Monday, Nov. 28, 1932

H. R. H. Patrick & Lamlegs

Patrick went to Ireland last week in the person of His Royal Highness Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, Prince of Wales, Knight of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick.

St. Patrick, like H. R. H. Patrick, was British-born (c. 387 A. D.). Kidnapped by Irish slave raiders when about 16, St. Patrick swinked in Irish slavery for six years, then escaped on a boat which was exporting Irish wolf hounds. Pious, he began to hear "voices" in his brain which cried, "0 Holy youth, come back to Erin!" After hearing this call for some 20 years, St. Patrick did go back to Erin, landed in what is now the Irish Free State, was chased by Druids and made his way to Northern Ireland. Last week H. R. H. Patrick, who would certainly have been set upon by Irish Republicans had he landed in the Free State, made for Northern Ireland direct on the especially chartered motorship Ulster Prince.

Festive bonfires were lighted around the 20-mi. rim of Belfast Lough as the Ulster Prince chugged in with Patrick on her bridge dressed as a Colonel of the Irish Guards. Nine British bombing planes droned over the capital of Northern Ire land which was already covered by the guns of two British destroyers in the harbor and British whippet tanks and armored cars patrolling the streets.

"Don't spend a cent more than necessary on my reception," Patrick ordered weeks ago. It was necessary, decided Premier Viscount Craigavon of Northern Ireland and Governor the Duke of Abercorn, to provide 2,000 soldiers with fixed bayonets,. 8,000 volunteer constables (Orangemen) and 2,000 picked Ulster police, armed for the occasion with pistols addition to their usual truncheons.

When smiling Patrick landed from the Ulster Prince he saw no disloyal or insult-posters. These had all been torn down and replaced by such screamers as A PROTESTANT PRINCE FOR A PROTESTANT THRONE! Because .Belfast has well defined Catholic and Protestant districts, it was fairly easy to bottle up the former with police and lay out Pat rick's line of march through the latter. With bombers still thundering overhead, the whippet tanks and armored cars took their places in the procession. Directly ahead of H. R. H.'s car rode a earful of Scotland Yard inspectors, behind him an other earful. As he sped through Belfast, bowing and smiling, the 12,000 guards stood shoulder-to-shoulder on both sides of the street. "Down with Prince de Valera!" shouted Protestants at Patrick. "Long live the Prince of Wales!"

Five miles is a long way from Belfast. The city was left behind and Erin's green fields spread out on either side before Patrick reached Stormont Park and the reason for his visit to Northern Ireland. On Stormont Hill at Great Britain's expense a -L-1,200,000 Parliament Building with 400 rooms and more than a mile of corridors has been built in the past four and a half years. Privately the North Irish legislators and their staffs who will work in the 400 rooms complain that "Stormont is too far out of town!" Last week they had bought so many silk hats to wear for Patrick's sake that Belfast hat stores were completely cleaned out of toppers.

As the motorcade swept up Stormont Hill a mammoth Union Jack, 75 ft. long by 37 ft. high, flapped from the Parliament staff. Still more striking was a symbolic statue of Britannia & Lions (two). Just before Patrick began to speak arrange ments to broadcast his words were cancelled. Irate Republicans in the Free State did not hear him say, "The promise of the United Kingdom to provide a building worthy of the people of Northern Ireland is today fulfilled. . . ."

To show their feelings Irish Republicans ripped up sections of the principal railway tracks connecting their Free State and Northern Ireland, posted such signs as this:

Warning--Line Ripped Up and Mined in Several Places--Down With the Prince of Wales--The Train Must Not Proceed or It Will Be Fired On!

All telegraph wires on the Kells-to-Belfast line were cut. At Belfast itself a luncheon in honor of H. R. H. Patrick had to be cancelled.

Drums are Beaten, Even further outside Belfast than Stormont is Hillsborough Village, dominated by the Castle of Governor the Duke of Abercorn. Protestant villagers lit bonfires, shouted "God Bless The Prince of Wales!", beat their lamlegs (big goatskin drums).

Sure that no harm could come to H. R. H. among these simple villagers, Major J. R. Aird, equerry to Patrick, went with him from the Castle on a goodwill visit to the village. They were trailed by one detective. Gaping villagers were so surprised that they stopped beating their drums.

"My sister told me about the drummers over here," cried Patrick seizing a drumstick. "She told me not to miss them!" and he began to beat a lamleg.

Half an hour later, the villagers boosted Patrick up to the Castle wall from which he waved goodbye as they shouted "Come back again!" Next day British headlines and dispatches gave the impression that Patrick had "mingled with crowds" in Belfast (not in a hand-picked village), talked of the "momentous consequences," made much of a surprise visit by H. R. H. next day to a linen thread works at Lisburn where he was "mobbed by laughing colleens."

Just before he sailed back to Britain, still closely guarded, Patrick said in a message to Irishmen: "Everyone who knows Irishmen likes them. They like a joke and are always ready for a bit of fun. Your attachment to the Throne is proverbial and I am delighted to have this opportunity of seeing it myself on your own soil."

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