Celebrating the Centenary

This year our local encampments hope to mark the Centenary of Northern Ireland. In a year which will see its fair share of challenges and restrictions we will be using online and virtual ways of commemorating and celebrating.

The birth of Northern Ireland came after the Home Rule Crisis and Great War, two events we have recently remembered. There Knights of Malta played their part in both and we have seen how alongside national and international upheavals the Order faced its own challenges.

However as an International Order it used its links and influence across the Atlantic where its membership was surging to ensure that the interests of Ulster were kept on the political and national agendas in the United States.

The Malta Bulletin the monthly newspaper of the Order in The USA carried regular updates on events in Ireland. The January 1914 education carried a report of the Supreme Grand Encampment of Ireland:

We learn the following from the
Belfast (Ireland) Weekly Telegraph:
The semi-annual convocation of
the Supreme Grand Encampment of
Ireland was held in the Knights of
Malta Hall, 20 Waring street, Belfast,
on Saturday, the 29th of November,
under the command of Sir Robert
Smyth, Supreme Grand Commander.
The attendance was large and repre-
sentative. The reports from the
several subordinate Encampments
showed that steady progress was
being made.
The following resolution was
moved by Sir Joseph O’Hara, and
seconded by Sir T. G. Bulla, and
passed: “That we, the officers and
members of the Supreme Grand En-
campment of Ireland, in convocation
assembled, emphatically protest
against the passage into law of the
Home Rule Bill, believing that plac-
ing the said Bill upon the Statute
Book would mean placing the Protest-
ant minority under the heel of the
Nationalists, who are directly con-
trolled by the Roman hierarchy,
whose record in the past makes it im-
possible for us to trust such a party.
We pray that God may avert such a
danger, and that civil and religious
liberty may be preserved for all.”

The sentiments and motivation of the Knights is clear from this as they clearly saw Home Rule as Rome Rule. Like many Protestants across Ireland they called to sign the Ulster Covenant and to prepare to resist the enforcement of Home Rule. This meant that once more our predecessors took up arms to defend their faith.

For many this led inexorably to the Battlefields of Flanders and the sacrifice of the Great War, where once more like those knights of old our members took to the field of battle proudly displaying the colours they held dear.