Good: Irish Unionism

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Irish Unionism by James Winder Good, was dedicated to Alice Stoppard Green, the Irish historian and nationalist and later pro-Treaty independent senator. Good wrote from a moderate Protestant nationalist anti-partitionist viewpoint.

The book is a polemic against the corrupt Anglo-Irish Protestant landowning elite which had dominated the economic, political and social life of Ireland in the 19^th century. The book charts how the Unionist elite opposed Parnell’s Land League and Home Rule movement with Conservative support in Britain .

The rise of Irish nationalism, agitation, social reforms and violent intimidation would eventually erode their power in much of southern Ireland.The north east of the island after the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty became Northern Ireland with a Protestant majority following the partition of Ireland .

James Winder Good (1877-1930) journalist and author, was born in Belfast . He was employed as a reporter with Northern Whig before he lived in Dublin and wrote for the Freeman's Journal. In the late 19^th century the long running newspaper was then Irish nationalist in tone and supported Charles Stuart Parnell's campaign for Home Rule. Good was also the assistant editor of the Irish Statesman, first published in 1919 a journal that was the mouthpiece of the Irish Dominion League which advocated dominion status for Ireland within the British Commonwealth and among the contributors were W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw and George Russell.

After the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, the league became defunct. The journal ceased publication in 1930. Good also joined the staff of the Irish Independent when the Freeman’s Journal had merged with the paper in 1924. Its printing works were destroyed in 1922 by the IRA in retaliation for its support of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Good also wrote for British and U.S. newspapers and became well known and respected in the journalistic field. He died in Dublin in 1930.