Edward Carson (Blackstaff Classics)

164 Pages·1997·6.622 MB·English

by  A.T.Q. Stewart

STEWART
A.T.Q.

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A.T.Q.STEWART was born in Belfast,where he was educated at the
Royal BelfastAcademical Institution and Queen's University.After
some years in teaching, he returned to Queen's as a lecturer, and
was appointed Reader in Irish History in 1975. He took early
retirement in 1990 to devote more time to writing, and he is a
frequent broadcaster on radio and television. He was consultant to
both BBCTelevision's The History ofIrelandandThamesTelevision's
The Troubles and was a presenter for the Channel 4 series The
Divided Kingdom. Since 1970 he has contributed to many
encyclopedias and works of reference, prepared sets ofquestions
for the BBC Mastermind series, and written articles for newspapers
andjournals, including the Spectator, the Irish Arts Review, History
Ireland, the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Tribune and the
Belfast Telegraph. His publications include The Ulster Crisis:
Resistance to Home Rule, 1912-14 (Faber and Faber, 1967; reissued
byBlackstaffPress, 1997), The PagodaWar:LordDufferin and the Fall
ofthe Kingdom ofAva (Faber and Faber, 1972), The Narrow Ground:
Aspects ofUlster 1609-1969 (Faber and Faber, 1977; reissued by
BlackstaffPress, 1997), Edward Carson (Gill and Macmillan, 1982;
reissued by BlackstaffPress, 1997), A Deeper Silence: The Hidden
Origins ofthe United Irishmen (Faber and Faber, 1993) and The
Summer Soldiers:The 1798 Rebellion inAntrim and Down (Blackstaff
Press, 1995).In 1977 he was ajoint winnerofthe first Christopher
Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize for The Narrow Ground. He is
marriedwithtwo sons andlivesinBelfast.

UPWARD
ARSON
A.T.Q. STEWART
THE
BLACKSTAFF
PRESS
BELFAST
Firstpublishedin 1981 by
GillandMacmillanLimited
ThisBlackstaffPresseditionisaphotolithographicfacsimile
ofthefirsteditionprintedby
RedwoodBurnLimited,Trowbridge,Wiltshire
Thiseditionpublishedin 1997by
TheBlackstaffPressLimited
3GalwayPark,Dundonald,BelfastBT16OAN,NorthernIreland
©A.T.Q.Stewart,1981
Allrightsreserved
PrintedbyinIrelandbyColourBooksLimited
ACIPcataloguerecordforthisbook
isavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
ISBN 0-85640-613-9
Contents
Introduction 1
1. An Irish Barrister 3
2. 'CoercionCarson* 19
3. The GuidingStar 31
4. Sir Edward 57
5. 'KingCarson* 77
6. Facing theMusic 93
7. Betrayal 122
References 135
Select Bibliography 139
Index 143
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the Keeper of the Records at the
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Mr Brian
Trainor, for permission to consult and quote from
papers in his care; to his staff for their courtesy, and
in particular to Dr Peter Smyth, who assisted me in
tracing material in the Carson Papers. My thanks go
also to Mr Colm Crokerand MrJ. L. Lord, who made
many helpful suggestions in regard both to content
andpresentation, and saved me from not a fewerrors.
For any which remain I am entirely responsible. The
book owes much to my wife forherpatient help and
counsel, and to Mrs HeatherJohnson,who typed the
manuscript.
Introduction
On 3 June 1935 the French liner Normandie com-
pleted a record crossing of the Atlantic, her time
between Southampton and the Ambrose Light being
107 hours and 33 minutes. Speedwas the keynote of
the age. In March Sir Malcolm Campbell had setup a
new land speed record atDaytonaBeach, Florida, by
driving his Bluebird at a speed of 276.8 miles per
hour. A pilot of American Air Lines crossedAmerica
from Los Angeles to New York in 11 hours 21 min-
utes and one second. Miss Amelia Earhart flew non-
stop from Mexico City to New York in 14 hours 18
minutes, and Mr H. L. Brook flew from Darwin, Aus-
tralia, to the south of England in seven days. An
express train covered the distance from London to
Newcastle in 3 hours 57 minutes and knocked six
minutes off the record on the way back. A dentist
from Cleethorpes swam the English Channel from
Cap Gris Nez in 14 hours 48 minutes. It was an
excitingyear.
The human heart remained much the same as
it had been in Old Testament times. Once again
the shadows of war were creeping across Europe.
Mussolini's troops invaded Abyssinia, and Hitler
introducednational conscription.InEurope'swestern-
most island deplorable rioting broke out in Belfast
after the Orange parades on 12 July, and by 21July
nine people had been shot dead and scores injured.
In the garden of a large house in Kentan oldman sat
in the sunshine and brooded on these events. The
[2] newspapers made him bored and restless, for they
spoke to him of the human beehive whose ceaseless
hum came to him faintly from the distance. It had
been his whole life, and he was too feeble any longer
to bepart ofit.
Miss Greta Garbo appeared in Anna Karenina, and
Mickey Mouse appeared in colour. DrSigmund Freud
published his autobiography. Sidney and Beatrice
Webb announced that SovietCommunism was 4a new
civilisation'. ItwastheyearofKingGeorgeV'sJubilee.
Miss Dorothy L. Sayerspublished GaudyNight,which
was a detective story; Mr T. S. Eliot published Mur-
der in the Cathedral, which was not. The British
government issued a white paper on defence. Mr
de Valera supported sanctions against Italy. The
League of Nations did not know what to do next.
Summer ripened into autumn, and one Octobereven-
ing the newspaper placards in London said: *LORD
CARSON DEAD'. To the younger generation the
news meant nothing; many of them did not know
who he was. For olderpeople the name revived mem-
ories they would have preferred to forget—the Great
War, the Dardenelles campaign and the submarine
menace, and, above all, Ireland: Ireland of the Ulster
crisis, the Treaty and the 'troubles'. In Dublin, the
city of his birth, he was not forgotten, norin Belfast,
where they had almost come to believe that he was
immortal.1