James Craig, later to become Lord Craigavon, was a seventh child and sixth son, born at The Hill, Lower Sydenham, Belfast on January 8th 1871. Shortly after his birth his father built a house called Craigavon, now on the Circular Road, Belfast and it was in this house that the boy grew to be a man. In its grounds when it became his property many eventful acts were performed, and much that was important to his country was said and done. It is now owned by the Somme Association, which developed out of the Farset Youth and Community Development Ltd, on the Springfield Road in Belfast.
His father, also called James, was a distiller, forty-three years of age, when his seventh child was born, and his wife was thirty-six. They were warm-hearted Ulster people and their latest child was reared in wealthy conditions. However, he was just an ordinary boy, going about an ordinary boy’s business and was pre-eminent in nothing except candour and direct statement and truthfulness. He was merely James Craig who lived at Craigavon.
Yet, as his successor John Millar Andrews said, “Lord Craigavon was a great Ulsterman, a great Irishman, a great imperialist. His love of country was innate, sincere and strong. It was the key to his whole career as soldier and statesman, parliamentarian and Premier.” James was to be reared in extraordinary political circumstances. In 1884 was formed the Gaelic Athletic Association which promoted Hurling and Gaelic football and forbad the playing of “foreign games”. In 1893 the Anglican, Douglas Hyde, founded the Gaelic League which had as its aim the de-Anglicisation of Ireland. From this sprang Gaelic Nationalism, “Ireland not free only but Gaelic as well, not Gaelic only but free as well”. Strangely enough a pseudo-Celtic twilight culture was created which not only bowlderised but Anglicised the old Gaelic literature out of all recognition. The political manifestation of this Gaelic revival was the foundation of Sinn Fein (Ourselves Alone) in 1905. This movement was soon attracted to and taken over by the veteran Fenian Movement. At the same time there was a growth of Marxist philosophy and an active Socialist Movement was led by James Connolly and James Larkin. Connolly however, tried to use Gaelic Nationalism to further his own ideals, thus compromising the Labour Movement in both Ireland and Britain. The blending of Roman Catholic and Celtic mysticism created in people as diverse as Padraig Pearce and James Connolly the myth of the blood sacrifice which was to have lasting consequences. Confronted by such threats, the British Ulstermen formed the Ulster Unionist Council to fight Home Rule.
Civil war now seemed inevitable. In 1912 the Ulstermen signed a Covenant at Craigavon House and then in the City Hall, Belfast whereby they swore to “use all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland”. It was obvious that what they really feared was the form of government which was to follow Home Rule. 1913 saw the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force under Sir Edward Carson and Sir James Craig, who had fought with great distinction in the South African War. James Connolly set up the Irish Citizens’ Army and Eoin McNeill of the Gaelic League formed the Irish Volunteers. But the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 averted civil hostilities. Irishmen of all persuasions sailed to Europe to fight for the King and Empire and for the independent rights of small nations. The Irish Republican (Fenian) Brotherhood leaders saw this as an opportunity for revolt and a Republican uprising was effected without success during Easter 1916. This insurrection and the subsequent execution of its leaders evinced a terrible beauty in the eyes of Yeats at a time when thousands of Irishmen were dying unsung in Flanders. On 1st July 1916 the 36th Ulster Division sustained 5500 casualties at the Battle of the Somme, a sacrifice greater by far, as were the losses of the mainly Catholic 16th Irish Division at Messines. Nevertheless, in 1918 Sinn Fein won a majority of Irish seats at Westminster. The first self-styled Dail Eireann (Government of Ireland) met in Dublin the following year. There followed a bloody war of independence fought between the British Irish and the Irish Republican Army, the British Irish being aided by the Black and Tans.
The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, tried a compromise settlement in 1920, which provided for separate Parliaments in Northern and Southern Ireland. Northern Ireland consisted of the whole of Old Ulster (old Ulidia) i.e. Antrim and Down as well as four other counties of the contemporary English Provincial configuration of Ulster which consisted of nine counties. Sir James Craig became its first Prime Minister. The other twenty-six counties became the Irish Free State in 1922, following the Anglo Irish Treaty, but the dominion status of the new State was not acceptable to Republicans. Civil War then erupted between pro and anti Treaty factions, the former led by Michael Collins, the latter by Eamon De Valera. During the last six months of this war nearly twice as many Republican prisoners were executed by the authorities of the Free State as were executed by the British in the whole period from 1916 – 1921. It all ended with government victory in 1923.
In 1926, De Valera formed his Fianna Fail (Warriors of Destiny) Party. The Free State Party (Cumann na nGaedhael) lost power to Fianna Fail in 1933 and changed its name to Fine Gael (tribe of Gaels) the following year. How many of either party were Gaels in either language, culture or ethnic origin is open to question. De Valera’s basic Catholic Nationalism was highlighted by a radio broadcast on St Patrick’s Day 1935 when he said “since the coming of St Patrick, Ireland has been a Christian and a Catholic nation, she remains a Catholic nation.” This statement demonstrates, according to Conor Cruise O’Brien the peculiar nature of Irish Nationalism, as it is actually felt, not as it is rhetorically expressed. The nation is felt to be the Gaelic nation, Catholic in religion. Protestants are welcome to join this nation. If they do, they may or may not retain their religious profession, but they become as it were, Catholic by nationality.
In 1937, De Valera was thus able to produce a new constitution, which was in essence a documentation of contemporary Roman Catholic social theory. During the second Great War in 1939-1945 the Irish Free State remained neutral. The Gaelic Nationalists had much in common with fascist Spain but baulked at assisting German Nazis. Both Britain and the U.S.A. considered the seizure of Southern Irish bases, but Northern Ireland kept the Atlantic lifeline open. Winston Churchill summed this up well when he said “but for the loyalty of Northern Ireland and its devotion to what has become the cause of thirty governments or nations we should have been confronted with slavery or death and the light which now shines so strongly throughout the world would have been quenched”. Following the war Southern Ireland left the British Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland was formally instituted on Easter Monday 1949.
During this period the responsibilities of leadership at one of the most critical points in Ulster’s history were shouldered by Lord Craigavon. He died peacefully on Thursday November 21st then in his seventieth year. His biographer St John Ervine has written of him “I have only to add that the liking I have felt for Lord Craigavon, a liking which was aroused entirely by his genial and friendly disposition has grown with the greater intimacy which writing his life has brought me. The testimony to his extraordinary likeability is, I find, almost universal. The love felt for him in his home, was felt by his friends. His political opponents, however much they differed from him, no matter how much he sometimes incensed them, admired and liked him. No political passion could disturb the great regard he felt for the two nationalists, both Ulstermen, whom he most frequently encountered, Joseph Devlin and Jeremiah McVeagh; and their regard for him was no less than his for them. Death has not reduced his stature, nor in any degree diminished him; he has been raised and increased. We Ulster people hold him in particular pride. He was our man, blood of our blood, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. Ulster sets its seal upon him, and he set his seal on Ulster. In accent and mind and manner, in body and belief, James Craig, born and bred and buried in the County of Down was unmistakably marked by his people and his country. He was an Ulsterman.”
He lies today, with his beloved wife, beside his Parliament at Stormont. I visit him often.