‘A Solid and United Phalanx’? Protestant Churches and the Ulster Covenant, 1912–2012

Abstract

The return of Irish Home Rule to the realm of practical politics in 1912 after the passing of the Parliament Act the previous year stimulated a massive popular response across Ireland. In Ulster, the determination of Unionists to resist the imposition of Home Rule was epitomized by the signing of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant on 28 September 1912. The images that flooded the press of Unionist leaders signing the covenant at Belfast City Hall and the huge crowds of Ulstermen queuing to pledge their support for the Unionist cause were, and have remained, some of the most iconic representations of Unionist resistance and have been consciously mimicked in more recent times, notably for the marking of the centenary.¹ Alvin Jackson argues that the images taken from the dome of Belfast City Hall in 1985 of Unionists demonstrating against the Anglo-Irish Agreement consciously mimicked those of 1912. Political leaders were shown to be invoking the men of 1912 and that ‘Ian Paisley plays Carson to James Molyneaux’s Craig’.² Similarly, the official images of the centenary commemorations were deliberately staged by the Loyal Orders to invoke the past, and indicate the unanimity of the Protestant people in support of the Union.³