement men, like the Rev. James Armour of Ballymoney , who were at best agnostic on the union, while in the west of the province (in counties Armagh , Cavan , Fermanagh and Tyrone ) even Orangemen had started joining the Land League. The final and decisive shift in favour of constitutional concessions came in the wake of the Third Reform Act of 1884 . The near-universal admission to
8611-724: The leadership of unionism. Together with R. Lindsay Crawford and their Independent Orange Order , Sloan supported dock and linen-mill workers, led by the syndicalist James Larkin , in the great Belfast Lockout of 1907 . In July 1912, loyalists forced some 3,000 workers out of the shipyards and engineering plants in Belfast. Unlike previous incidents, the expellees included not only Catholics but also some 600 Protestants, targeted mainly because they were seen to support labour organising across sectarian lines. The unionist press depicted any connection with either British Labour (who had held their first party conference in Belfast in 1907) or with
8720-491: The link between Ireland and Great Britain were weakened or severed". That same link was critical for all those employed in the great export industries of the North—textiles, engineering, shipbuilding. For these the Irish hinterland was less important than the industrial triangle that linked Belfast and region with Clydeside and the north of England. Yet the most popular summary of case against Irish self-government remained
8829-658: The main unionist parties: the pro-Agreement UUP and anti-Agreement DUP. Since the Agreement, loyalist paramilitaries have been involved in riots, feuds between loyalist groups , organised crime, vigilantism such as punishment shootings , and racist attacks. Some UDA and LVF brigades broke the ceasefire and attacked Catholics under the name Red Hand Defenders , but the paramilitary campaigns did not resume. The 2001 Holy Cross protests drew world-wide condemnation as loyalists were shown hurling abuse and missiles, some explosive, others containing excrement, at very young Catholic schoolchildren and parents. Loyalist residents picketed
8938-401: The manufacturers and merchants of Belfast and neighbouring industrial districts could generally count on voting with the majority of their own workforce. But the loyalty of the Protestant worker was not unconditional. In the mind of many working-class unionists there was no contradiction between the defence of Protestant principle and political radicalism, "indeed, these were often seen as one and
9047-621: The measure. In 1891 Ulster's Liberal Unionists , part of a larger Liberal break with Gladstone, entered Saunderson's Irish Unionist Alliance , and at Westminster took the Conservative whip . In 1892, despite bitter division over the personally compromised leadership of Parnell, the Nationalists were able to help Gladstone to a third ministry. The result was a second Home Rule bill . It was greeted by an Ulster opposition more highly developed and better organised. A great Ulster Unionist Convention
9156-603: The message broadcast in a "great revival" of the Orange Order — "Home Rule means Rome Rule ". In the north, the competition represented by the growing numbers of Catholics arriving at mill and factory gates had already given the once largely rural (and Anglican ) Orange Order a new lease among Protestant workers. The pattern, in itself, was not unique to Belfast and its satellites. Glasgow , Manchester , Liverpool and other British centres experiencing large-scale Irish immigration developed similar Orange and nativist ward and workplace politics with which unionists—organised in
9265-499: The nineteenth century. Typically Presbyterian agrarian-reform Liberals coalesced with traditionally Anglican Orange Order Conservatives against the Irish Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893. Joined by loyalist labour, on the eve of World War I this broad opposition to Irish self-government concentrated in Belfast and its hinterlands as Ulster unionism and prepared an armed resistance—the Ulster Volunteers . Within
9374-495: The north, George Ensor , observed that this broke the link between Catholic inclusion and democratic reform. In Ulster, resistance to O'Connell's appeal was stiffened by a religious revival. With its emphasis upon "personal witness", the New Reformation appeared to transcend the ecclesiastical differences between the different Protestant denominations. while launching them into "a far more conscious sense of separateness from
9483-513: The office of the Lord Lieutenant , by English ministers. Seeing little prospect of further reform and in the hope that they might be assisted by republican France , these United Irishmen sought a revolutionary union of "Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter" (i.e. of Catholics and Protestants of all persuasions). Their resolve was broken with the defeat of their uprising in 1798 , and by reports of rebel outrages against Protestant Loyalists in
