Life
1854-1935; b. Dublin, 9 Feb.; son of architect and cousin to Lamberts
of Castle Ellen; ed. Arlington House (Portarlington School) and TCD; worked
for Foundation Scholarship in same year as Wilde, but failed to be elected;
bar 1877; solicitor-gen. for Ireland, 1892; MP Dublin University, 1892-1918;
English bar, 1893; moved to take Marquess of Queensberry’s brief
against Oscar Wilde on hearing of exploitation of boys, and devastated
Wilde in cross-examination, 1895; English solicitor-general [Conservative
& Unionist], 1900; knighted, 1900; declared in univesity debate of
1907-08 that he would not send a son to TCD if it lost its ‘protestant
atmosphere’; leader of Irish Unionist Council, 1910; encouraged Ulstermen
to resist Home Rule; greeted demonstration of 50,000 unionists who marched
from Belfast centre to Craigavon, to be addressed there by Carson (‘I
now enter a compact with you and every one of you [to] defeath the most
nefarious conspiracy that has ever been hatched against a free people’),
23 Sept, 1911; raised Ulster Volunteer Force, 1912; accepted Agar-Robertes’s
proposal for exclusion of Armagh, Derry, and Down from Home Rule Ireland;
concerned in Ulster Volunteer gun-running, 1913, with Sir George Bull
as his London contact; told Covenanters: ‘Don’t be afraid of
illegalities’; vote of censure against government deployment of troops
and navy moved by Bonar Law, 19th March 1914 and supported by Carson (‘Let
the government come and try conclusions with us in Ulster [...] Ulster
is on the best terms with the Army’); appt. British attorney-gen.
1914, and resigned 1915; assured by Lloyd George that the 6 Counties would
be permanently excluded from Home Rule, April 1916; appt. first lord of
admiralty in War Cabinet, 1917; resigned from cabinet over war strategies
of David Lloyd George, Jan. 1918; MP for Duncairn, Belfast, 1918; Ireland
Under Home Rule (1919); recommended setting up Northern Ireland to
Unionists (‘Ulster will be a geographical fact’); resigned leadership
of Unionist Party in order to take office as Lord of Appeal, 1921; Baron
Carson of Duncairn, life peerage; d. 22 Oct. in Kent; bur. St. Ann’s
Cathedral, Belfast; a larger than life-size statue stands at Stormont,
Northern Ireland; not commemorated at his alma mater, Trinity College,
Dublin. DNB DIB DIH OCIL FDA
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Criticism
George Peel, Reign of King Carson (1914).
St. John Ervine, Sir Edward Carson and the Ulster Movement (Dublin & London: Maunsel; New York: Dodd, Mead 1915).
Edward Majoribanks, Ian Colvin, The Life of Lord Carson, 3 vols. (1932-36).
H. Montgomery Hyde, Carson (1953).
R. B. McDowell, ‘Edward Carson’, in Conor Cruise O’Brien, ed., The Shaping of Modern Ireland (1960).
A.T.Q. Stewart, Edward Carson (Dublin 1981; rep. Belfast: Blackstaff 1998).
A.T.Q. Stewart, The Ulster Crisis (London 1969).
[?] Robinson, Carson: Man of Action (Belfast 1985).
Alvin Jackson, Sir Edward Carson [Historical Association of Ireland No. 2] (1993), 74pp.
There is a caricature by ‘Lib’ (Liberio Prosperie) in Vanity Fair, 3 Nov. 1893.
George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England (?1932; and rev. ed. 1972).
George Bernard Shaw (on Irish Partition and Carson),(Letter to The Irish Statesman, 10 Jan. 1920; rep. in The Matter with Ireland, ed. David Greene & Dan Laurence, Constable, 1962, pp.236-40.
M. J. MacManus, Adventures of an Irish Bookman [ed. by Francis MacManus] (Dublin: Talbot Press 1952).
David Stevens, ‘Religious Ireland (II)’, in Edna Longley, ed., Culture in Ireland, Diversity or Division [Proceedings of the Cultures of Ireland Group Conference] (QUB: Inst. of Irish Studies 1991).
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2.
Joseph Lee, Ireland 1912-1985 (1989).
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Notes
Harcourt St.: During the attempt to save Carson’s house on
Harcourt St., in 1993 [as reported in the Irish Times], Ian Paisley
submitted the view that plans to demolish it revealed a total misunderstanding
which the Dublin authorities had towards Northern Ireland. Ireland was
one country when Carson was born: ‘He was adamant that he was an
Irishman and while he led the Ulster Unionists he always maintained that
he was an Irish Unionist [...] Great men in the country of their birth
are honoured in history not only by those who agreed with their political
and religious ideals but all who have interest in the heritage of history.’
Oscar Wilde reputedly remarked, on having Carson pointed out to him with comments on his likelihood of his reaching the top in public affairs, ‘Yes, and one who will not hesitate to trample on his friends in getting there.’ (Cited in Merlin Holland, Wilde Album, p.30.) Later, on hearing that Carson had taken Lord Queensbury’s brief, Wilde said, ‘No doubt he will perform his task with all the added bitterness of an old friend.’ (Ibid., pp.123).
Drivel: In his play Saint Oscar (1989), Terry Eagleton makes Carson ask Wilde in court if he is not talking ‘unbelievable amount of utter drivel.’
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)