Party versus order: Ulster Unionism and the Flags and Emblems Act

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Party versus order: UlsterUnionism and the Flags andEmblems ActHenry Patterson aa University of Ulster , JordanstownPublished online: 25 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Henry Patterson (1999) Party versus order: Ulster Unionismand the Flags and Emblems Act, Contemporary British History, 13:4, 105-129,DOI: 10.1080/13619469908581562

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Party versus Order:Ulster Unionism and theFlags and Emblems Act

HENRY PATTERSON

The Hags and Emblems Act has been seen as symbolising the sectarian and anti-nationalist essence of the Northern Ireland 'police state'. In fact the Act wasintroduced against the advice of the Inspector General of the Royal UlsterConstabulary. The pressure for it came from the fears of Sir Basil Brooke'sgovernment that an 'anti-appeasement' campaign by loyalist ultras was threateningUnionist party hegemony in Protestant politics. The basis for the campaign was thefact that Brooke and his Minister of Home Affairs, Brian Maginess, had attempted toaccommodate the new challenges of a welfare state and an international environmentseen as more sympathetic to anti-partitionism.

The 1950s remain a comparatively under-researched decade in the historyof the Northern Ireland state, particularly if compared with the out-pouringof books and articles on the period since the mid-1960s. Yet until it has beenmore deeply researched many of the conclusions that have been drawnabout the 'Troubles' period must remain provisional since they are based onassumptions about the 1950s which may turn out to have shaky foundations.One of these assumptions is that the decade was a period when 'for the firsttime unionism was in a position to use the chances of post-war changes toimprove life in the province substantially and thereby, however indirectly,make a positive case for Stormont rule'. But, it is argued, under theleadership of a rigid and sectarian prime minister, Sir Basil Brooke, it wasa decade of social change but political stagnation.1 The following account ofthe political background to the Rags and Emblems Act will question thisanalysis by highlighting the conflicts within Ulster Unionism over how torespond to the challenges of the post-war world. The undoubted rigiditiesdisplayed by Sir Basil Brooke at the end of the 1950s may well have beeninfluenced by the strength of Unionist party and loyalist resistance toattempts made at the beginning of the decade to moderate and modernise theimage of Ulster Unionism.

Henry Patterson, University of Ulster, Jordanstown

Contemporary British History, Vol.13, No.4 (Winter 1999), pp.105-129PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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106 CONTEMPORARY BRITISH HISTORY

An Unnecessary Act

The Flags and Emblems Act which was passed by the Stormont parliamentin 1954 has been seen as a prime example of the repressive and sectariannature of the Northern Ireland state in its relation to any manifestation of thenational identity of its Catholic minority. In his influential analysis of thepolicing forces of the state, Michael Farrell describes the Royal UlsterConstabulary as 'an armed paramilitary force playing a highly politicalrole... Throughout the 1950s and 1960s it was deployed to enforce newlaws (the Public Order Act and the Flags and Emblems Act) which wereused to ban nationalist parades and force Orange marches through Catholicareas.'2 The legislation was denounced at the time by nationalists as clearevidence that Northern Ireland was a 'police state'.3 However, as BobPurdie has noted, although the Act gave the police a wide area of discretion'they seem to have used it with remarkable inconsistency'.4 Thisinconsistency in the use of the Flags and Emblems Act had been anticipatedin the severe qualms which the Inspector General of the RUC had expressedabout the draft legislation and these misgivings at the core of the statereflected a tension between public order and the dynamics of Unionist rule.

In their discussion of the legislation Lucy Bryson and Clem McCartneynote that 'The Act is less than two pages long and has only five sections, yetit has become the focus for much of the opposition to the Stormontadministration among nationalists.'5 Section One of the Act made it anoffence to prevent or threaten to interfere by force with display of a Unionflag by someone on his or her lands or premises. Section Two permitted apolice officer to require the removal of any emblem whose display mightcause a breach of the peace, or to enter and remove it himself if the personresponsible was unwilling to comply or could not be found.

The Act specified that 'emblem' referred to any flag other than theUnion Jack. Bryson and McCartney note that the Act did not refer directlyto the Irish Tricolour and that the Minister of Home Affairs, George B.Hanna, in introducing the proposed legislation, said he could not ban theTricolour outright as this was a matter of foreign policy reserved toWestminster. A Unionist with whom they discussed the Act and who hadread the Northern Ireland cabinet papers on the subject argued that thisapproach to the Tricolour showed that the Act was a 'moderate and sensiblemeasure. From his reading of the cabinet papers on the subject heunderstood that the main concern of ministers had been to avoid giving thepolice too extensive powers and they had been reduced at each discussion.'6

Bryson and McCartney clearly have problems accepting this reading ofthe government's approach to the Act. In particular they ask why SectionTwo was necessary at all: 'Prior to the act, action could be taken under the

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ULSTER UNIONISM AND THE FLAGS AND EMBLEMS ACT 107

existing public order law where the display of a flag might cause a breachof the peace.'7 The cabinet papers support their qualms as they do nothingto vindicate the Unionist's analysis. The concerns expressed were not in factabout excessive powers for the RUC but rather the belief of two ministersthat the decision to introduce the legislation 'might be considered to beyielding to the agitation of extremists'.8 Rather than there being a politicalconcern with giving the police too much power the only reference to theRUC in the discussion was a report by the Minister of Home Affairs that SirRichard Pirn, the Inspector General of the RUC, 'was not happy about someof the proposals because he felt it would place on the police the onus ofaffording protection to Union Jacks wherever they were flown and that thiswould be an impossible task'. The Minister was dismissive describing Pirnas 'unduly apprehensive' ?

Pirn's opinion of the proposed legislation was in fact morefundamentally critical than Hanna's report to the cabinet revealed. He hadsent a seven-page dissection of the proposed bill to Adrian Robinson,permanent secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs. A copy of this withtyped responses by Robinson in the margins can be found in Ministry ofHome Affairs documents recently released by the Public Record Office ofNorthern Ireland. It provides a fascinating insight into the conflict betweenPim's commitment to the values of public order and a Union flag which wasnot a crude symbol of partisan identity and a senior civil servant'swillingness to subordinate both to the political necessities of a governmentwhich perceived itself to be under siege by loyalist ultras.

Pim denied the need for the legislation:

It is my considered opinion and one that is shared by senior officers ofgreat experience that the proposed legislation, in so far as it relates tothe Union Flag is unnecessary .. .it is unnecessary because, by virtue oftheir common law and statutory powers, the police are already in astrong position to cope with any circumstances, including thoseinvolving flags, which are calculated to lead to a breach of the peace.

Robinson's comments were dismissive of the Inspector General's failureto appreciate the constraints that hemmed in the government's approach:'This ignores political necessity. Police and civil servants, very properly,avoid politics as much as possible, but it is not possible to do so altogetherif we are to keep our feet on the ground.'10

The Inspector General did in fact raise an important political issue byarguing that the legislation would provide nationalist opponents of thegovernment with a powerful propaganda weapon:

Speaking not as Inspector General but simply as a loyal Ulsterman,

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the idea of singling out the Union Flag for special mention in an Actof Parliament does not appeal to me. I feel it would be liable to create,particularly in the minds of those outside the Province, the entirelyerroneous impression that the Union Flag cannot be flown in NorthernIreland except under the protection of an act of parliament and thepolice are at present powerless to deal with any interference with i t . . .such an act would provide all those opposed to the Government ofNorthern Ireland with a powerful propaganda weapon.

Robinson's comment combined a simple reiteration of the primacy ofUnionist political concerns with a punitive approach to potential opposition:'It is politically impossible to defend any suggestion that a man may not flythe flag of the country on his own property whenever he wants to. If theother side are not disposed to exercise that amount of tolerance, the penalclauses of the Act will provide means of teaching them to do so.'

