LAST PILGRIMAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 137, 6 December 1935, Page 11

LAST PILGRIMAGE

LOED CABSON-S BUEIAL

REST IN NEW CATHEDRAL

The scene in Belfast Caihedral after the funeral of Lord Carson was repeated next day, says a writer 'in the "Daily Telegraph." Some 350,000 people, a quarter of Ulsters whole population, watched their hero's coffin pass through the streets, and so many came to see his grave in the cathedral that the doors had to be shut.

The pilgrimage continued throughout the day, and if Englishmen are to understand the significance of these 48 hours they should recall their own visit to the tomb of the Unknown Warrior. To the Six Counties Lord Carson's grave is as powerful a symbol. Ulster folk do not weep easily, and that even a few sought this relief before his flowered and mossy burial place shows his unique sway.

An outsider, knowing merely that Carson's work was finished over a dozen years ago, might have been astonished to see so many young people in the crowds that filled the streets for over a mile between the cathedral and Donegall Quay, where the beflagged coffin was landed from H.M.S. Broke.

Many of these mourners could never have so much as seen Sir Edward, as they still called him—in Ulster they never caught up with his later title. Nevertheless, they waited for hours to salute him, and the thousand seats in the cathedral could have been allotted a hundred times over.

A MOURNING DAY.

| The weather matched the occasion. Belfast is a rainy city, but it was proverbial that Carson always brought sunj shine with him. For the weekend of the funeral, however, the clouds never lifted, and at the funeral only the colpurs of the innumerable wreaths relieved the universal dark pattern— I black mourning and black constabulary | uniforms, the grey of sky and streets.

I think its silences were the most moving part of all. A Belfast crowd ordinarily resembles a Cockney one in its willingness to exclaim at trifles. But I never heard a voice during the hourlong procession.

When the funeral music was stopped at the two important halts—one before i the Old Town Hall, headquarters of the Ulster Unionist Council in the turbulent days, and the other at the City Hall, where the Covenant of opposition to Home Rule was signed in 1912* —the strange emotional tautness of the Armistice silence came upon the city.

The Broke, with Lord Carson's elder son, Commander the Hon. W. S. Carson, arrived from Liverpool, and bluejackets bore the coffin ashore through a black-draped shed and placed it on a gun-carriage in Queen's Square, just off the'quay.

Lady Carson arrived presently from Stormont with her 15-year-old son, strikingly like his father in appearance, and decided to endure the ordeal of walking in the procession. This was led by a.special guard of 100 of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, conspicuously tall in a gathering of tall men.

Behind the gun-carriage the Premier, Lord Craigavon, and the Lord Mayor i of Belfast led the files of pall-bearers, all workers in the same cause. They I included the Marquess of Londonderry, | Sir Dawson Bates—formerly Secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council and now the Minister for Home Affairs —Col. H. F. Crawford, who dodged the Navy in the gun-running days of 1914, and Sir Wilfrid Spender, who helped to organise the Ulster Volunteers. THE OTHERS. There followed the members of both Houses of Parliament, the Ulster representatives in the recent Parliament at Westminster, the Judges and members of the Belfast and Derry Corporations, veterans of trie Ulster Volunteer Force, the Orange and Black institutions, the Apprentice Boys of Derry. and many other organisations. A thousand armed police stood before barriers, and every viewpoint—windows, ledges, roofs, even the tops of telephone kiosks—was occupied. All the shops were closed and many had their blinds drawn.

In Donegall Place, the chief shopping street, 2000 members of Orange lodges I were drawn up. A little further on,! at the corner of York Street, the police stood shoulder to shoulder, for this: was where the tragic riots of July began. Finally, at the new Cathedral, in which Lord Carson is the first to be buried, was spoken the respect and love which so far had been declared only in the removal of hats and the bowing of heads. The Governor, the Duke of Abercorn, had a special seat as the representative of the King, and with him were the Duchess and Lady Sykes, daughter of Lord Carson's friend, Mr. Bonar Law.

The great west door was opened, and as eight police sergeants carried the coffin to the bier the vicar-choral chanted the opening sentences of the service. There followed one of Lord Carson's favourite hymns:

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above. Entire and whole and perfect, the service of niy love.

In his address the Primate, Dr. d'Arcy, called Lord Carson a genius of indomitable courage.

"NOBLE WORK, NOBLY DONE."

"His was a great life, greatly lived; his was a noble work, nobly done. There was a clearness of vision, an unshakable will, unfailing courage, and complete surrender of self to the end he had in view. He was a patriot and a statesman. The mere politician looks for a plan to attract public attention. The statesman sees a vision of fact and truth, and becomes a true leader of men."

Then came the final scene. The coffin was taken to the grave by the south wall of the nave, and as it was committed earth from thr six counties of Ulster was sprinkled over it. The