Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition

THE IRISH CONVENTION AND CONSCRIPTION 207
invincible force, but rather as a vantage ground where Ireland
may work out her destiny, and where the pursuit of high
Imperial ideals may be combined with the fostering of more
local pride and patriotism. 29
In conceding representation in the Imperial Parliament it was felt
that Westminster’s Irish MPs should be elected by the Irish
Parliament rather than by the constituencies, and this was the
arrangement adopted by the Nationalists and the Southern
Unionists. A majority of the convention delegates agreed that the
Irish Parliament should consist of two houses: a Senate of sixtyfour
members and a House of Commons of two hundred. The
principle underlying the composition of the Senate was the
representation of interests, for the benefit of Unionists, effected by
giving representation to commerce, industry, labour, the county
councils, churches, the learned institutions and the peerage. In
constituting the Commons, Nationalists offered to guarantee
Unionists 40 per cent of its membership, agreeing that in the
South membership could only be secured by nomination. 30
Ulster Unionist opposition
The Irish Convention represented Southern Unionism’s last chance
to secure a lasting influence within a new Ireland. The
Southern Unionist delegates did not, however, represent the views
of all their community outside the Convention. Between February
and May 1918, Midleton’s opponents seized control of a reformed
IUA, committed to the traditional Unionist policy of the
maintenance of the Union, and ultimately splitting Southern
Unionism in January 1919. The Southern Unionist Committee,
encouraged by Ulster Unionists, provided the focus for this
opposition, issuing a ‘Call to unionists’ which demanded that all
Irish Unionists, especially those outside Ulster, reiterate their
conviction that the maintenance of the Union was the only hope
for the future of Ireland and the security of His Majesty’s
Dominions. 31
Within the Convention it had been the Ulster Unionist delegates
who provided the sternest resistance to the efforts to create an all-
Ireland parliament. They repudiated the offer of extra
representation therein as ‘undemocratic in modern times’ and did
not believe that this extra representation could last for even fifteen
years, believing that it would be abolished as soon as the Irish
Parliament was established. 32 In fact, the only constructive
contribution which the Ulster delegates made to the Irish