Long, a stalwart unionist, had decamped to the town (soon to be renamed Dún Laoghaire) with his parliamentary secretary James Craig to draft the law that would create the entity now known as Northern Ireland. But even at this point, the enduring reality of partition remained far from certain. Unionists, who had fought so bitterly against Irish Home Rule for almost half a century, ended up becoming its first and only pioneers. Partition emerged as a response to both the threat of unionist political violence and the British state’s unwillingness to confront it. Even before Northern Ireland formally came into existence following the elections of May 1921, Craig had secured from Westminster the right to begin building a state apparatus.

Source: Irish Independent May 01, 2021 03:56 UTC