Page 59 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 9

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to go on in earnest.’
And indeed it was from Ulster that the act of opposition on
which I want to focus for the rest of this paper emanated.

Women’s Declaration

In September 1912 the Ulster Unionist Council announced
the text of a Covenant to be signed on a specified date – 28
September 1912 - by the men of Ulster, in which they pledged to
combine in ‘using all means which may be found necessary to
defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament
in Ireland.’ On the initiative of the Ulster Women’s Unionist Coun-
cil, a corresponding Women’s Declaration was subsequently
introduced, declaring the ‘desire to associate ourselves with the
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men … in their uncompromising opposition to … Home Rule’.
‘Only Ulster women or women domiciled in Ulster’ were eligible
to sign, and signatories were required to have reached the age
of sixteen , although an examination of the back-grounds of
15
Wicklow signatories of both the Covenant and the Declaration
16
indicates that some slipped through those particular nets.

13 Ibid; Wicklow People, 17 February 1912.
14 Joseph E A Connell Jr, The 1912 Ulster Covenant’, History Ireland, 5,
Sept/Oct 2012, vol 20, http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-
contemporary-history/the-1912-ulster-covenant-by-joseph-e-a-connell-jr/ ;
Urquhart, Minutes UWUC, p. 60
15 Joseph E A Connell Jr, The 1912 Ulster Covenant’, History Ireland, 5,
Sept/Oct 2012, vol 20, http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-
contemporary-history/the-1912-ulster-covenant-by-joseph-e-a-connell-jr/ ;
Urquhart, Minutes UWUC, p. 60; David Fitzpatrick, Descendancy: Irish
Protestant histories since 1795 (2014), p. 108.
16 Cecil Burleigh of Ardmore, Bray appears to have been only thirteen years
old when he signed the Covenant, while I have been unable to trace any link
with Ulster in the case of a number of the women signatories discussed in
this paper.
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