ULSTER DAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

ULSTER DAY

BY A. F. E. STEWART

SIGNING OF THE COVENANT

Saturday morning in Belfast is usually a noisy, busy time. Day is made hideous by the clatter of riveting machines and the screech of sirens down at the shipyards, and the cobbled streets echo the clump of hoofs and the rattle of wheels. To-day, however, the yards are silent and the streets empty of traffic, but in the streets around the City Hall and in Donegal Place a dense crowd is packed, a crowd in sombre mood and for the most part in sombre Sunday dress, though a few orange sashes lend variety—a silent, waiting crowd. There is none of the banging of drums, no skirling of fifes, none of the boisterous gaiety usually associated with an Ulster holiday. These men are met for a serious purpose. It is September 28, 1912, a day that will go down in history as " Ulster Day," and the signing of the " Covenant" is about to commence.

Inside the Ulster Hall Sir Edward Carson and many other prominent Ulster loaders are attending a service at which tho clergy of three denominations are officiating. In all solemnity the blessing of God is asked for the work about to be undertaken. And not only in that hall, but in a thousand churches and assembly rooms throughout the North men are similarly dedicating themselves. That grand old hymn, *' 0 God, Our Help in Ages Past," which has become Ulster's national anthem, gives the keynote to the service, which is concluded with " God Save the King," sung with the passionate fervour of loyalty characteristic of tho province. " .

The service ended, the leaders proceed on foot to the City Hall. Before Sir Edward is borne the identical banner of faded yellow silk that preceded William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne. Heads are uncovered as the crowd divides to let the little procession pass through, and in silence the City Hall is reached. Op a table, draped with the Union Jack, in the marble hall under the great dome, lie the sheets of the covenant ready for signature. The Document

This is " Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant," and its wording is memorable: " Being convinced in our consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster, as well as of tile whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship and perilous to the unity of the Empire, we whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V., humbly relying on the God whom our fathers in days of stress and trial confidently trusted, do hereby pledge ourselves in solemn covenant throughout this our time of threatened calamity to stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our cherished position of equal citizenship in 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. And in the event of such a Parliament being forced upon jjs we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognise its authority. In sure confidence that God will defend the right, we hereto subscribe our names God Save the King." Grasping the silver pen Sir Edward Carson signs, followed by Lord Londonderry and the other leaders. Throughout Ulster that day nearly a quarter of a million men sign the covenant. It is no light thing to bind yourself to resist the laws of your country, but these men have a strong sense of right. Are not many of them descendants of the Covenanters who signed tho Solemn League in Edinburgh in 1638? The Historic Background

There are indeed many echoes of that earlier covenant this day. In the Old Greyfriar's churchyard in Edinburgh a number of Ulstermen are signing the covenant on the original " Covenanters' Stone," while in Belfast a group of stern inflexible men gash their bared wrists and sign the covenant in their own blood, as their forefathers did in 1638. And indeed the sense of history is strong. Always Ulstermen have had the feeling that they were the wardens of England's western marches, and now with the quickening of racial memories a sense of alarm is growing in their minds. Almost they feel that they are back with the settlers of 1641 or 1688, flying to the walled cities of Londonderry and Enniskillen for protection against the resurgent Irishry.

Such is Ulster's mood on this day, a mood of dedication. But there is, too, a burning fire of enthusiasm, ready to burst out when the great Ulster leader emerges from the City Hall and makes his way through tho frantically cheering populace to the quays. As ho steps up the gangway of the cross-channel steamer the crowd is overcome by an unreasoning feeling that it is being deserted by the idol it has taken to its heart, the man who has dared to back up determined words with a determined deed, and " Don't leave us, don't leave us!" they cry, so that Carson is constrained to speak to them from the deck of the ship, soothing them as one would a fractious child and explaining how he must go to London to fight thenbattles. Years of Crisis Twenty years have passed since that day. The civilised world has been shaken to its foundations by tho World War and the Irish troubles of 1912 seem small in comparison, but the doings of that September day have nevertheless shaped history. Things moved rapidly in those years. The drilling which had begun in 1911 culminated in 1913 in the organisation of the Ulster Volunteer Force under Lieut.General Sir George Richardson, K.C.8., the veteran Indian Army officer, who had been recommended for this duty by Lord Roberts. At first the volunteers, with their wooden guns, were taken as a joke, but they had to be taken seriously when the brilliantly successful gun-running at Larue, Donaghadeo and Bangor turned them into a well-armed force, one hundred thousand strong. Civil war seemed inevitable when tho greater tragedy ot the war earn* and with it the suspension of the Homo Rule Act. Tho Ulster Volunteer Force was ofFered to tlip Government and became the Ulster Division which fought so gloriously in France. Then after the war came Ulster's patriotic acceptance of tho Government of Ireland Act. of 1920. which granted Ulster its Parliament. On the eve of the signing of the Covenant a resolution was passed by tho Ulster Council, part of which ran: "Wo believe that, as in times past, it was given our fathers to save themselves from a like calamity, so now it. may be ordered that our deliverance shall be by our own hands." So it was ordered and to-day Ulster guards that hard' Won security.