The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

Though the crisis thus appeared to pass inconclusively, it had in fact thrown up the formula which the British would later use in what for many years appeared to be a successful attempt to solve the Irish question: partition. Partition had been formally proposed by Bonar Law at a conference convened by the King at Buckingham Palace on 21 July 1914. He suggested the exclusion of six of Ulster’s nine counties from the working of the Home Rule Bill. This was opposed by both Redmond and Carson, Redmond on the grounds that the six excluded counties – Armagh, Antrim, Down, Derry, Fermanagh and Tyrone – contained sizeable Catholic minorities. Instead he sought a system of option whereby counties could opt for or against Home Rule depending on their religious coloration. Carson objected on the cunningly chosen grounds that nine counties would be the best solution, because the increased Catholic representation from the remaining three Ulster counties, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, would be a force for the eventual coming-together of the two parts of the island!