Letter: The verdict of history will vindicate those who put principle before power
A letter from Richard Ferguson:
As Ulster Day approaches (September 28) we would do well to remember that the signing of the Covenant was not an empty gesture or mere posturing on the part of our forefathers.
Twenty-thousand rifles landed at Larne in April 1914 prove that when they swore to resist Home Rule by all means that may be found necessary they meant it.
What men like Major Fred Crawford or Captain Wilfred Spender, who risked all both personally and professionally to defend our position within the Union and Empire, would make of Emma Little Pengelly, Paul Givan and Gordon Lyons, who, whilst professing to be unionists, daily implement the Union dismantling, all Ireland economy building protocol, one can only imagine.
Given the contempt in which the deputy first minister and her colleagues hold the successor of Carson and Craig, Jim Allister MP, I think it is fairly clear that, whether or not they have ever read the Covenant, they care little for the principles which animated men like Crawford and Spender to risk all to resist the subjugation of Ulster under a Dublin parliament.
It was just and right to resist Home Rule then and it is equally just and right to resist the NI Protocol/Windsor Framework/Donaldson deal today.
Whether we triumph or fail in that resistance, those who, having been seduced by the spoils of office, denounce those who still walk in the old paths of our forefathers as dead end unionists, will find that the verdict of history will vindicate those who put principle before power.
Richard Ferguson, Dollingstown