The Ulster Covenant was signed by just under half a million men and women from Ulster, on and before 28 September 1912, in protest against the Third Home Rule Bill, introduced by the British Government in that same year. Sir Edward Carson was the first person to sign the Covenant at the Belfast City Hall with a silver pen, followed by Lord Londonderry, representatives of the Protestant Churches, and then by Sir James Craig. The signatories, 471,414 in all, were all against the establishment of a Home Rule parliament in Dublin. The Ulster Covenant is immortalised in Rudyard Kipling's poem "Ulster 1912".
The Covenant had two basic parts: The Covenant itself, which was signed by men, and the Declaration, which was signed by women. In total, the Covenant was signed by 237,368 men; the Declaration, by 234,046 women.
Read more about Ulster Covenant: Signed in Blood Myth, The Covenant (for Men), The Declaration (for Women), Solemn League and Covenant, Natal Covenant
Famous quotes containing the word covenant:
“Happy is the house that shelters a friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that relation, and honor its law! He offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up, like an Olympian, to the great games, where the first- born of the world are the competitors.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)