9592-538: The old-fashioned Tories of the Counties ... modern Conservatives ... Orangemen ... All these various elements—Whig, Liberal, Radical, Presbyterian, Episcopalian , Unitarian and Methodist ... united as one man." While references to Catholics were conciliatory the Convention resolved: to retain unchanged our present position as an integral portion of the United Kingdom, and protest in the most unequivocal manner against
9701-538: The passage of any measure that would rob us of our inheritance in the Imperial Parliament, under the protection of which our capital has been invested and our home and rights safeguarded; that we record our determination to have nothing to do with a Parliament certain to be controlled by men responsible for the crime and outrage of the Land League . . . many of whom have shown themselves the ready instrument of clerical domination. After mammoth parliamentary sessions
9810-547: The personal details of over 300 republicans from South Armagh and Belfast . Peeples and another loyalist were arrested by the RUC after their car was stopped on the outskirts of Dungannon and two hand grenades and a pipe bomb were discovered. In 2001 he was jailed for ten years for possession of the weapons. He was released in 2004 and became the minister of a Pentecostal church on the Shankill Road in Belfast. Four other members of
9919-497: The same because it was the wealthy who were most prone to conciliation and treachery". Exercising the new workingman's vote , in 1868 loyalists in Belfast had chosen their own "Conservative", rejecting a millowner and returning an evangelical Orangeman, William Johnston , to Westminster. Johnston proceeded to propose and vote for labour protection , tenant right , the secret ballot and woman's suffrage In 1902, Johnston's successor as MP for South Belfast , Thomas Sloan , again
10028-514: The school in protest at alleged sectarianism from Catholics in the area. Many other loyalist protests and riots have been sparked by restrictions on Orange marches, such as the 2005 Whiterock riots . The widespread loyalist flag protests and riots of 2012–13 followed Belfast City Council voting to limit the flying of the Union Flag from council buildings. Loyalists saw it as an "attack on their cultural identity". The Loyalist Communities Council
10137-531: The services of Carson, from 1892 MP for Trinity College Dublin and supported him from 1910 as leader of the Irish Unionist parliamentary party. But marshalled by Captain James Craig , a millionaire director of Belfast's Dunville Whiskey , it was northern employers who undertook the real political and organisational work. Unlike the southern landowners who were politically opposed by their Catholic tenants,
10246-413: The southern Protestant Charles Stewart Parnell . In 1881, in a further Land Act , Gladstone conceded the three F's —fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure. Recognising that "the land grievance had been a bond of discontent between Ulster and the rest of Ireland and in that sense a danger to the union", Irish Conservatives did not oppose the measure. Protestants in the eastern counties had admitted to
10355-411: The suffrage of male heads of household tripled the electorate in Ireland. The 1885 election returned an IPP, now under the leadership of Parnell, of 85 Members (including 17 from Ulster where Conservatives and Liberals split the unionist vote). Gladstone, whose Liberals lost all 15 of their Irish seats, was able to form his second ministry only with their Commons support. In June 1886, Gladstone tabled
10464-566: The support of the splinter Liberal Unionist Party , Salisbury returned to office in 1895. The Land Act of 1896 introduced for the first time the principle of compulsory sale to tenants, through its application was limited to bankrupt estates. "You would suppose", said Sir Edward Carson , Dublin barrister and the leading spokesman for Irish Conservatives, "that the Government were revolutionists verging on Socialism". Having been first obliged to surrender their hold on local government (transferred at
10573-480: The traditions of Irish Boards by announcing that its aim was to "be in touch with public opinion of the classes whom its work concerns, and to rely largely for its success upon their active assistance and cooperation". It supported and encouraged dairy cooperatives, the Creameries, that were to be an important institution in the emergence of a new class of independent smallholders. Greater reform followed when, with
10682-530: The vast majority of their victims were Irish Catholic civilians, who were often killed at random in sectarian attacks. Whenever they claimed responsibility for attacks, loyalists usually claimed that those targeted were IRA members or were helping the IRA. M.L.R. Smith wrote that "From the outset, the loyalist paramilitaries tended to regard all Catholics as potential rebels". Other times, attacks on Catholic civilians were claimed as "retaliation" for IRA actions, since
