Unionism and its Discontents: Part 1

The formation of the Northern Irish state a century ago may well be the high water mark of the Ulster Unionist project: a movement of hundreds of thousands, led by powerful and wealthy industrialists alongside the remnants of the landed aristocracy, bolstered by the allegiance of a sizeable section of workers who could be relied on to expel ‘disloyalists’ from their ranks, and backed up by an imposing repressive apparatus bankrolled by the might and financial resources of the British Empire in London.