By legal decree, the Emerald Isle could have been given back its Parliament and allowed to regulate itself, not unlike the former colony of Canada had been doing for some time.
One hundred years ago, the prejudice against Catholics was freely aired, with Edward Carson the vocal spokesman for the "Rome Rule" crowd.
The Irish Times is running a series of articles that look back on those days, one hundred years behind us. The newspaper plans to present a look back as part of the run-up to Ireland's centennial celebration of the rebellion that arose because the law failed to give the people what they wanted.
You can find another treatment of that same era within the pages of A TERRIBLE BEAUTY, an intriguing novel that explores the era preceding the Easter Rising of 1916.
Mr. Carson makes an appearance in all his anti-Catholic glory.
He's the main reason why Ireland was divided. He's largely the root cause of The Troubles and the continued discrimination against Catholics in the Protestant north. In part, he had a great deal to do with the ethnic cleansing that followed Partition, with Protestants fleeing to the north and Catholics relocating to the south.
To think that the British wanted to hang to on Belfast because of the ship-building and the port. Harland and Wolff doesn't make ships anymore. And the port of Belfast isn't critical to England's survival any more.
But the Partition endures.
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