The dismissive tone of the official's response to Pirn's criticism of the billand the cabinet's almost unanimous endorsement of it, reflected the degreeto which the government, and the Prime Minister in particular, felt threatenedby the most serious manifestation of intra-Protestant conflict since the 1930s.The immediate focus of this conflict was the outbreak of communal tensionproduced by the celebrations for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II inJune 1953. As Bryson and McCartney note, 'this was an occasion for thedisplay of the Union flag in greater profusion and by many people who didnot display the flag during the Orange celebrations and other more localevents.'" Throughout the north Coronation decorations began to be erectedfrom the beginning of May and had given rise to serious tension in someareas. In Belfast, where the IRA sent a number of incendiary devices tovarious government departments, they also posted notices in nationalist areasurging a boycott of shops carrying Coronation displays.'2 The police hadbeen put under great pressure from Protestant enthusiasm to manifest loyaltyto the Crown even in the heartland of nationalist Belfast. Pim had used anextract from a report by the Belfast City Commissioner to illustrate thedifficulties created by the promiscuous display of Union flags:

The strength of the 'B ' District (Falls Road area) is 136 all ranks. ...itseffective patrol strength is less than half that number and still lesswhen allowance is made for sickness. From 1st May when coronationdecorations began, well into August, Union Jacks were flown in largenumbers in mixed and border-line areas of this police district, 46 menwere employed exclusively in guarding these flags from interference.There are about 120 business premises in the Falls Road area underUnionist management, besides buildings like the Library and Baths aswell as parks and play centres. This takes no account of houses

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occupied by families. Hitherto police representations have mostlysucceeded in preventing the display of Union Jacks from businesspremises. Such flags have been removed by nationalists from theLibrary and the Baths on several occasions, from Mackies Foundryand from individual houses and, indeed, houses flying these flagshave been attacked. Rioting was averted only with the greatestdifficulty on numerous occasions.13

However, the success of the police in defusing potential explosions ofcommunal bitterness led to charges of 'appeasement' of nationalists. Thusin Derrymacash, near Lurgan, three Protestant families put up Union Jacksand the next day found that there were 11 Tricolours erected on each of thehouses of their Catholic neighbours. When the police arrived theypersuaded the Protestants to take down their flags and the Irish flags werethen removed.14 This police approach infuriated Protestant ultras and wasgiven potentially disruptive significance for the Unionist party by events inthe County Derry village of Dungiven on Coronation day. Local Protestantsin this predominantly Catholic village had created a Coronation committeewhich proposed to hold a children's fancy dress parade accompanied by theBoveva flute band, a well-known Orange band. Nationalists threatened tooppose the presence of the band. The police had advised the committee thatthey could not guarantee the safety of the children if the band accompaniedthem and after protesting the invitation to the band was withdrawn.Although the day passed peacefully, subsequently there emerged claims that700 nationalists had come into the village on Coronation day and 'occupied'it to prevent the entry of the band.15 More luridly some local loyalists spokeof the IRA taking over the town for the day and the parish priest telling themembers of the parade that they could not carry any Union flags.

What was noticeable about the creation of loyalist concern overDungiven was how clearly manufactured it was to assist the campaign of agroup of Independent Unionists who planned to stand against the Unionistparty in the Stormont elections held in October 1953. Thus the diary of thePrime Minister, which showed a normally acute sensitivity to the demandsand concerns of the loyalist grassroots mentions Dungiven for the first timeover three months after it occurred when it was raised at an ExecutiveCommittee meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council to discuss the electioncampaign. It was, as he put it, 'the first time I have heard of it'.16 TheIndependents would exert themselves with some success to link theDungiven events to the broader question of the 'appeasement' policiessupposedly being followed by some government ministers.

The central figure here was Brian Maginess, Minister of Home Affairsand acting Minister of Finance. The most liberal member of the government

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and one of its few figures of substance, he had become highly unpopularamong some loyalists for a decision to ban an Orange march from paradingalong a road in a predominantly Catholic area of County Down in 1952. The'Longstone Road' became with Dungiven a major issue for theIndependents in the election and they concentrated their efforts in trying tounseat Maginess who was MP for the County Down constituency of Iveagh.The Prime Minister had to campaign personally on his behalf, recording ofa meeting at Dromore, 'I pulled out all the stops and said I was unlikely tolet Ulster down having done what I could to build her up and that Maginesswas my right hand man."7 His support reflected in part a long-standingpolitical friendship which went back to Maginess's role in the moves toforce the resignation of the Brooke's predecessor John Andrews in 1943.18

However, it also and more fundamentally indicated the degree to whichMaginess, and Brooke, were aware that the post-war developments inBelfast's relation with London, while strengthening the position of UlsterUnionism in important ways, did also contain important challenges to thoseaspects of the functioning of the state with a clearly sectarian dynamic.

Labour, Nationalism and the Welfare State

1945 saw the emergence of a more coherent and active form of northernnationalism with the creation of the Anti-Partition League. The Leaguelooked hopefully to the new Labour administration in London to reopen theconstitutional issue. It had sparked an apprehensive response fromUnionists." A concern with the joint threat of 'socialistic legislation' and aLabour government with nationalist sympathies fuelled the support forDominion Status - a loosening of the links with the United Kingdom -which developed strongly in the Unionist party in 1946 and 1947. AlthoughBrooke and the party establishment eventually came out against DominionStatus, largely because it was seen to endanger Protestant working-classsupport by threatening the newly acquired benefits from the British welfarestate, there remained a powerful reservoir of support for the idea.20 It gotparticular support from Unionists in border areas who feared that thewelfare state was a magnet attracting migrants from the south who wouldhelp nationalist voting strength in areas where the two communities werefinely balanced. It was pressure from this sector of the Protestantcommunity that led the government to introduce the controversialSafeguarding of Employment legislation in 1947. This made it illegal forsouthern workers to take up employment in Northern Ireland without apermit from the Ministry of Labour. Despite this Brooke's diaries continuedto register a string of complaints that too many 'disloyalists' were beinggranted permits.21

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Brooke was well aware that many in the party resented the fact that allcitizens of Northern Ireland received the benefits of the welfare statewhatever their political allegiance. At the first Orange celebrations of the12th of July since 1939 - the parades were not held during the war - he hadboasted of the government's heavy programme of legislation which 'wouldbe of permanent benefit to all sections of the community. The governmentis determined to develop still further its progressive policy.'22 He alerted hisaudience to the fact that the next month would see the beginning of familyallowance payments to 100,000 families in Northern Ireland. But it wasprecisely the fact that such benefits went to 'disloyalists' that infuriatedsome of his supporters. At the County Deny Orange demonstration atGarvagh the Unionist MP, Dehra Parker, while declaring that Unionistswould not deny justice to those of a different faith, reminded Catholics thatthey enjoyed all the material advantages that loyalists enjoyed and a higherliving standard than they would have in the Free State: 'All we ask in returnis that they should respect our constitution... But what is happening? Thesepeople who are protected under our laws are turning around and biting thehand that feeds them and are trying to blacken Ulster's good name at homeand abroad.'23 The MP for North Tyrone, Thomas Lyons, a prominentsupporter of Dominion Status, told Orangemen at Fintona that theirnationalist opponents were showing 'a capacity for patience andshrewdness. The electoral registers for counties Tyrone, Fermanagh andDeny were swinging definitely against Protestant interests.' Nationalistswere using various methods ranging from 'infiltration' from the south tobuying up Protestant property.24

