1942: Ireland, Northern

The arrival of a large detachment of American troops in a North Ireland port on Jan. 26, 1942 had a profound effect on the year's developments in Northern Ireland. Other groups of American soldiers arrived from time to time until Northern Ireland was garrisoned primarily by Americans. A huge naval base was constructed and put into operation at Londonderry for the use of the American fleet. Prior to the arrival of the troops, American and British authorities had hoped that the presence of Americans would be welcomed in Eire and that some agreement might be worked out for the use of bases in the south of Ireland to protect American convoys and strengthen the defenses of the British Islands. All such hopes were quickly dashed, however, when the Eire Government denounced the landing of Americans as an 'aggression' against Ireland and dispatched an official protest to Washington. The Irish Republican Army groups in Northern Ireland also protested the presence of the Americans, distributing a manifesto charging the United States with 'an act of aggression.'

In contrast, the majority of the population of Northern Ireland enthusiastically welcomed the Americans despite the minor inconveniences caused by the presence of such a large number of foreign troops. J. M. Andrews, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, issued a formal statement refuting Prime Minister De Valera's protest by pointing out that De Valera had no legitimate claim to sovereignty over Ulster. 'The presence of American troops in Northern Ireland to which Mr. De Valera objects,' Mr. Andrews declared, 'is part of the vast strategic plan for the defeat of the Axis powers. Therefore these troops are doubly welcome in our territory and we are proud to be associated with them in a war.'

The presence of American soldiers seems, however, to have aggravated the friction between the I.R.A. and the Ulster authorities. At the end of August a large store of arms and explosives, apparently intended for attacks on American and British soldiers, was discovered in County Antrim. A few days later the approaching execution of Thomas J. Williams, an I.R.A. sympathizer convicted of murdering a policeman on Easter morning, caused American authorities to prohibit American soldiers from entering Belfast lest their presence lead to trouble. Two soldiers who evaded the restriction were accosted by a mob, and the automobile of a U. S. Army officer was stoned. A day later, police in armored cars raided the homes of hundreds of I.R.A. sympathizers, arresting fifty-six persons suspected of complicity in the plot against American and British troops. Disturbances continued, however, despite strict police activity. Two policemen were ambushed and slain in County Tyrone on Sept. 6. On Oct. 10, a group of I.R.A. members attacked a British searchlight battery in an isolated area. On the same day, seven persons were hurt in a Belfast bomb explosion. An attempt to blow up the St. Brigid's Roman Catholic parochial house on Oct. 28 failed; but ten persons, including two policemen and a seven-year-old girl, were injured by a bomb explosion on Oct. 30 in the Ardoyne area of Belfast. On Nov. 1, eighty additional I.R.A. suspects were rounded up in a series of police raids.

The strength of I.R.A. sentiment was reflected at the polls on Nov. 7 when Eamon Donnelly, formerly chief of Prime Minister Eamon De Valera's Fianna Fail, was elected as the first Belfast Irish Republican member of the Northern Ireland Parliament. Mr. Donnelly announced that he would not take his seat but would organize all of the political parties of Eire and Northern Ireland to end the partition of Ireland. It is estimated that his program has the support of nearly the entire Nationalist minority in Ulster, comprising about one-third of the population of Northern Ireland.

1941: Ireland, Northern

Nazi bombers carried the war to Northern Ireland with an all-out raid on the night of April 15, 1941. The attack lasted several hours and covered the whole of the country. Some sections sustained heavy attacks, while others escaped with little damage. A number of industrial plants were hit and residential sections suffered heavily. There were several hundred deaths.

Except for this raid, Ulster has felt that war chiefly in unprecedented pressure upon its shipbuilding and other industries. In sharp contrast to the depression which affected these industries during the whole of the decade of the thirties, the past two years have brought intense activity. Every facility for shipbuilding has been constantly in use and all skilled workers pressed into employment.

In the crisis the age old conflict between North and South Ireland has all but been forgotten. For the first time in years, union between the two Irelands was not a primary political issue. The issue did arise indirectly, however, in connection with a renewal of talk of extending conscription to Northern Ireland. In the middle of May, Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced in the British Parliament that the Government was 'considering' the extension of the draft to the six counties of Northern Ireland. The announcement stirred up a hornet's nest of opposition, both in Eire and Ulster. Prime Minister de Valera summoned a special session of the Dail Eireann at which the leaders of Eire's three political parties united in registering opposition to the proposal. The new Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James M. Andrews, hurried to London for a consultation with Mr. Churchill. The Ulster Labor Party called for a plebiscite to decide the issue. Mass meetings in opposition to the draft were held in the six counties of the North as well as in Eire. It was feared that riots and bloodshed would become widespread if action were taken.

