Edward Carson has featured in the news recently after a mural of masked UVF gunmen at the junction of Dee Street and the Newtownards Road in east Belfast was replaced by a large portrait of the former unionist leader, as well as a photograph of him being escorted by Ulster Volunteers on that same road. To this day, Carson remains an enigmatic and complex figure, partly explained by his contradictory remarks on issues such as partition. He was also widely known for his bellicose and inflammatory language, with remarks made on July 12 1920 standing out in particular for their venom, and proving a catalyst for intense sectarian violence that engulfed the city of Belfast in waves for two years.

As this year’s July 12 events are almost upon us, it is worth noting that Orange Order leaders and unionist politicians have historically used their speeches in different Twelfth “fields” mainly to appeal to their base, often deploying provocative oratory against their enemies (real and imagined). There was much tension in the air in July 1920, as violence in the south and west of Ireland was beginning to encroach north and unionism had accepted the partition of not just Ireland but of Ulster, abandoning unionists in Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan.

As Ulster Unionist leader, Edward Carson used his Twelfth speech to 25,000 Orangemen at a field in Finaghy in south-west Belfast to deliver an incendiary message: “We in Ulster will tolerate no Sinn Féin – no Sinn Féin organisation, no Sinn Féin methods … And these are not mere words. I hate words without action.” Carson warned the British government that if it was “unable to protect us [Ulster] from the machinations of Sinn Féin and you will not take our help, then we will take the matter into our own hands. At all costs, and notwithstanding the consequences, as we feel bound to do in our defence, we will reorganize throughout the province the Ulster Volunteers.”

By July 1920, on top of sectarian violence in Derry where nearly 40 people were killed in two months, there were IRA attacks on RIC barracks in Monaghan, Cavan, Armagh, Tyrone and Down. Ambushes on railways were almost daily occurrences. The increased activity led to Carson’s claims of a Sinn Féin “invasion of Ulster”. Whilst unionist fears were genuine, the IRA was far weaker both in membership and arms in the north-east than anywhere else on the island. Although the Ulster Volunteer Force had been inactive between 1914 and 1919, its members still retained their weapons, substantially more than the IRA had at hand.

While the proceedings and Carson’s speech at Finaghy were undoubtedly well received by those present, they were derided elsewhere. Normally sympathetic to the Ulster unionist viewpoint, The Times of London described it as a “parade of anachronistic intolerance”, writing that the “music of drums, fifes, bagpipes, and brass instruments, mingling in an indefinable din, is not good music; banners of an inartistic design, gaudy sashes, and the glare of orange lilies do not make an impressive pageant, except for their mass”.

It was particularly scathing of Carson’s speech. The newspaper believed his call for the re-organisation of the Ulster Volunteers was reckless, prophetically predicting that the “most serious consequences would almost certainly ensue”. In referring not just to his words in 1920 but also his role in bringing the gun back into Irish politics during the Third Home Rule crisis less than 10 years earlier, the paper stated: “Upon Sir Edward Carson lies, largely, the blame for having sown the dragon’s teeth in Ireland.”

Many of Carson’s speeches were full of bluster and “play-acting”, as he had referred to them to a Tory MP, but his Twelfth speech in 1920 had almost immediate and dreadful consequences. Days afterwards, and following the death and funeral of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) divisional commissioner of Munster, Gerard Smyth, a native of Banbridge in Co Down, who was killed by the IRA in Cork, violence spread to Belfast in late July 1920.

The sectarian violence that started then engulfed the north in waves for the next two years. It is estimated that around 600 people were killed violently in the six counties in this period, with Belfast accounting for the vast bulk of the deaths with just under 500 deaths in the city. Catholics, with one quarter of the population of Belfast, suffered more than 70 per cent of the deaths. Thousands of Catholics and socialist Protestants (called “rotten Prods”) were also driven out of their jobs, with many more forced from their homes.