While Brooke did not capitulate to the campaign for Dominion Status hedid periodically echo the resentments and demands of border Unionism.Thus in February 1947 in a speech to City of Derry and Foyle UnionistAssociations he applauded a fund that they had set up to prevent Catholicsbuying Protestant property.25 Communal defensiveness which had beeninitially stimulated by fears about the intentions of the Attlee governmentmight have been reassured by the increasing evidence in 1946 and 1947 thatAttlee and his Home Secretary, Chuter Ede, had no intention of respondingto the interventionist demands of the backbench 'Friends of Ireland' group.26

However the defeat of Fianna Fail in the Irish general election of February1948 and its replacement by a coalition government which included therhetorically more strident republican party, Clann na Poblachta, frustratedthe hopes of those liberal unionists like Jack Sayers of the BelfastTelegraph, who hoped that good relations with Atlee and the materialadvantages of the welfare state would soften the edges of sectarian conflict.In his regular column in the Round Table he described a shift in the balanceof forces within Unionism:

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One result of the last three years has been a certain realignment of theUnionists themselves. The lessening of the threat of constitutionalchange which so long strengthened the right wing has enabled theparty to regain more of the liberal tradition. The Prime Minister hasnot deferred to the older and more die-hard element in going aheadwith social reforms. It is too soon, perhaps, to see the effects of thisbroadened outlook on relations with the minority, but notably in thenew educational system, inspired by the Butler Act, Unionistdissidence was safely risked in order to make concessions to RomanCatholics.27

In fact the Education Act of 1947 which had amongst other thingsincreased the capital grants to voluntary schools, the majority of which wereCatholic, from 50 to 65 per cent had been denounced by a range of loyalistopinion as 'appeasement'. The minister responsible, Colonel Hall-Thompson, was forced to resign when, in 1949, he tried to introduce a billwhich would have provided for the government paying a share of theNational Insurance contributions of teachers in voluntary schools. Hissuccessor, the ex-Labour politician Harry Midgley, was more attuned to theProtestant critics of 'appeasement'. He suggested to the cabinet that the1947 Act be reviewed and that the 65 per cent grant be continued for aspecified period after which if voluntary schools did not accept 'Four andTwo' committees of management including two representatives of localauthorities, the grant be cut back to 50 per cent.28 This was a demand whichhad the support of many at all levels of the party. However Brooke wasaware of the politically embarrassing consequences outside NorthernIreland which a confrontation with the Catholic Church on education wouldcause and he and a majority in the cabinet refused to consider the proposal.The result was a major internal challenge to the government over Midgley'sEducation (Amendment) Act of 1951 when six Unionist MPs defied a three-line whip and voted against the government. Brooke had waged a vigorousinternal campaign with special meetings of the parliamentary party and theUlster Unionist Council to discuss the issue. At the first Midgley producedfigures to show that while 37 per cent of the north's school children wereCatholics, the expenditure on their education was 29 per cent of the total:'Therefore the accusation that we were favouring the Roman Catholicsagainst the Protestants is complete nonsense.'29

At the Council meeting he dealt with a range of issues that had been thesource of complaints of 'appeasement'. Apart from education another sorepoint was the policies followed by the Housing Trust. This body had beenset up in 1945 to provide for public housing on a province-wide basis in partto compensate for the very poor record of local authority provision in the

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inter-war period. However, the Trust's policy of allocation on a pointssystem was seen as threatening local structures of Unionist power in areaslike Derry and Fermanagh where housing allocation was clearly determinedby the need to preserve a Unionist voting majority in particular areas.Brooke was forced to defend both his government and the Housing Trustfrom criticism at a meeting of the Grand Lodge of the Orange Order inDecember 1950.30 The Grand Lodge itself was under pressure fromPortadown and Fermanagh Orangemen who thought it not vigorous enoughin pushing loyalist interests with the government. Brooke argued that toconcede to such pressures would simply strengthen the nationalistpropaganda campaign against the northern state. At the Unionist Councilmeeting in February 1951 he was forthright in his attempt to educate hislisteners in the need to avoid identifying the Unionist cause with narrowProtestant parochialism:

I told them that the Convention on Human Rights compelled us to befair and I insisted we must be fair to the minority, that I was not goingto be responsible for discrimination. I finished up by saying that ifthey wanted another administration who could perhaps solve thesedomestic problems from a new point of view, and if they thought wewere not handling the Socialist government right and wanted agovernment which would discriminate against Roman Catholics theycould do so. I would not take on the job.31

There is, of course, some irony here given Brooke's own earlierarticulation of support for exactly the sort of discriminatory policies whichhe was now disowning. Most notorious was a 12th July speech in 1933when he had criticised Protestants who employed Catholics adding that he'had not a Roman Catholic about his own place...'32 His biographer hasnoted that he later expressed regret for outbursts like this and adds that theremarks should be seen as a response to a particular situation: 'It should notbe deduced that the distrust of the minority that he then expressed proved asenduring as its place in popular recollection.'33 Although there is someevidence that Brooke may have come to share the belief of Brian Maginessthat the welfare state had produced a pro-Union shift amongst a section ofthe Catholic population, the dominant calculation on his part related to thechallenge presented to his government by a new, American dominated non-communist world which provided a range of international and supra-national forums within which Irish nationalists could raise the partitionissue. From the time, in 1946, when Brooke had been informed that theBritish government would not oppose an Irish application for membershipof the United Nations he was very concerned about possible Irish use of theUN to embarrass the British government over Northern Ireland. He pressed

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for an Ulster representative on the British UN delegation to ensure that theexpected anti-partitionist assault was effectively dealt with.34 Although theidea was received with some horror in the Foreign Office he continued topress it up until the Republic's eventual admission in 1955. There weresimilar concerns about possible Irish NATO membership and the use of theInternational Court of Justice at the Hague.35 Clearly if such attacks wereexpected - and they did come, especially when Sean McBride, a formerChief of Staff of the IRA and member of Clann na Poblachta, was Ministerof External Affairs during the 1948-51 coalition government - Brookedesired to minimise the amount of material on Unionist 'misrule' whichanti-partitionists could exploit. However, such attention to the internationaldimensions of defending the Union and the instrumental moderation whichaccompanied them was not well received by those members of the partywhose horizons did not reach the other side of the Irish Sea, let alone of theEnglish Channel or the Atlantic.

Ulster Unionism and Public Order

The tensions within the Unionist party over the welfare state and itsimplications for strengthening opponents of the state, which had in partfuelled the Dominion Status campaign, were also manifest in intra-Protestant conflicts over the issues of marching and flags. Brooke had beeninfluenced here by the belief that, although the Labour administration couldbe relied on to defend the status quo in Ulster, as it did most demonstrablywith the Ireland Act of 1949, the existence of a substantial back-bench blocof anti-partitionist sympathisers in the parliamentary Labour party atWestminster provided a sounding board for nationalist attacks on the 'policestate' nature of his regime. Nationalist critics were also able to raise issueslike discrimination and the Special Powers Act in Europe at meetings of theInter-Parliamentary Union.36 The use of the Special Powers Act to banparades or to prevent the carrying of Tricolours was a potent symbol of theabnormality of the situation in Northern Ireland for its critics. In March1948 the government had banned a proposed Ancient Order of Hiberniansanti-partition demonstration in Deny. Hugh Delargy MP, a leading memberof the Friends of Ireland group in the Labour party, had been supposed toaddress the demonstration and put down a motion in the House of Commonsto amend the Government of Ireland Act to prevent such a ban beingimposed.37

When Maginess became Minister of Home Affairs in 1949 he wasconcerned to lessen the occasion for such criticism. He began to withdrawmany of the regulations made under the Special Powers Act and in 1950came to the cabinet with a proposal to repeal the Act in its entirety. He was