A crisis was averted, however, when Prime Minister Churchill announced on May 27 that conscription would not be applied to North Ireland for the present. The Prime Minister's statement was as follows: 'I said last week that this matter had been engaging our attention and we have made a number of inquiries in various directions with the result that we have come to the conclusion that at the present time, although there can be no dispute about our rights or the merits of the case, it would be more trouble than it is worth to enforce such a policy.'

A report that the United States was establishing naval and air bases in Northern Ireland caused a mild flurry early in July. It developed, however, that report grew out of the fact that Great Britain was employing several hundred American technicians and skilled workers on work for the British armed services. Part of the cost of the work was defrayed out of lend-lease funds.

Following extensive military maneuvers held late in June designed to test tactical plans for combatting an invasion of Britain by way of Ireland, questions were raised in the House of Commons regarding the ease with which Nazi spies might cross the Eire-Ulster border. It was pointed out that German agents could obtain military information in Ulster and cross the border into Eire and send their reports in a sealed diplomatic pouch from the German Legation in Dublin. To meet this situation talks were held in the week of July 12 in which Prime Minister Andrews of Northern Ireland, Sir Dawson Bates, Northern Ireland Home Secretary, and Mr. Herbert Morrison, British Home Secretary, participated. As a result of these conversations, steps were taken to tighten the military control along the border between Eire and Northern Ireland.

Cahir Healy, a Nationalist member of the Northern Ireland Parliament, was arrested at his home in Enniskillen on July 11 under the defense regulations. Mr. Healy had been interned by the Northern Ireland Government without charge from May 22, 1922 to Feb. 11, 1924. He is an author of some note, having published a volume of verse and a number of short stories and essays.

1940: Ireland, Northern

The death of Viscount Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since 1921, climaxed a year in which fear of invasion overshadowed the continued conflict with Southern Ireland (Eire). Lord Craigavon died suddenly on Nov. 24, 1940, after a brief illness. On the following day the Cabinet chose John Miller Andrews, Finance Minister since 1937 and deputy Prime Minister, to succeed the man who had been Prime Minister since the formation of the Ulster government. The Cabinet was faced with a difficult legal problem since there was no precedent for selecting a successor for a Prime Minister who dies in office.

Lord Craigavon's death came at a time of increased tension between Northern Ireland and Eire because of the latter's refusal to grant England naval bases that were gravely needed for the defense of the two islands. The refusal of Eamon De Valera, Prime Minister of Eire, to grant the bases was not unconnected with De Valera's determination to force a union between Northern and Southern Ireland, an ambition which had long been stoutly resisted by Lord Craigavon. It was thought in some quarters that the death of Craigavon might facilitate a settlement of this long-standing dispute. Although Andrews has also opposed proposals for reunion of the two sections of Ireland, it is not believed that he will prove as irreconcilable on the subject as Craigavon.

During the early part of 1940 the perennial conflict between the two Irelands flamed out into a number of minor clashes. The headquarters of the Northern Ireland Special Constabulary was bombed on January 8 without causing any casualties. The hanging of two Irish Republican Army men at Birmingham, England, early in February led to an inscription being painted on the British Army recruiting headquarters in Londonderry imploring Irishmen to avenge their deaths. On February 18, six members of the Irish Republican Army entered a house in Belfast and smashed windows and furniture because the occupants refused to draw their shades in mourning for the executed men. A few days later two motion picture houses were bombed at Londonderry after an I.R.A. warning to cease showing British newsreels had been disregarded. On March 22, four hundred armed members of the I.R.A. marched through the streets of Belfast in defiance of a government ban on such a demonstration. A railroad bridge was dynamited near Londonderry the same day. In April members of the I.R.A. bombed the stores of two news agents who refused to carry out the I.R.A. boycott on the Irish Press.

