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KEENAN FAMILY in Australia

THE ULSTER COVENANT OF 1912 Page prepared 2/11/2012   Amended 31/12/2023

“On 28 September 1912, nearly half a million people signed the Ulster Covenant. It was an oath whereby the Protestant people of Ulster, the northernmost province of Ireland, pledged to defend their way of life from the growing threat of 'Home Rule' - a devolved parliament in Dublin. A huge public movement was mobilised in defiance of the British government, which wished to impose Home Rule, as the United Kingdom was brought to the brink of civil war." – taken From a BBC History webpage (2012).

"The archive of the Ulster Unionist Council, held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), contains just under half a million original signatures and addresses of the men who, on 28 September 1912, signed the Ulster Covenant, and of the women who signed the parallel Declaration. In total, the Covenant was signed by 237,368 men, and the Declaration by 234,046 women." -- taken from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI)

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'BEING CONVINCED in our consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster as well as of the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship, and perilous to the unity of the Empire, we, whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V., humbly relying on the God whom our fathers in days of stress and trial confidently trusted, do hereby pledge ourselves in solemn Covenant, throughout this our time of threatened calamity, to stand by one another in defending, for ourselves and our children, our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. And in the event of such a Parliament being forced upon us, we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognize its authority. In sure confidence that God will defend the right, we hereto subscribe our names.'

 

THE DECLARATION (FOR WOMEN)

 

'We, whose names are underwritten, women of Ulster, and loyal subjects of our gracious King, being firmly persuaded that Home Rule would be disastrous to our Country, desire to associate ourselves with the men of Ulster in their uncompromising opposition to the Home Rule Bill now before Parliament, whereby it is proposed to drive Ulster out of her cherished place in the Constitution of the United Kingdom, and to place her under the domination and control of a Parliament in Ireland. Praying that from this calamity God will save Ireland, we here to subscribe our names."