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particularly concerned that the Council of Europe would soon ratify aconvention on human rights and that this would present major opportunitiesfor critics of the Act. He argued that a Public Order Act, similar to theBritish one of 1938, would provide the police with adequate powers to dealwith meetings or processions. Although his cabinet colleagues did notoppose the proposal, with Harry Midgley referring to the Act as a 'continualsource of embarrassment', the police were reluctant to give up some of itsemergency provisions due to the continued existence of an IRA threat.38

However, more significant than the views of the RUC was the pressure fromsections of the Orange Order and grass roots Unionism for a tough responseon any public manifestations of 'disloyalty'. Brooke had explained to theGrand Lodge of Ireland that 'where possible' he would want to allownationalist parades 'so as to deprive them of a propaganda weapon'.39 Yetsuch a calculation was often over-subtle for the loyalist grass roots. Withina month of his attempt to educate the Orange leadership he and Maginesshad to receive a deputation of the County Antrim Grand Lodge complainingthat a Hibernian procession had been permitted through a Protestant area ofRasharkin on a Sunday. Although Brooke thought the police 'unwise' hepointed out to the Orangemen that 'the stopping of processions was good forpropaganda'.40 The strength of Brooke's argument that conflicts overmarches would only assist the propaganda of the government's opponentswas soon revealed in the Ulster courts.

In August 1950 the Dungannon Irish National Foresters' Band wastravelling to a gaelic football match in Magherafelt. The police had beennotified and a constable in uniform from Dungannon accompanied the teamon their bus. On the outskirts of Cookstown the band decided to march andplay through the town and when they arrived in Oldtown, a unionist area,they were attacked by a large crowd of loyalists. The local police, who hadnot been expecting the attempted parade, eventually restored order by batoncharging the loyalists. Subsequently court proceedings were taken against anumber of the loyalists including the local commander of the 'B' Specialswho had played a prominent role in organising the attack and subsequentlyincited the crowd against the police.41 Although Pirn acknowledged thatpolicing arrangements had been in adequate and proposed disciplinaryaction against one member of the police in Cookstown, local loyalistopinion was inflamed and unanimous in blaming the band for violating 'theancient custom which has been in being for fifty years' that loyalist andnationalist processions did not enter each other's area. No mention wasmade of the attack on the band and the police were pilloried for batoncharging 'the Loyal inhabitants of the Oldtown district'.42

For a significant sector of loyalist opinion the fundamentals of publicorder were ultimately to be guaranteed by unofficial means if the security

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forces of the state were seen to be too ready to compromise with the'enemies of Ulster' This aspect of the loyalist mentality would continue tofrustrate efforts of liberals like Maginess to soften the harder edges of thestate.

Neither was he helped by the Anti-Partition League which, frustrated inunrealistic hopes in the Atlee administration, saw in the public order issue acontinuing potential for embarrassing the northern administration. In April1951 James McSparran, leader of the Nationalist party at Stormont and abarrister, was successful in an appeal to the High Court against a decisionof magistrates in Armagh to convict a nationalist of unlawfully displaying aTricolour under regulation 24c of the Special Powers Act. The wording ofthe regulation referred to flags with green, white and yellow stripes whilstthe appeal, successfully exploiting the letter of the law, established that thestripes in the flag carried in Armagh were green, white and orange.43

Almost immediately Brooke was finding it necessary to reassure someof his followers that he would not allow nationalists to exploit the decisionto multiply the display of 'disloyalty'. Together with Maginess and thepermanent secretary of Home Affairs he received a delegation from theProtestant 'loyal order', the Apprentice Boys, who were 'naturally veryanxious about the display of Eire flags and the painting of the walls of Deny(with a Tricolour)'.44 Since the banning of the Hibernian demonstration in1948 there had been periodic conflicts between the police and nationalistsin the city. A month before the High Court decision the police had brokenup a nationalist demonstration, led by Eddie McAteer, MP for Mid-Derryand five nationalist councillors, which had attempted to carry a Tricolour inthe city centre. Two of the councillors were arrested.45 Later in the monthDerry loyalists were reported to be 'outraged' by a Sinn Fein Eastercommemoration march in which Tricolours were carried guarded by mencarrying hurley sticks. The night before a Tricolour had been attached to theflagpole on the monument to Reverend George Walker, Governor of the cityduring the siege of 1689.46 The successful resistance by Protestants in Derryto the Catholic army of James II started with the closing of the gates of thecity by apprentices. Through the remembrance of the siege Derry assumediconic significance for the wider Protestant community determined tomaintain the city's integrity as a loyalist bastion and made its 'defilement'by any public manifestation of nationalism a particular affront.

The deputation of Apprentice Boys clearly anticipated an upsurge ofsuch nationalist effrontery and while Brooke recorded that they were'reasonable' and were aware of the 'danger of supplying the other side withpropaganda' they also spoke of their 'wild men who would have to belooked after'. The Prime Minister asked them to be patient: 'I hoped weshould have something which would satisfy them.'47 He was referring to the

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Public Order Bill which Maginess was preparing to deal with the problemscreated by the court decision. The bill made it obligatory for organisers ofparades which were to use 'non-customary' routes to give notice to thepolice and allowed the police to re-route processions to preserve order.Crucially in its third clause it created an offence of 'provocative' conduct asthe most effective means of dealing with the Tricolour.48

In his speech introducing the bill Maginess gave clear expression to hisoptimistic liberal Unionist assumptions about the effects of post-wareconomic and social developments on the Catholic community. The bill heclaimed was aimed at a 'small extremist faction' who were set on disruptingthe process by which the government 'are steadily winning the respect andeven the affection of many of those who were formerly its opponents.' Heclaimed that recent years had seen 'a better understanding and a greaterspirit of co-operation among all sections of the community.'49 Maginessfirmly believed that Catholic attitudes to Northern Ireland were increasinglyinfluenced by the advantages of inclusion in part of a social democraticstate. The welfare state strengthened the Union by providing an increasinglyclear material basis for reconciling Catholics to the existence of the northernstate. As he put it in a letter to Brooke, 'we are weakening the anti-partitionmovement which is fading visibly. The number of Roman Catholics who aregradually coming to have faith in us, our permanent constitutional positionand our fair administration, would appear to be increasing considerably, andif we can wean a sufficient number then the border issue will become if notdefunct at least moribund.'50 In the Westminster election campaign in 1951Brooke echoed this analysis claiming that 'even in Nationalist areas electorsare beginning to realise that life in British Ulster is to be preferred toexistence in a Gaelic republic'.51

However the very assertion that Catholics were reconciling themselvesto partition cut at the basis of the ideology of embattlement which for manyloyalists defined their Unionism. For loyalists like this Catholics wouldsimply take the benefits of the welfare state and the concessions oneducation as signs of weakness whilst continuing with their opposition tothe state. Their sentiments were articulated by the MP for Antrim, NathanielMinford, who finished a speech in support of the Unionist candidate forWest Belfast in the 1951 Westminster election, Tom Teevan, with the cry of'God save the King and to hell with the Pope!' The reaction to the speechillustrated the degree to which attempts to present a more moderate imageof Unionism, whether genuine or instrumental, could be easily embarrassedby the continuing power of anti-Catholicism in the party. The outburst lostthe party the seat which Teevan had won in a by-election from Jack Beattieof the Irish Labour party in 1950. Beattie's narrow victory in 1951 - by 25votes - was explained by Unionist party headquarters at Glengall Street as

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a product of a maximum Catholic turnout combined with a loss of someliberal Protestant support, both in reaction to Minford's speech.52