The fall of France in June aroused great apprehension lest Germany attack Ireland as the first step in its planned invasion of England. Faced by this imminent threat, Lord Craigavon issued a statement on June 29 declaring that he was prepared to 'enter into the closest cooperation' with Prime Minister De Valera for the joint defense of Ireland, provided that this defense is an aid to Britain and the Empire. De Valera replied that such a joint defense would be possible only if Northern Ireland were to drop out of the war and join Eire in a policy of neutrality. On July 11, Lord Craigavon announced before the Ulster House of Commons that the proposals for joint defense had broken down. Prior to this, however, he had journeyed to London and had apparently received ample assurances from Prime Minister Churchill that Ulster would be defended by the British. About 200,000 British soldiers were stationed in Ulster at the end of the year.

A protest against the special circumstances surrounding the raising of the Ulster Defense Volunteers was made to Prime Minister Churchill by twenty-four Irish or Anglo-Irish writers, politicians, and army officers on October 4. It was charged that the Ulster Defense Volunteers had been made a branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and thereby had become identified with the bitter sectarian and political differences dividing Northern Ireland. Enrollment was said to be determined by considerations of politics and religion, making the force a sort of little Gestapo to enforce the will of the majority groups against the Catholic minority.

Northern Ireland's contribution to the war effort has been chiefly industrial. New munitions factories have been built; the flax industry has been doubled in capacity; every slip in its shipbuilding yards — the largest in the world — has been utilized; and an airplane factory employing some 10,000 men has been substantially enlarged. Agricultural production has also been stepped up; between 250,000 and 300,000 acres of grassland were plowed up during the first year of the war. On October 25, it was announced that the Duke of Kent had completed a five-day secret tour of inspection of defense works in Ulster.

In harmony with the remainder of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland has postponed local government elections for the duration of the war.

1939: Rhodesia, Northern

Northern Rhodesia, a British protectorate in South Africa, is situated in the continental interior, bounded north by Belgian Congo and Tanganyika, west by Nyasaland, south by Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia, and Southwest Africa, and east by Angola. The territory has an area of 290,320 sq. mi. The population in 1937 was estimated at 1,377,346 inhabitants, of whom 1,366,425 were native Africans and 10,500 were Europeans. The capital is Lusaka.

Maize, wheat, coffee, citrus fruits, and tobacco are the principal crops. Cattle and other livestock are raised in the high plateau regions. The most valuable minerals are copper, gold, vanadium, zinc, cobalt, and silver. The most important timber is Rhodesian teak. Total exports in 1937 were valued at £12,751,014; total imports at £4,004,402. The protectorate is administered by a Governor appointed by the Crown, assisted by an executive council and a legislative council.

During the National Socialist movement initiated in Northern Rhodesia on April 19, 1939, immediately after Germany's seizure of Czechoslovakia, the Northern Rhodesian Government called up a special constabulary to guard vital points in the copper belt mines. No incidents occurred. The movement to combine Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, together with Nyasaland, under one government awaits the report of the Bledisloe Commission, which was sent in 1938 to investigate the possibilities of such an arrangement.

1939: Ireland, Northern

Friction between the Government of Northern Ireland and the secret Irish Republican Army, which first broke into flame in December, 1938, upon the disclosure of an I. R. A. plot against prominent members of the government, continued throughout the greater part of 1939. The bomb outrages in London in January, blamed on the I. R. A., led the Craigavon Government, together with the Governments of Britain and Eire, to take exceptional precautions. The Ulster police force was permanently enlarged by some 1,000 men. The State visit of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, scheduled for early March, was postponed because of unsettled conditions. The underlying animosity burst forth again in April when the British Government announced its conscription plan which was to include Northern Ireland. The Irish Nationalists at Londonderry dispatched a message to Premier De Valera asking him to 'mobilize the Irish race at home and abroad immediately to resist the conscription of Irishmen.' With the full backing of the Nationalist portion of Eire, De Valera officially protested to London against the action, and after a few tense days Prime Minister Chamberlain announced on May 4 that the plan had been dropped. Although Premier Craigavon strongly favored the conscription plan, he announced its abandonment in Belfast at the same time that Chamberlain made his announcement in London. In Nationalist circles, the decision was looked upon as a major personal triumph for De Valera. Just prior to this action, the outlaw I. R. A. in Northern Ireland had issued an order instructing its members to hold themselves in readiness for 'immediate response' to orders from headquarters. Those orders apparently did not come, for there were no further incidents at that time.

The Special Powers Act gives the civil authorities of Northern Ireland much wider powers than are possessed by the British Government. They can issue exclusion orders against members of the I. R. A. coming from Eire or Britain, and can intern anyone suspected of illegal or subversive activities. Of the thirty-four men arrested in December 1938, in the alleged plot against members of the Government, only two or three had been released by the fall of 1939.