10791-681: Was accompanied by violence both in defence of and against partition. Belfast saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence , mainly between Protestant loyalist and Catholic nationalist civilians. Loyalists attacked the Catholic minority in reprisal for IRA actions. Thousands of Catholics and "disloyal" Protestants were driven from their jobs, particularly in the shipyards, and there were mass burnings of Catholic homes and businesses in Lisburn and Banbridge . More than 500 were killed in Northern Ireland during partition and more than 10,000 became refugees, most of them Catholics. In 1926, about 33–34% of
10900-507: Was constituted, they believed that an Irish parliament would (egged on by the "American Irish") enter into conflicts with the "imperial parliament" in London that could only be resolved through "complete separation". The upper and middle classes found in Britain and the Empire "a wide range of profitable careers--in the army, in the public services, in commerce--from which they might be shut out if
11009-506: Was defeated in the Lords, but as result of the crisis engendered by the opposition of the peers to the 1910 People's Budget the Lords now only had the power of delay. Home Rule would become law in 1914. There had long been discussion of giving "an option to Ulster". As early as 1843, The Northern Whig reasoned that if differences in ethnicity ("race") and interests argue for Ireland's separation from Great Britain, they could as easily argue for
11118-467: Was formed in 1895 in east Belfast under the patronage of the Rev. John Baptiste Crozier and Dr. John St Clair Boyd , both avowed unionists, and of the Orange Order Grand Master, the Rev. Richard Rutledge Kane . But for many Irish unionists the chief-secretaryship of George Wyndham was "a last straw". In February 1905, they learned that his undersecretary, Sir Anthony MacDonnell ,
11227-625: Was held in Belfast organised by the Liberal Unionist Thomas Sinclair , whom the press noted had been a critic of Orangeism. Speakers and observers dwelt on the diversity of creed, class and party represented among the 12,300 delegates attending. As reported by the Northern Whig there were "the old tenant-righters of the 'sixties' ... the sturdy reformers of Antrim ... the Unitarians of Down, always progressive in their politics ...
11336-541: Was launched in 2015 with the backing of the UVF and UDA. It seeks to reverse what it sees as political and economic neglect of working-class loyalists since the Good Friday Agreement. In 2021, it withdrew its support for the Agreement, due to the creation of a trade border between Northern Ireland and Britain as a result of Brexit . The fall-out over this partly fuelled loyalist rioting that Spring . Loyalist paramilitary and vigilante groups have been active since
11445-590: Was not the choice of employers. The campaign of the Belfast Protestant Association candidate was marked by what his opponents considered a classic piece of bigotry. Sloan protested the exemption of Catholic convents from inspection by the Hygiene Commission (the Catholic Church should not be "a state within a state"). But it was as a trade unionist that he criticised the "fur-coat brigade" in
11554-506: Was the Parliament in Dublin . Confined on a narrow franchise to landed members of the established Anglican communion (the Anglo-Irish " Protestant Ascendancy "), the parliament denied equal protection and public office to Dissenters (non-Anglican Protestants) and to the Kingdom's dispossessed Roman Catholic majority. The high point of this parliamentary patriotism was the formation during
11663-595: Was to be the high point of mobilisation in Ulster against Home Rule, the Covenant Campaign of September 1912, the unionist leadership decided that men alone could not speak for the determination of the unionist people to defend "their equal citizenship in the United Kingdom". Women were asked to sign, not the Covenant whose commitment to "all means which may be found necessary" implied a readiness to bear arms, but their own Associate Declaration. A total of 234,046 women signed
11772-728: Was to retaliate, to dominate or to clear out Catholics." An editorial in the UVF's official magazine Combat explained in 1993: ...large areas of the Province that were predominately Protestant are now predominately Catholic. The reaction to this has been that the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association have intensified their campaign in order, not just to match the Catholic murders of Protestants, but to stop further enroachment into their areas. Loyalist paramilitaries were responsible for 29% of all deaths in
11881-580: Was transferred to Westminster . In the Presbyterian north east the Irish parliament was unlamented. Having refused calls for reform—to broaden representation and curb corruption—few saw cause to regret its passing. It took the Union thirty years to deliver on the promise of Catholic emancipation (1829)—to admit Catholics to Parliament—and permit an erosion of the Protestant monopoly on position and influence. An opportunity to integrate Catholics through their re-emerging propertied and professional classes as
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