Brooke thought the speech 'very unwise and very harmful' and recordedthat Glengall Street had received many letters of complaint.53 The leaders ofthe three main Protestant churches had asked for a meeting at which theycriticised the choice of candidates like Minford and Teevan, and Brookeensured that a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ulster UnionistCouncil passed a resolution condemning Minford's outburst.54 Teevanhimself was well known for his strong Protestantism when he first foughtWest Belfast in 1950. From Limavady in County Londonderry, hisUnionism had a raw Orange flavour. His election literature emphasised hisactivism in 'Orange and Protestant affairs' and he was a member of thethree main loyal orders.55 He had been a vociferous and lurid exponent ofthe view that the loyalist position was being undermined by immigrationfrom the Republic, telling a Unionist audience in Deny that 'the greatdanger is the enormous increase in the Roman Catholic population ofNorthern Ireland. If fewer houses and jobs were given to Roman Catholicsthe position could be remedied. It is due to the treacherous policy ofallowing farms, houses and jobs to go to our opponents that we findourselves having to fight for our lives today.'56

Brooke's problem was that those policies which would do most toreconcile Catholics to the Union and strengthen the Unionist cause outsideof Northern Ireland antagonised not simply the loyalist extremes but also asubstantial sector of his parliamentary party. This became evident whenW.F. McCoy, Unionist MP for South Tyrone and a proponent of DominionStatus in the immediate post-war period, returned to some of the centralthemes of the campaign in a 12th July speech in 1951. He voiced acontinuing distrust in the Labour government and the strength of oppositionin the business class to the agreements worked out with the Treasury tosupport the extension of the welfare state to the province: 'For an illusorymess of pottage we have sold our constitutional birthright and obligated ourParliament to accept and adopt Socialist legislation. It would still be boundto adopt more extreme Socialist legislation if introduced by the present or amore extreme socialist government.'" The recrudescence of intra-partydivisions caused Brooke serious concern as he was warned by RobertGransden, the Cabinet Secretary, that it indicated 'the beginning of a serioussplit in the Unionist party'.58 After a series of meetings with the Whips andWilliam Douglas, the Secretary of the Ulster Unionist party, there was ameeting of the parliamentary party at which, to Brooke's dismay, althougha majority opposed McCoy's arguments they defended his right to continueto articulate them. The victory of the Conservatives in the 1951 election didnot end the campaign with even Brooke recording his disappointment at the

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narrowness of the Tory victory: 'I have been giving some thought to thepossibility of safeguarding the Unionist position if a very left governmentwere to come to power in England. It might make a Government hereimpossible.'59 He found it necessary to call another parliamentary partymeeting in January 1952 to have the Minister of Finance confront McCoy'sarguments. Again, despite the claim that McCoy's case had beendemolished, he had still to record his having had to castigate a section of theparty for its criticism of the government and undermining party unity.60

Linked loyalist concerns were the on-going negotiations with the Irishgovernment over the joint buy-out of the Great Northern Railway and theproposed north-south joint management of Lough Foyle involved in theFoyle Fisheries Commission with Brooke having to reassure his followersthat such contacts with Dublin betokened no shift in his position.6' Thereturn of de Valera to power in 1951 with the defeat of what Unionistsperceived as the more irredentist coalition government, increased the self-confidence of some in the Unionist elite but this in itself was regarded asincorrigible complacency by their loyalist critics. When James McSparrancriticised political leaders in the south for putting the partition question onthe 'long finger...it was difficult to avoid the impression that they were notprepared to make a serious effort to solve the problem.' The BelfastNewsletter commented that enthusiasm for anti-partitionism was waning.62

Brooke gave some indication of sharing this analysis in his account of ameeting with an assistant editor of The Times who had visited Belfast afterbeing in the Republic to cover the Irish general: 'In the Eire elections noparty is mentioning partition. He does not quite know why. I told him thatthe violent party in Northern Ireland was only a small percentage.'63

De Valera's rejection of northern nationalist pressures for a more activistposture and the amicable negotiations with Stormont over the GNR and theFoyle Fisheries led even the leadership of the Orange Order to sound asurprisingly conciliatory note. At the 12th July demonstration in 1953 oneof the three resolutions proposed by the Imperial Grand Master, J.M.Andrews, referred to 'indications among the wiser leaders of southernIreland of respect for our constitution'. Orange gatherings in Tyrone andFermanagh heard denunciations of such liberalism. At Ballinamallard T.C.Nelson, MP claimed that the framers of the resolution 'must wear greenspectacles. Have these Orange officials in Belfast listened to Radio Eireanndescribing the "Six Counties" and our beloved Queen as "Queen ofEngland"?' The Newsletter commented that the complaints came fromcounties 'where Unionists are more sensitive nowadays to any suggestion of"appeasement" than those in predominantly Unionist areas'.64 But anti-appeasement sentiments, while they may have been strongest in bordercounties, were a growing force throughout the north in 1953, spurred on by

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the conflict occasioned by the Coronation.

Dungiven and the 1953 Election

Brian Maginess had become the main focus for loyalist critics of thegovernment who would use the clear evidence of dissension in party ranksto promote the cause of Independent Unionism in the 1953 Stormontelection. The Dungiven incident had all the more resonance becauseMaginess was already being pilloried as an enemy of Orangeism and aproponent of constitutional complacency. The reputation as an opponent ofthe Order stemmed from the ban he had placed on a proposed march byOrangemen along the nationalist Longstone Road near Kilkeel, CountyDown in June 1952. The last Orange march there had been 16 years beforeand there was now an Ancient Order of Hibernians hall on the road. TheMinister had subsequently gone to explain the ban to the local district lodgebut had met with considerable hostility. A few days later the Orangemenhad decided to try to march again but had accepted a re-routing. Two bandswho defied this and marched along the road were met by a nationalist crowdat the Hibernian hall, and a riot was narrowly averted by police persuadingthe bands to go back.65 The up-and-coming Unionist MP, Brian Faulkner,who specialised in cultivating grass-roots Orangeism, demanded a fullinvestigation and it was raised at Stormont. Several of the Orangemenshowed their disgust by resigning from the B Specials and the LongstoneRoad incident would feature as a major issue in intra-Unionist disputesthroughout the next couple of years with particular intensity during theStormont election in October 1953.

The election campaign was dominated on the Unionist side by theattacks of eight Independent Unionist candidates on the record of thegovernment. The Independents' campaign centred on two issues:'appeasement' and the need for a vigorous group of Independent MPs atStormont to challenge what they portrayed as the regime's supine role as arubber stamp for Westminster legislation. The core mobilising issue and theone they used to attract dissident loyalist support was 'appeasement'focussing on denunciations of Maginess over the Longstone Road andDungiven and on the government's education policies. However, thecampaign was also assisted by the growing salience of the unemploymentissue. This had been a particular concern of the government since 1951when the linen industry had been hit by an international slump in textiles atthe same time as the shortage of steel due to the Korean War hit shipbuildingand engineering. These problems were exacerbated by the Conservativegovernment's response to the inflationary pressure of the rearmamentprogramme with a credit squeeze and reductions in public expenditure.66 By

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the beginning of 1952 unemployment had reached 11 per cent in NorthernIreland, and while Brooke had pressed Churchill for special measures tohelp deal with the problem, little had been forthcoming by the time of theelection. Unemployment in 1953 had fallen somewhat but at 9 per cent wasdouble that in Merseyside the UK development area with the highest rate ofunemployment, and was four times the national average.67 The governmentwas attacked from both left and right on the issue. For the Northern IrelandLabour party it was the Unionist regime's links to and support for Torypolicies that was to blame, while for the Independents, echoing theDominion Status lobby, it was the post-war subservience to 'socialistic'policies that was over-taxing local industry and undermining the work ethicof the Ulster proletariat.68

