CHAPTER I.

THE ULSTER COVENANT. THE QUESTIONS STATED. IRELAND UNDER THE CELTS AND
THE DANES.

"Being convinced in our consciences that Home Rule would be
disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster as well as of
the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious
freedom, destructive of our citizenship and perilous to the
unity of the Empire, We, whose names are underwritten, Men of
Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V,
humbly relying on the God whom our fathers in days of stress
and trial confidently trusted, do hereby pledge ourselves
in Solemn Covenant throughout this our time of threatened
calamity to stand by one another in defending for ourselves
and our children our cherished position of equal citizenship
in the United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be
found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a
Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. And, in the event of such
a Parliament being forced upon us, we further solemnly
and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognise its
authority. In such confidence that God will defend the right,
we hereunto subscribe our names."

Such is the Solemn Covenant which 220,000 resolute, determined
Ulstermen--of various creeds and of all sections of the community,
from wealthy merchants to farm labourers--fully realizing the
responsibility they were undertaking, signed on the 28th September,
1912. To represent that it was merely the idle bombast of ignorant
rustics, or a passing ebullition of political passion coming from