A latest search of the Ulster Covenant for a household from Ulster led to a stunning discovery.
In 1912 Liberal British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, in determined want of the help of John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Celebration, proposed a 3rd House Rule Invoice – offering self-government for Eire inside the UK of Nice Britain and Eire.
Unionists responded with fierce opposition to House Rule. On Ulster Day, the twenty eighth September 1912, the Unionists of Ulster, with nice ceremony and fervour, put their identify to the Ulster Covenant. The Covenant was signed by 237,368 males, with 234,046 ladies signing the accompanying ladies’s declaration.
Signing the Ulster Covenant constituted a solemn and binding oath to withstand House Rule, with signatories pledging:
“to face by each other in defending, for ourselves and our kids, our cherished place of equal citizenship in the UK, and in utilizing all means which can be discovered essential to defeat the current conspiracy to arrange a House Rule Parliament in Eire.”
Almost half 1,000,000 signatures to the covenant and ladies’s declaration have been collected from throughout society, the overwhelming majority inside the province of Ulster.
Nonetheless, in Dublin within the workplaces of the Irish Unionist Alliance at 109 Grafton Avenue the Ulster Covenant was signed by 2,000 males who might show that they have been born in Ulster. It was additionally signed in different main cities in the UK and all over the world – together with the unlikely location of Mullingar, the county city of County Westmeath.
Ulster Covenant Signatories for Mullingar. Courtesy of PRONI
In 1912, the inhabitants of Mullingar was roughly 5,500, of which solely 8% have been protestant, together with the Church of Eire, Presbyterian and Methodist denominations. House Rule was strongly supported by the native authorities in Mullingar, though there was a Westmeath Unionist Affiliation with a ladies’s department being established in early 1912. Nonetheless, southern Unionists weren’t anticipated to signal the Ulster Covenant because it was centered on the objections of Ulster folks to House Rule. Regardless of this, 9 males from Mullingar did certainly signal.
The signatories of the Ulster Covenant in Mullingar weren’t members of established and well-known protestant households from the realm corresponding to native retailers or the aristocratic households, and actually, the bulk couldn’t be present in Mullingar within the 1911 census, enumerated lower than a 12 months and half earlier. And never in line with the aim of the Ulster Covenant, not all have been born in Ulster. Names have been signed not in a public location, however in personal properties all through the city, together with Belvedere Terrace, Earl Avenue (now Pearse Avenue), Harbour Avenue and the Soldier’s House on Army Street (now Ashe Street) – which stood the place Truthful Inexperienced Procuring Centre is discovered immediately.
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The agent accountable for amassing the signatures, William Nelson, was additionally the primary to signal, and resided within the Soldier’s House. Referred to as Sandes Properties for Troopers, named for his or her founder Elise Sandes, there have been over 30 such properties in Eire by 1912, run by evangelical Christians to attract younger troopers away from the pubs, brothels and playing dens. These troopers properties as a substitute supplied friendship, leisure and self-improvement. Whether or not opposing House Rule fell inside this purview is unclear.
Troopers House, Mullingar. Courtesy of the NLI Photographic Archive, L_ROY_10342
The 1911 census discovered William Nelson, aged 38, as a resident of the troopers residence – and regardless of the aim of the house, he labored as a barman and home servant. William was Presbyterian and was born ca. 1873 in Belfast.
One other man signing the Covenant in Mullingar was John Hudson of two Belvedere Terrace. On the time of the 1911 census, John was discovered dwelling as a boarder with the Hutchinson household at 23 Greville St (now Oliver Plunkett Avenue). The Hutchinsons have been a outstanding native service provider household. John Hudson was aged 20, born ca. 1881 in Co. Wexford, and labored as a draper’s assistant, presumably in T.L. Hutchinson’s material store.
Of observe, though the Hutchinson household have been Methodists, no family members signed the Ulster Covenant – appropriately so since none have been born in Ulster, however probably additionally defending the household enterprise which served a largely Catholic, and pro-House Rule neighborhood. Their assistant and boarder, John Hudson, was additionally not born in Ulster, however this didn’t seem to discourage him from signing the Covenant.
No extra signatures, moreover William Nelson, John Hudson and the opposite seven Mullingar signatories, have been collected in County Westmeath, though some initially from County Westmeath did signal elsewhere. Different counties of Eire, not in Ulster, by which signatures have been collected included:
● Wicklow
● Waterford
● Sligo
● Meath
● Louth
● Mayo
● Limerick
● Leitrim
● Kilkenny
● Kildare
● Dublin
The House Rule Invoice handed however its implementation was postponed on the outbreak of WWI. Ultimately, it was by no means enacted and was ultimately outmoded by a fourth House Rule invoice in 1920 – the Authorities of Eire Act. This act supplied for the partition of Eire into two self-governing political entities – Northern and Southern Eire. The latter would develop into the Irish Free State and ultimately the fashionable Republic of Eire.
The Ulster Covenant has been listed and digitised, and is obtainable to look on-line on the web site of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). It is usually obtainable to look on Ancestry (subscription required).
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