An analysis of the result in the Newsletter admitted 'there is no denyingthe fact that there was appalling apathy among sections of the Unionistpopulation' ,69 Although the Unionists lost only two seats and won one, thesharp decline of their vote compared with 1949 was a major concern. In thetwenty constituencies where Unionist party candidates faced oppositiontheir total vote was more than 37,000 less than in 1949.™ The problem wasparticularly of concern in Belfast where Unionist candidates in a number ofconstituencies saw sharp declines in their vote. Although the immediatefocus was on Clifton, where Hall-Thompson lost to the fundamentalist laypreacher Norman Porter who had been the most articulately sectarian of theIndependent Unionists, the concern of Unionist party headquarters was thatthe Independent challenge had been able to exploit a wider malaise in theUnionist electoral coalition.7'

A post-mortem on the results produced for party headquarters pointed upa range of factors to account for the low Unionist poll. Unemployment andthe narrow class basis of the party in Belfast were seen as important: 'Ourparty is losing the support of the lower paid income group and the artisansto the NILP... It is very unfortunate that we have no members of parliamentdrawn from this category... Many of the Divisional Associations are not asrepresentative or democratic as they ought to be. This appears to applyparticularly in Belfast...'72 However the willingness to contemplate votingfor the NILP and the scarcely less disturbing tendency not to vote at all,were also seen as a product of a complacency amongst many electors who'while not opposed to the government, did not realise the value of their votesufficiently to go to the poll'.73 A number of factors were identifiedincluding the large number of uncontested seats (21 compared to 14 in1949) and the lack of effective organisation in new housing states in theBelfast area. But the central problem was seen to be the government'sidentification with a broader and less strident form of Unionism which wasnot being effectively communicated to the party and the broader Unionist

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community: 'Because the "Big Drum" has heretofore dominated Unionistpolitics an intensive campaign of political education in broadest sense mustbe undertaken by the Ulster Unionist Council.'74 Maginess's and Brooke'semphasis on the weakening of the anti-partitionist movement, the IrelandAct and the return of the Conservatives had appeared to encourage a feelingof constitutional security which had provided both the NILP and theIndependents with scope to argue that votes for them would not endangerthe Union.75

It was precisely the lessening of the salience of the constitutional issuethat allowed the Independent's attack on 'appeasement' to acquire itsmomentum. As the party's analysis of the election put it: 'There is a feelingabroad that the Government is too eager to please its opponents and forgetabout its friends' and it specifically referred to 'Incidents at Dungiven,Annalong (Longstone Road) and other places and occurrences relating tothe flying of the union Jack.'76 Brooke and Maginess's concern with theimage of the regime outside the province had clearly fuelled the anti-'appeasement' movement. The analysis noted the problem: 'The position ofthe Unionist Party now as compared with its position in pre-1920 days isadmittedly different. It is now charged with the government of the countryand fair play must be meted out [sic] to the minority, whereas in the pre-1920 days it had no responsibilities except to its own followers.'77 Alreadyduring the campaign it was evident that the Independent challenge waspushing the Prime Minister to jettison any hints of a broader vision ofUnionism. Thus campaigning for Maginess in Iveagh he had brandished hisloyalist credentials: 'I told them that I had offered to desert from the Armyto defend the Union in 1914, that I had run the Specials and done all I couldfor the Union.'78 At another meeting there was a crude echo of some of hismore florid sectarian outbursts in the 1930s: 'He had been criticised foremploying a Roman Catholic driver. That was not correct. His driver was aScottish Presbyterian and a good one at that.'79

The Flags and Emblems Act: the Collapse of Instrumental Moderation

Although Maginess held the seat his majority was slashed from 7,558 to1,560 and his loyalist critics claimed that he held it only because of Catholicsupport.80 Brooke's reading of the result prioritised the Independent threat,noting in his diary that 'Our people still believe the yarns about Dungivenwhen the IRA was supposed to have held the town during Coronation day.'The same entry, just a week after election day, noted that he had alreadyasked the Unionist Chief Whip to take over at Home Affairs.81 TheIndependents buoyed up by Porter's victory continued to press thegovernment on Dungiven with the support of a number of Unionist

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backbenchers. Maginess was now Minister of Finance and it was normal forthis senior minister to act as Deputy Prime Minister. However he toldBrooke that some MPs had threatened to resign if he was given theposition82 and it became increasingly obvious that his prospects within theparty had been blighted by the election result. Brooke was forced to give alengthy statement to the House of Commons on Dungiven in response to aquestion from Minford. Minford's speech supported the more lurid of theloyalist depictions of an IRA 'seizure' of the village and endedthreateningly 'if we find that the Minister cannot give us protection in ourlawful walks we will protect ourselves'.83 Brooke had prepared a statementin consultation with Maginess and Hanna, the new Minister of HomeAffairs, which refuted the claims about an IRA takeover and backed thepolice decision while 'assuring loyalists that we will back them as far as wecan'.84 He hoped that the support of the Grand Lodge of Ireland for thegovernment would finish the issue but by the beginning of December 1953it was clear that continuing Independent agitation on Dungiven was findingsubstantial support in the County Londonderry Grand Lodge where therewas a demand for an inquiry which Brooke was dismayed to find out wasechoed by some members of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. George Hannawas despatched to address the Grand Lodge and got a vote of confidenceafter agreeing that if there was any new evidence produced the governmentwould have an inquiry. Brooke was alarmed at the Orange hierarchy'swillingness to respond to extremist pressure: 'I intend to tell the GrandLodge that loyalist ranks cannot stand a division. We must take to themiddle road or the extreme road. If the latter course, then Unionism's goodname is finished.'85

The new year opened with the government clearly on the defensive asPorter and the Independents sponsored an Orange and Protestant Committeewhich organised a mass meeting in Belfast's Ulster Hall to be addressed bythe leader of the Boveva Flute band and other loyalists involved in theDungiven incident. A special meeting of the Unionist parliamentary partywas held at Glengall Street the day before the Ulster Hall meeting. It wasattended by the cabinet and the Westminster MPs and intended to stiffenparty and Orange resolve against the Independents and ensure that noUnionist MP attended the meeting. Brooke had found it increasinglydifficult to maintain the support of the Orange hierarchy: 'I had the greatestdifficulty in getting Andrews (Imperial Grand Master)to disassociate theGrand Lodge from the malcontents. As usual they want to do nothing.Grand Lodge would have been down the drain and given all their control toPorter and company.'86 But the meeting itself showed the government'strimming to accommodate its critics. Hanna made a statement that he wasinvestigating the incident and had met the Grand Lodge who were awaiting

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a special report from the Londonderry County Grand Lodge. WhereBrooke's statement to Stormont in November had been dismissive of theloyalist version of events, Hanna's statement was much more strident: 'Theaction taken at Dungiven by the party's political opponents had been anoutrageous abuse of the liberty and freedom of action enjoyed by peopleunder Unionist rule.' He added that such behaviour would not be toleratedand in a hint of the Flags and Emblems Bill commented that 'the mere factof their (nationalists) refraining from overt aggression would not affordthem immunity from the full processes of the law.'87

The loyalist meeting which filled the Ulster Hall to capacity and left2,000 supporters outside, heard strong denunciations not only of Maginessbut of those like the Minister of Agriculture, the Reverend Robert Moore,who it was claimed had advised Unionists to 'forget the past'. The chairmanattacked the 'traitors in their own camp who want to give the RomanCatholics sufficient to take away the freedom of loyalists', and the Ministerof Commerce was denounced for considering building factories in placeslike Newry, Strabane and Londonderry: 'These are all Nationalist areaswhere the people are too lazy to work.'88 Porter's own fevered conception of'appeasement' now blamed the government for alleged occasions when thesinging of hymns had been prohibited in two hospitals and for 'RomanCatholic literature' being left on the beds of Protestant patients. Despite itsmore bizarre sectarian embellishments Brooke took the meeting - whichalso called for the party to get rid of him and passed a motion of noconfidence in the government - very seriously noting in his diary the nextday. 'These men are dangerous.'89

