the Unionist Associations of Ireland was therefore formed in the same
year, the organisations represented on it being the two already named
and the Ulster Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union. The latter, which in earlier
years had done excellent spade-work under the fostering zeal of Lord
Ranfurly and Mr. William Robert Young, was before 1911 amalgamated with
the Unionist Council, so that all rivalry and overlapping was
thenceforward eliminated from the organisation of Unionism in Ulster.
The Council in the North and the Irish Unionist Alliance in Dublin
worked in complete harmony both with each other and with the Union
Defence League in London, whose operations were carried on under the
direction of its founder, Mr. Walter Long.

The women of Ulster were scarcely less active than the men in the matter
of organisation. Although, of course, as yet unenfranchised, they took
as a rule a keener interest in political matters--meaning thereby the
one absorbing question of the Union--than their sex in other parts of
the United Kingdom. When critical times for the Union arrived there was,
therefore, no apathy to be overcome by the Protestant women in Ulster.
Early in 1911 the "Ulster Women's Unionist Council" was formed under the
presidency of the Duchess of Abercorn, and very quickly became a most
effective organisation side by side with that of the men. The leading
spirit was the Marchioness of Londonderry, but that it was no
aristocratic affair of titled ladies may be inferred from the fact that
within twelve months of its formation between forty and fifty thousand
members were enrolled. A branch in Mr. Devlin's constituency of West
Belfast, which over four thousand women joined in its first month of
existence, of whom over 80 per cent, were mill-workers and shop-girls in
the district, held a very effective demonstration on the 11th of
January, 1912, at which Mr. Thomas Sinclair, the most universally
respected of Belfast's business men, made one of his many telling