Edward Carson, Baron Carson Quotes (10 quotes)

Edward Carson, Baron Carson: 10 quotes 1 like

Famous Edward Carson, Baron Carson Quotes

“We have given of our best to build up the Empire. We recall the names of Wellington, of Roberts, of White of Ladysmith, and we think of Coghill of Isandula, around whose body when it was found dead the flag of the British race, the old Union Jack, was found. All these were men of loyalist Ireland and mainly of Ulster. And now, forsooth, this great England, the great country that boasts of liberty, of adherence to principle, and of never deserting its friends, is to sacrifice the loyalists to the necessity of maintaining this heaven-sent Government in power.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech in Eastbourne (25 November 1911), quoted in The Times (27 November 1911), p. 7

“I am here tonight under the most tragic circumstances, with the possibilities of grave and difficult operations in Belfast and in Ulster within almost a few days…I am here to tell you solemnly and honestly that we intend to see this matter through. The cost may be great, the sufferings may be terrible.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech in the Albert Hall, 12 January 1912.

“Talk to me of treaties! Talk to me of the League of Nations! Every Great Power in Europe was pledged by treaty to preserve Belgium. That was a League of Nations, but it failed.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech (7 December 1917), Liberal Magazine, XXV (1917), p. 604, quoted in Henry R. Winkler, ‘The Development of the League of Nations Idea in Great Britain, 1914-1919’, The Journal of Modern History Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jun., 1948), p. 105

“We do not want sentence of death with a stay of execution for six years.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech in the House of Commons against a Government amendment allowing each county of Ulster to opt out of Home Rule for six years, 9 March 1914.

“We in Ulster will tolerate no Sinn Féin. But we tell you this—that if, having offered you our help, you are yourselves unable to protect us from the machinations of Sinn Féin, and you won't take our help; well then, we tell you that we will take the matter into our own hands. We will reorganise.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech in Belfast, 12 July 1920.

“There is no one in the world who would be more pleased to see an absolute unity in Ireland than I would, and it could be purchased tomorrow, at what does not seem to me a very big price. If the South and West of Ireland came forward tomorrow to Ulster and said – "Look here, we have to run our old island, and we have to run her together, and we will give up all this everlasting teaching of hatred of England, and we will shake hands with you, and you and we together, within the Empire, doing our best for ourselves and the United Kingdom, and for all His Majesty's Dominion will join together", I will undertake that we would accept the handshake.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech in Torquay, 30 January 1921.

Edward Carson, Baron Carson Quotes

“England's difficulty is not Ulster's opportunity. However we are treated, and however others act, let us act rightly. We do not seek to purchase terms by selling our patriotism.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech to delegates of the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast, 3 September 1914.

“What a fool I was. I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1921/dec/14/address-in-reply-to-his-majestys-most#column_44 in the House of Lords (14 December 1921)

Game , Fools

“Nothing Ireland—north, south, east, and west—has suffered so much in its history as the broken pledges of British statesmen.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1918/apr/16/clause-2-power-by-order-in-council-to#column_320 in the House of Commons (16 April 1918). The Irish Nationalist MP John Dillon interrupted: "We are agreed at last on one thing."

Suffering , History

“You will be a Parliament for the whole community. We used to say that we could not trust an Irish Parliament in Dublin to do justice to the Protestant minority. Let us take care that that reproach can no longer be made against your Parliament, and from the outset let them see that the Catholic minority have nothing to fear from a Protestant majority. ... Let us take care that we win all that is best amongst those who have been opposed to us in this community. ... And so I say: from the start be tolerant to all religions, and, while maintaining to the last your own traditions and your own citizenship, take care that similar rights are preserved for those who differ from us.”

Edward Carson, Baron Carson

Speech https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/dup/pr290312.htm to the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast (4 February 1921), quoted in Geoffrey Lewis, Carson: The Man Who Divided Ireland (2006), pp. 227–28

Fear , Religion , Justice , Communication