This was the context in which the simmering dispute between theInspector General of the RUC and the top officials of the Ministry of HomeAffairs since the Coronation was finally resolved in a manner that clearlyignored Pirn's deep reservations about tailoring public order legislation tothe exigencies of internal party politics. The issues raised by the proposedlegislation had been the source of conflict between the Inspector Generaland top officials of Home Affairs since the celebrations of the Coronation.Pirn had issued an order to his officers on 20 June 1953 which attempted toprovided guidelines to deal with similar problems over the flying of theUnion Jack or Tricolour which he anticipated might arise in the periodleading up to a proposed Royal visit in July. It advised that in circumstanceswhere the flying of a Union flag might lead to a serious breach of the peacethe person responsible should be 'tactfully advised' on the dangers but nottold to remove the flag and nor should the police remove it.90 After the visitPirn produced a more detailed draft circular on the display of flags anddecorations which caused apprehension in Home Affairs as it did providethat in certain 'extreme' cases the common law duty of the police to prevent

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a breach of the peace would permit the removal of Union flag.9' The matterthen became a matter for discussion between Maginess and the AttorneyGeneral who appear to have hoped to ignore it until pressed for a responseby Pim. The resultant conference in the Attorney General's office took placeafter the general election and was attended by Pim, the Ministers of HomeAffairs and Finance and officials from Home Affairs. It centred on thecommunication to Pim of the 'general feeling that it should not or could notbe admitted that the flying of the Union Jack could lead to a breach of thepeace or that persons objecting to the Union Jack were entitled to do so.'92

Pim undertook to produce a new circular with the deletion of the paragraphthat contemplated the removal of the Union Jack but this was regarded byAdrian Robinson of Home Affairs as 'still too milk and water and so full ofpious comment and indefinite instructions that would not serve the purposesfor which it is intended'.93 Robinson had drafted his own set of proposalsand it was these which provided the basis for the Flags and Emblemslegislation. It was at the cabinet meeting two days after the Ulster Hallmeeting that this draft of the Flags and Emblems bill was agreed. Brookenoted, 'We agreed on legislation that the Union Jack was to fly withoutinterference... No doubt the Orange and Protestants will claim this as avictory.'94

It has been argued that under Brooke's leadership in the post-war period,'the "Protestant ascendancy" seemed to be secure, and a certain amount oftriumphalism crept into unionism; more often than not Brookeboroughplayed the orange card.'95 However, it was precisely the sense of relativesecurity brought about by the welfare state and the Ireland Act that openedup the space in which a substantial number of traditional Unionist voterscould feel freer to express their own unhappiness with a range ofgovernment policies by voting for the NILP, the Independents or simplystaying at home on polling day. It was this relative relaxation of the internalties of the Unionist electoral bloc that ironically made the efforts of Brookeand Maginess to ameliorate the hard edges of the regime so vulnerable toassault by loyalist ultras. The new national and international situation after1945 had encouraged some in the Unionist elite in a belief that overtlypartisan behaviour by Ulster Unionists would be fully exploited by anti-partitionists in Westminster, the United States and a range of new forumsfrom the United Nations to the Council of Europe. The reaction against thisapproach ranged from the Dominion Status lobby to the fundamentalistbacklash on the education issue. However it was strength of the marchingtradition in defining the Unionism of many Protestants that made the issueof public order a battleground, not simply between nationalists and the state,but within Unionism itself. For it was the issue where those sectors of theProtestant community who most resisted post-war compromises found it

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easiest to do battle. The Flags and Emblems Act was therefore as much adefeat for a certain broader conception of the Union, and for those in theUnionist elite who realised that partition would have to be defended inStrasbourg and New York as well as Derry and Fermanagh, as it was anassault on nationalist rights.

NOTES

1. Sabine Wichert, Northern Ireland Since 1945 (London: Longman, 1991), pp.66-75.2. Michael Farrell, Arming the Protestants (London: Pluto, 1983), pp.268-9.3. An editorial in the Derry Journal 'The Police State in Truth', 3 Feb. 1954, claimed that the

proposed bill went to 'the extremist limits touched by the Red regimes in China or EasternEurope... This is the police state with a vengeance.'

4. Bob Purdie, Politics in the Streets, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement in NorthernIreland (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1990), p.30

5. Lucy Bryson and Clem McCartney, Clashing Symbols: A Report on the Use of Flags andOther Symbols in Northern Ireland (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994), p.145.

6. Ibid., p.145.7. Ibid., p. 146.8. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (henceforward PRONI): CAB4/924, 'Display of

Flags', 7 Jan. 1954.9. Ibid.

10. These and subsequent quotations are from PRONI: HA/32/1/956, Memorandum from SirRichard Pim to The Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, 30 Dec. 1953.

11. Bryson and McCartney, p. 144.12. Belfast Newsletter, 25 May 195313. W.H. Moffatt quoted in Pim memorandum, PRONI: HA/32/1/956, Memorandum from Sir

Richard Pim to The Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, 30 Dec. 1953.14. Belfast Newsletter, 1 June 195315. This account was given by the Unionist MP, Nathaniel Minford who had been contacted by

members of the band and phoned the Minister of Home Affairs to try and get policeprotection for the band, Northern Ireland House of Commons, Debates, Vol.xxxviii, 17 Nov.1953, cols. 163-5.

16. PRONI, D 3004/D/44, Brooke Diaries, 21 Sept. 1953.17. Ibid., Diaries, 23 Sept. 1953.18. See Brian Barton, Brookeborough: The Making of a Prime Minister (Belfast: Institute of

Irish Studies, 1988), pp.215-16.19. See Brendan Lynn, Holding the Ground: The Nationalist Party in Northern Ireland 1945-72

(Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), pp. 11-55.20. See Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon and Henry Patterson, Northern Ireland 1921-1996, Political

Forces and Social Classes (London: Serif, 1996), pp.97-104.21. Lynn, Holding the Ground, pp.74-5. Thus at the end of 1950 Brooke met a deputation from

the Executive of the Ulster Unionist Council on the Safeguarding of Employment Act. Thedeputation complained that the Minister of Labour was not administering the Act in a mannerthat best served Protestant interests: 'I told them that frankly no minister could ask hisdepartment to go outside the bill as passed by parliament, but that we would do what wecould to encourage loyalists to stay in the country.' Diaries, 12 Dec. 1950.

22. Belfast Newsletter, 13 July 1946.23. Ibid.24. Ibid.25. Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland, The Orange State (London: Pluto, 1976), p.181.26. See Bob Purdie, 'The Friends of Ireland. British Labour and Irish Nationalism, 1945-49' in

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Tom Gallagher and James O'Connell (eds.) Contemporary Irish Studies (Manchester:Manchester University Press, 1983), pp.81-93.

27. The Round Table, Vol. XXXVIII, 1948.28. Graham Walker, The Politics of Frustration: Harry Midgley and the Failure of Labour in

Northern Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), pp.199-200.29. PRONI, D 3004/D/44, Diaries, 6 Feb. 1951.30. Ibid., 13 Dec. 1950.31. Ibid., 18 Feb. 1951.32. Barton, Brookeborough, p.78.33. Ibid., p.89.34. PRONI, CAB9B/267/7, letter from Maynard Sinclair, acting prime minister, to Chuter Ede,

6 Aug. 1946, protesting about the fact that the Free State's application to join the UN wasmade in the name of 'Ireland': 'It is bringing into the international sphere the use of anomenclature which is calculated to cause even greater misunderstanding about the status ofNorthern Ireland.' The same file contains a letter from Gransden, Secretary to NI cabinet toA.J. Kelly of the Home Office, 12 Jan. 1949: 'The Prime Minister is quite taken with the ideaof a representative on the permanent UK delegation at the United Nations.'

