Excerpt from The Truth About Ulster I felt inclined to ask myself when had Ulster not been fighting? She has been fighting for precisely the same Cause at intervals during the past fifty years, and for nearly three hundred years previously she had been fighting with an enemy who was the same, although wearing a different uniform. So that I fancy the question of the hour should be, Will Ulster continue to fight? Rather than Will Ulster Fight? Perhaps someone will be able to point out what changes that make for a cessation of the hostilities of three hundred years have taken place in the spirit of Ulster during the past three or four years, so that we can sleep peacefully in our beds on this side of the Channel in the assur anc'e that Ulster - with all who have most to lose by a fight on the side of fighting - will refrain; whereas in other days the same people were ever seeking peace, but quite powerless to ensue it. The Belfast riots have occupied a place as a modern journalistic headline with as great fidelity of recurrence as Halley's com'et or an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. There have really been few riots that could be called periodic. The Chartist demonstrations were like fireworks that have felt the damp of an inclement summer, and the frame breakers, though nasty, were never to be depended on. A few thousand people pulled down the rail ings at Hyde Park more than forty years ago, and were never heard of again; and equally intermittent were the people who, with Mr. John Burns, fought for an hour or two with the Guards in Trafalgar Square twenty years later - only Mr. John Burns has been heard of a good deal since; but the Belfast Riots as a headline might have been kept stand ing. During the past half - century every period of quietude has been followed by one of activity among the riotous elements of Ulster; and the scientific explanation of the recurrence compared With the dispersion of the others to which I have referred, is simple enough: in Ulster the volcanic condi tions have been intensified rather than reduced; but elsewhere the reasons for the outbreaks have been removed; and rioters usually have listened to reason a day or so too late. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.