Comic Ulster Fight

Alternative Ulster: a village pageant with a difference

Alternative Ulster: this cheerful throwaway newsreel item has more to it than meets the eye... Filmed by Pathe in Ballywalter, Co. Down, it claims to be a friendly mock battle of 'Orangemen and Nationalists'. It doesn't mention that Ballywalter is an overwhelmingly protestant village - or that the battle is probably re-enacting the Presbyterian-led 1798 rebellion which divided Irish protestants.

Several Ballywalter rebels were killed or injured in the '98 rising. But by 1914, Ulster faced a very different crisis, with loyalist militias this time running guns into the country to help block Irish Home Rule.