Sunday, July 22, 2007

Montgomery Hyde -An Early Civic Unionist

Several interesting posts and comments re the civic v cultural Unionist debate from both Chekist and Ciaran, although I was a bit taken back with this comment from CW:

While the DUP indulge in their "Ulster (-3) nationalist" fantasies, it looks like SF are the true civic unionists at the moment

.....but there is a logic there!!.

Also tying in nicely is this radio broadcast (Real Player needed) about H Montgomery-Hyde from Will Crawley this morning on Sunday Sequence. Montgomery-Hyde was Unionist MP for North Belfast and also heavily involved in the battle to decriminalise (gasp) homosexuality in the UK in the 1950s. Also didn’t take the religious oath sworn by other MPs at Westminster, worked to abolish the death penalty and married three times.

Can you imagine any Unionist politico getting away with that kind of record today?

What's even more amazing is that he survived for almost nine years, before being deselected by the N.Belfast constituency association, which (almost inevitably) included Big Ian amongst its members.

1 comment:

Owen Polley said...

Thanks O'Neill. I haven't had an oppotunity to check the link yet, but I look forward to it.

Hyde was certainly and interesting character - related to Henry James and a keen advocate of a tunnel to Scotland.