9th April 1912
Anti-Home Rule Rally in South Belfast
On Easter Tuesday, seventy special trains brought in over one hundred thousand loyalist demonstrators to the showgrounds at Balmoral in south Belfast. The rally was also attended by the leader of the Conservative Party, Andrew Bonar Law and seventy other English, Scottish and Welsh MPs.
Bonar Law, whose father was born in Coleraine, assured the assembled crowd that they were not just campaigning for Ulster, but for the entire British Empire. "Once again you hold the pass, the pass for the Empire. You are a besieged city... The government has erected by their Parliament Act a boom against you to shut you off from the help of the British people. You will burst that boom. That help will come..."