35. PRONI: CAB9B/267/7, letter from L. E Curran to Prime Minister, 21 Jan. 1949: Brooke hadrequested government legal advisers to look at possible challenges to the north'sconstitutional position being brought by the Republic through (a) joining Western EuropeanUnion, (b) joining NATO, (c) having its claims brought before the UN General Assembly and(d) taking a case to an international tribunal.

36. Patrick Hogan, an Irish delegate at the Inter-parliamentary Union meeting in Istanbul,claimed that a 'police state had been established in the Six Counties', Northern Whig, 3 Sept.1951.

37. See Purdie, 'The Friends of Ireland', p.87.38. PRONI: CAB4/810, memorandum by the Minister of Home Affairs on the Civil Authorities

(Special Powers) Act, 22 Feb. 1950.39. Diaries, 13 Dec. 1950.40. Ibid., 3 Jan. 1951.41. PRONI, HA/32/1/663, report on breach of the peace in Cookstown on 27 Aug. 1950 by S.S.

Hopkins, County Inspector, Omagh to Inspector General of RUC, 6 Sept. 1950.42. Ibid., Letter from Sir Richard Pim to the Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, 8 Sept. 1950

and resolution of the Cookstown Unionist Association.43. Belfast Newsletter, 20 April 195144. Diaries, 18 May 1951.45. Belfast Newletter, 19 March 1951.46. Ibid., 26 March 1951.47. Diaries, 18 May 1951.48. PRONI, Cab4/ 846/10, memorandum by Minister of Home Affairs on Public Order Bill, 8

May 1951.49. Northern Ireland House of Commons, Debates, Vol.XXXV, 19 June 1951, col.1541.50. PRONI, Cab 9J/53/2, letter from Brian Maginess to Sir Basil Brooke, 21 Aug. 1951.51. 'Roman Catholic Electors Seeing the Light', Northern Whig, 20 Oct. 1951.52. PRONI, D 1327/16/2/29, Ulster Unionist Council Papers, 'Analysis of 1951 Westminster

Election'.53. Diaries, 9 Oct. 1951 and 1 Nov. 1951.54. Ibid., 9 Nov. 1951 and 16 Nov. 1951.55. PRONI, D1327/16/2/27, Ulster Unionist Council Papers, election leaflet for Tom Teevan,

West Belfast by-election, 29 Nov. 1950.56. The speech reported in the Londonderry Sentinel on 28 Jan. 1950 was quoted by the

nationalist MP, Cahir Healy, at Stormont, Northern Ireland House of Commons, Debates,Vol.XXXV, 22 May 1951, col.1135.

57. '"More power to Ulster!" declares Mr McCoy', Northern Whig, 1 Sept. 1951.58. PRONI, Cab 9J/53/2, letter from Gransden to the Prime Minister, 17 Aug. 1951.59. Diaries, 26 Oct. 1951.

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60. 57 Ibid., 3 Jan. 1951.61. Ibid., 10 Dec. 1952: 'Grand Lodge meeting. I informed them that negotiations with Eire were

on business matters and nothing more. Attempts to raise the constitutional question wouldnot succeed.'

62. Belfast Newsletter, 26 May 195363. Diaries, 6 June 1951.64. Belfast Newsletter, 14 July 1953.65. This account is based on Maginess's justification of the ban given during the election

campaign, Ibid., 17 Oct. 1953.66. Bew, Gibbon and Patterson, pp.120-21.67. Figures from Brian Maginess budget speech as acting Minister of Finance, Belfast

Newsletter, 6 May 1953.68. The NILP pamphlet 'Spotlight on the Unionist Record' focussed on the unemployment issue

and the claim that 4000 Ulster people had emigrated to Canada in 1952, ibid., 19 Oct. 1953.At a meeting to support the Independent Unionist candidate in North Deny one speaker whoraised the unemployment issue linked it to the detrimental effects of the welfare state: 'It wasbad enough having unemployment but when the unemployed got so much for not workingsome of these people would become unemployable.' Another speaker, the industrialist, SirGraham Larmor attacked the government's acceptance of Westminster taxation levels:'Leaving the individual free to risk his own capital would be best, but the fact was that intaxation, as in trade, Stormont's powers were limited and Northern Ireland did not control itsown destiny.' Ibid., 210ct. 1953.

69. Ibid., 23 Oct. 1953.70. Irish News, 24 Oct. 1953.71. In Willowfield Midgley's vote dropped from 11, 304 in 1949 to 6,539; in Cromac the

Unionist vote in 1949 had been 10,152, in 1953 it was 5, 293; in Victoria it dropped from11, 330 and a majority over the NILP of 8,907 to 7, 198 and a majority of 1, 662; in Woodvalewhere their candidate had been unopposed in 1949, the majority over the IndependentUnionist was only 299 votes and the NILP also had a substantial vote, Ibid., 23 Oct. 1953.

72. PRONI, D 1327/16/3/51, Ulster Unionist Council Papers, 'Observations on the 1953election'. At the time of partition the Unionist Parliamentary Party had a working classmembership of ten per cent, all members of the Ulster Unionist Labour Association. Theonly one to last until the post-war period was William Grant, Minister of Labour, who hadleft the scene by 1950: see E. Rumpf and A.C. Hepburn, Nationalism and Socialism inTwentieth Century Ireland (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1977), p. 177.

73. Ibid.74. Ibid.75. A Newsletter leader during the campaign had commented: 'Not the least disturbing feature

of the present campaign has been an inordinate tendency to suggest that, as NorthernIreland's constitutional position is now unassailable, the time has come when the Unionistelectorate can dismiss its fear and with safety concentrate purely on domestic issues. Nomore pernicious theory could be advanced,' Belfast Newsletter, 16 Oct. 1953.

76. 'Observations on the 1953 election'.77. Ibid.78. Diaries, 14 Oct. 195379. Belfast Newsletter, 16 Oct. 1953.80. Ibid., 24 Oct. 1953. Mr. Maginess's widow supported the idea that her husband's margin of

victory was dependent on Catholic support. Interview with Mrs. Margaret Maginess atHillsborough, 15 Jan 1998.

81. Diaries, 27 Oct. 1953.82. Ibid., 28 Oct. 1953.83. Northern Ireland House of Commons, Debates, Vol.XXXVIII, 17 Nov. 1953, col.165.84. Diaries, 17 Nov. 1953.85. Ibid., 1 Dec. 1953. All the four entries in December were concerned solely with the Dungiven

issue and his end-of-year summary was bleak: 'There seems to be a movement in the countryof the extremists towards the independents which may well undo a great deal of the good

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which we have tried to do.' Ibid., 17 Dec. 1953.86. Ibid., 1 Jan. 1954.87. Belfast Newsletter, 6 Jan. 1954.88. Ibid.89. Diaries, 6 Jan. 1954.90. PRONI, HA/32/1/956, order from the Inspector general to all RUC stations, 20 June 1953.91. Ibid., HA/32/1/956, draft circular from Inspector General of the RUC on the display of flags

and decorations, 10 July 1953.92. Ibid., report of a conference in the Attorney General's Office, Stormont, 16 Nov. 1953.93. Ibid., memorandum from Secretary of Ministry of Home Affairs to Minister of Home

Affairs, 24 Nov. 1953.94. Diaries, 7 Jan. 1954.95. Wichert, p.67.

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Documents

Party versus order: Ulster Unionism and the Flags and Emblems Act