¹ Mansergh, Nicholas, The Government of Northern Ireland: A Study in Devolution (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1936), p. 260.Google Scholar

² The nationalist (Republican) parties represented at present in the Northern Ireland Parliament are the Nationalist Party (nine seats), the Republican Labor Party (two seats), and the National Democratic Party (one seat). The ruling Ulster Unionist Party holds 36 of the 52 seats in the Parliament at Stormont, while the Northern Ireland Labor Party controls two more. There are also (1966–67) one Liberal and one Independent sitting at Stormont, both of whom are pro-partitionists and thus U.U.P. allies.

³ It may be well to note that Irish, particularly Ulster, labor-socialist thought has its own proud history and tradition. It extends back even through James Connelly, who regarded socialism and nationalism as essentially complementary and James Larkin who in 1907 led the upheaval in the ranks of unskilled labor which tended for a brief period to override even the old religious divisions.

⁴ The unions are strongly marked by religious divisions. The Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union unloads cross-channel boats in the Port of Belfast. This union is overwhelmingly Protestant. The unloading of deep-sea traffic (not such regular work, incidentally) is handled by members of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, which is almost completely Roman Catholic.

As might be expected, education unions are split on Protestant-Catholic lines. The Ulster Teachers' Union is Protestant, while the Irish National Teachers' Organization is Catholic. The headquarters of the latter are not even in Ulster, but rather in Dublin, in the Republic.

Recently in the aircraft and shipbuilding industries in Belfast and Londonderry groups calling themselves “Loyalist Workers' Associations” were formed. In one aircraft factory in the Belfast area this was countered by a “Catholic Protection Society.” The Ulster Protestant Action has been active, with overtly anti-Catholic demonstrations before the shipyard gates in Belfast on July Twelfth, the famous Ulster holiday celebrating the Protestant victory in 1690. It is encouraging to note that the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions issued a statement condemning such activities. Unfortunately, the headquarters of the I.C.T.U. are in Dublin, and thus the Unionist government at present does not accord it recognition.

⁵ One might speculate on an adjacent if more prosaic cause as well: that the Protestant workingman has never quite forgotten that since the days of the Plantation rural Catholics from the agrarian South have been the main threat of undercutting the labor market.

⁶ It is also interesting to note that the Special Powers Act, originally designed to repress Catholic-Nationalist activities, has recently been invoked to deal with Protestant extremism in general and the Rev. Mr. Paisley in particular. Moreover, the conservative U.U.P. regime of Prime Minister O'Neill is now allowing use of the Act to repress Peace in Vietnam “vigils” and the Northern Ireland Youth Campaign for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament even though the government gave assurances that “bona fide organizations” would be exempt. Paisley has aided reaction in ways even he never dreamt of.

⁷ This terminology is from Kirchheimer, Otto, “The Waning of Opposition in Parliamentary Regimes,” Social Research, XXIV (Summer, 1957), pp. 127–56.Google Scholar

⁸ Kirchheimer, , op. cit., p. 137.Google Scholar

⁹ It is rather tangential—but still interesting—to speculate upon the reasons for this. M. Duverger holds that “It is true that the totalitarian nature of a [dominant] party drives it to suppress all other parties if it can: but the tendency to unity is a consequence of its totalitarian nature more than a cause. A party tends to become the only one because its structure is totalitarian; it does not adopt a totalitarian structure because of a desire to become the only party: this seems to be the point from which development originates.” Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State, Barbara, and North, Robert, trans. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1962), p. 256.Google Scholar

¹⁰ The Round Table wrote with acid brevity shortly after the Grand Master's announcement: “For forty years of self-government, and for many more before, Unionism has claimed to be the ordained and exclusive guardian of the Constitution: today it has acknowledged, tacitly but beyond question, that people can be loyalist while casting their votes elsewhere, i.e., the Northern Ireland Labor Party.” The Round Table, No. 208 (08, 1962), p. 377.Google Scholar

¹¹ There is some speculation that this was a factor in the recent decline of N.I.L.P. strength in Stormont from four to two seats. Undeniably, one might speculate as well that the bombastic activities of Rev. Paisley played a role, although assessment and verification are impossible in the face of insufficient data.

¹² The Nationalists, of course, do not accept the constitutional position. They are not about to criticize actions that are anti-partition in character. At times when a nationalist speaker (either through poor sentence construction or faulty logic) appears to be attacking the Unionist Party for endangering the status quo, he is hooted down or called upon to “cross the aisle.”

¹³ Such as Mr. William May, then Minister of Education. The original objection of the N.I.L.P. to the E.E.C. was very similar to that raised by the British Labor Party, that is, loss of employment opportunities and lowering of wage and living standards.

¹⁴ Kirchheimer states that the “opposition of principle is bent not only on wrenching power from the government of today but on ending once and for all the system on which the government rests.” In the case of Austria the opposition of principle is best exemplified by the Austrian Communist Party, Kirchheimer, op. cit., p. 127.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Since the election of Captain Terrence O'Neill as Prime Minister in 1963, a new and fresher aura has been detected in Unionist circles usually thought conservative, if not stuffy. O'Neill has made gestures toward reconciliation with the Republic, and even has travelled to Dublin, and hosted the Irish Prime Minister in Belfast. Yet, at no time has the Prime Minister and Leader of the Unionist Party made any gesture that could not be explained as simple courtesy—and he certainly has not effected changes in the Unionist credo and stance. Changes in personnel, in appearance, in language, and in overall demeanor there have been. Changes in basics, in the fundamental beliefs and policies of Unionism have not occurred.