THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: Ulster will not be dragged into 'southern morass', declares minister

The Ulster Minister of Agriculture, the Reverend Robert Moore had declared that Northern Ireland would not allow themselves to be dragged into “the morass that the people of the south of Ireland have created for themselves”.

The minister had been speaking at the unfurling of a new banner for Golden Star RBP 71, at Blackhill in Coleraine on Saturday, August 21, 1948, which had been presided over by Portrush, Past County Grand Master Mr W R Knox.

Rev Moore had referred to a statement made by the Northern Ireland prime minister Sir Basil Brooke that no discussions had taken place with British ministers in regard to the border.

The southerners, said the Rev Moore, were admitting that financially and economically that their experiment had been a failure.

He said: “They realised the industry, the ‘go’ and business acumen of the six northern counties are needed to make the whole country ‘a kind of wee Heaven’.”

Continuing, Mr Moore said that Mr De Valera had taken his defeat at the last election very badly and was most anxious to retrieve his position. But that Mr Costello and his supporters were “just as determined” that he, de Valera, should not get back to power.

“So they were holding an auction each trying to outbid the other,” said the Rev Moore.

The Rev Moore said that the Ulster people should “go quietly about their business and not get rattled by the game which the southern politicians are trying to play”.

Another speaker at Blackhill was Mr W V McCleery, MP, said that they wished Eire well but that the ideals of the “two parts of Ireland” lay “very far apart”.

He declared: “The Northern Ireland people have made up their minds that the Union Jack must fly over Ulster for all time. If our friends across the border wished to come in with us they must make up their minds that the Union Jack will fly over the whole country.”