Even before the outbreak of war, Ulster was enjoying a marked improvement in economic conditions as a result of the British Government's rearmament program. Unemployment was down by more than 30,000 during the first half of the year. The flax crop was satisfactory and sold at relatively good price. Exports of linen piece goods and rope and twine were well above the previous year. The sharpest improvement occurred, however, in the shipbuilding industry where the demands of the armament program were felt. Among the boats under construction at Belfast were the Royal Mail Line's new 26,000-ton luxury liner, Andes, and two 11,000-ton refrigerated motor cargo liners for the Blue Star line, one of which was launched in April. The heavy losses in British shipping suffered since the outbreak of the war will undoubtedly strain the output of the Belfast yards to the utmost.

1938: Ireland, Northern

Not in many years has Northern Ireland experienced as eventful a year as 1938 proved to be. Difficulties started on Jan. 17, when Eamon De Valera, Prime Minister of Eire, threw a bombshell into negotiations he was conducting with Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, by charging that the Ulster Government was depriving Catholics of their civil rights, and demanding that Northern Ireland be unified with Eire. Alarmed by this proposal, the North Ireland Government hastened to call a general election to demonstrate that the majority of the population was back of the Government. The election admittedly was also in part a maneuver to divert attention from unrest resulting from Ulster's unemployment problem.

As was expected, the seventeen-year-old Craigavon Government was returned for another five-year term in office by a huge majority. The Unionist Government won 39 of the 52 seats in Northern Ireland's House of Commons, a gain of three seats. De Valera's Nationalists, standing for union of the two Irelands, obtained but eight seats; of the remainder two went to Labor, two to the Independent Unionists, and one to the Industries and Farmers party. Although Craigavon sought to make unification the sole election issue, domestic policies played an important rôle in the elections, the conservative Viscount Craigavon being widely criticised for his handling of unemployment and his failure to obtain an adequate share of Great Britain's rearmament orders for Northern Ireland.

Defeat of the Nationalists at the polls did not silence De Valera. Pointing to the fact that the Unionists carried little outside of Belfast and its immediate environs, De Valera insisted that the Catholic minority in Ulster was larger, proportionately, than the Protestant minority in the whole of Ireland. If Ulster were excluded from Ireland because of local sentiment, he asked that by the same logic it be trimmed down by the exclusion of its Catholic and Nationalist districts. After vainly pressing the issue in his talks with Chamberlain, De Valera finally admitted, on Feb. 26, that a 'comprehensive settlement now seems unattainable.'

The respite granted by this announcement proved, however, to be only temporary. On Oct. 6, immediately after the Czechoslovakian crisis, De Valera demanded a plebiscite in certain areas of the six counties of Northern Ireland. A few days later Thomas J. Campbell, Nationalist leader in the Ulster Parliament, demanded in the House that the Catholic minority be given the right of self-determination. Viscount Craigavon replied by asserting that the status of Ulster as a part of the United Kingdom had been 'finally settled' some twenty years ago. Premier De Valera countered with a plan for a 'Council for Ireland' which would be formed from members of each of the two present parliaments and would deal with common legislative problems. Each parliament would, however, continue to legislate for its own area.

Feeling ran high in both camps during the closing months of the year, resulting, in several instances, in sanguinary disturbances. On Oct. 27, the Government invoked the Northern Ireland Civil Authorities Special Powers Act to prohibit the erection of a monument at Newry to the memory of the Irish Republican Army men killed between 1916 and 1922. A fortnight later Belfast's Armistice Day celebration was interrupted by dynamite explosions, allegedly set off by the Republicans. On Nov. 27, United Ireland sympathizers attacked a police barracks in the Fall Roads area of Belfast. Three days later, two young members of the Irish Republican Army were killed on the Eire side of the border immediately preceding a series of explosions which wrecked six Ulster customhouses. A meeting planned for Sunday, Dec. 11, in Londonderry to protest the partition of Ireland was banned by the order of the North Ireland Government, as was a loyalist counter-demonstration. Further outbreaks were feared to be inevitable.

On Dec. 22 Ulster police arrested 34 men, said to be members of the Irish Republican Army, charged with plotting to assassinate Premier Craigavon and preparing a series of uprisings during the holiday season. Over 100 Irish Republican Army members were in jail at the close of the year.