As prime minister of Northern Ireland a century ago, James Craig faced a 1924 that required a delicate political balancing act. With the first Labour government in office in the UK, Craig needed to manage his relationship with this new administration, while also devising a strategy to deal with the threat of the Boundary Commission.
Included in article 12 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, nationalists hoped this commission would undermine partition through a redrawing of the border. Craig did not want to formally co-operate with the commission, but was open to tactical involvement, or as was observed in London, he would “like to be more forthcoming than his colleagues will permit”. Craig was, as historian Alvin Jackson saw it, “more politically imaginative than his support”; in 1924, he was prepared to tolerate a boundary commission that would only contemplate minor modifications to the Border and was willing to support the involvement of former unionist leader Edward Carson with the commission, but his unionist backbenchers were having none of that and instead, a formal policy of non-cooperation was adopted.
We will hear much about the Boundary Commission this year, a century on from its first meetings. In the event, its 1925 report was ultimately suppressed and the Border remained unaltered, which was seen as a triumph for Craig. But it is striking how similar themes of managing internal unionist tensions and relations with London and Dublin endure a century on.
As with Craig, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson likes to engage in defiant public rhetoric but is also regarded as being hamstrung by the protests of unionists, including those he faced at the end of last year while trying to resolve the deadlock preventing a return to powersharing at Stormont. In December, the British government offered a financial package of £3.3 billion to entice the DUP back, adamant that this is its “final offer”. That is unlikely to be true, but further indulgence of the DUP will hardly amount to much. Facing a general election this year that is likely to be disastrous, the Conservative Party has more important things to be worrying about.
Meanwhile, Stormont as a place of governance remains locked up. For Craig a century ago, the building of the Stormont complex was a chief priority. At the current exhibition in the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Self-determination: A Global Perspective, exhibits include photographs from the engineering firm J & W Stewart, which was contracted to clear and prepare the grounds of the Stormont Estate, east of Belfast, for the construction of the new parliament building; these “progress photographs” include some taken in 1924 under the title “steam shovel at work”. The photographs were presented to Craig in a souvenir album to mark the completion of the foundations. The project was in keeping with Craig’s vanity- he cherished Stormont’s dramatic setting and grandiosity – but it also greatly annoyed civil servants in London and Northern Irish nationalists, including Joseph Devlin, who called it a “palace in no man’s land” and a reflection of the desire to spend money “not on the needs of the people” but on “picturesque symbols”.
Donaldson was moved to declare in November that ‘support for the union was at its highest in Northern Ireland when we had fully functioning devolution’. Direct rule, he implied, can only undermine unionism
For Craig, the Stormont project was all about confidence and permanence, but as historian Patrick Buckland observed, in London there was always a “band of politicians and civil servants virulently critical of the government of Northern Ireland and suspicious that Ulster Unionists would enjoy the benefits of local autonomy at the expense of the British taxpayer”. In the late 1970s, Buckland worked assiduously through newly released state papers to reveal a Northern Ireland that Wilfrid Spender described in 1939, after 20 years as a senior civil servant there, as a “factory of grievances”. While Buckland believed partition was the best way to reconcile competing unionist and nationalist aspirations, his research was notable for documenting just how little attention was devoted to the welfare of all Northern Ireland’s citizens and the “overwhelming impression of impotence ... in economic policy” under which the devolved administration operated.
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Donaldson was moved to declare in November that “support for the union was at its highest in Northern Ireland when we had fully functioning devolution”. Direct rule, he implied, can only undermine unionism. It is clear Donaldson will not get the changes to the Windsor Framework he wants, and his words suggested the preparing of the ground for a return to Stormont. While the British Treasury and Westminster were ultimately prepared to indulge Craig a century ago in order not to be drawn too far into Irish affairs, the situation now offers Donaldson much less cover, forcing unionists to recalibrate. But how to manage their own “narrow ground”, to use the phrase of historian of unionism ATQ Stewart, or the extent to which Donaldson can be “more politically imaginative” than his support base, remain key questions for 2024.