While republicans mark terror of 1916, I honour the still living 1912 Covenant

A letter from Samuel Morrison:
By Letters
Published 18th Apr 2022, 02:23 BST
Updated 18th Apr 2022, 02:25 BST
Easter march in west Belfast yesterday to commemorate what Samuel Morrison believes were a few rebels in 1916 who set out to enforce their vision of IrelandEaster march in west Belfast yesterday to commemorate what Samuel Morrison believes were a few rebels in 1916 who set out to enforce their vision of Ireland
Easter march in west Belfast yesterday to commemorate what Samuel Morrison believes were a few rebels in 1916 who set out to enforce their vision of Ireland

On Easter Sunday republicans remember bloodthirsty terrorists who visited death and destruction on the innocent.

They do it on that date because seven lunatics took it upon themselves to speak for a mythical ‘Irish nation’ and called a people to arms not because of any mandate from anyone then alive but because of the ‘dead generations’ on Easter week 1916.

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The seven who signed the 1916 Easter Proclamation did so then very deliberately, radicalised as they were by Patrick Pearse’s obsession with a ‘blood sacrifice’.

Letter to the editorLetter to the editor
Letter to the editor

In a grotesque parody of Christ’s sacrifice for the sins of the world, a handful of rebels on the fringes of Irish political thought set out to enforce their vision on the island of Ireland.

They did so while the free world, including hundreds of thousands of Irishmen, was fighting to preserve democracy in Europe. Those who signed the Proclamation openly described this as their ‘opportunity’.

What a contrast with the events of four years earlier when half a million men and women signed the 1912 Ulster Covenant and parallel Declaration. A massive exercise in popular democracy. Determination displayed by a people united.

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A mass movement on the streets in their hundreds of thousands without a shot being fired. Drawing very real inspiration from the Scottish Covenants signed 300 years previously but claiming to speak only for those then living and their concern for those yet to be born.

One hundred years on the Covenant still speaks.

In every constitutional crisis then and since the basic demand of the Covenant rings true. We ask no special privileges. With the imposition of a Sea Border the call is the same — “defending, for ourselves and our children, our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom”.

It is not trendy nor is it in tune with the spirit of the age as far as some so-called opinion formers are concerned but yesterday, as an Ulsterman, I again stood and read my copy of the Ulster Covenant which hangs in the hall and be thankful for grandparents in Fermanagh and Donegal who signed the same.

I am grateful for a heritage which meant that people knew what a Covenant was.

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For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.

Hebrews 8:10

Samuel Morrison, TUV, Co Down