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7 unusual facts about James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon


1921 in Northern Ireland

4 July - James Craig refuses to attend a peace conference in Dublin because the invitation by President Éamon de Valera was addressed to him personally instead of to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

1925 in Northern Ireland

10 March - The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig, announces the impending dissolution of the parliament.

Craigavon ministry

The first Government or Executive Committee of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland was led by the Prime Minister James Craig, who ruled between 7 June 1921 and 24 November 1940.

Daniel Mageean

In 1939 he coined the much-quoted phrase: A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People, attributing it to his opponent the prime minister Lord Craigavon, but it was a slight misquotation.

Henry Hugh Tudor

With the Irish elections and the potential Triple Alliance strike in Britain out of the way, an extra 17 army battalions were sent (bringing British strength up to 60,000) in June and July 1921, but the politicians drew back from the brink, and faced with the choice of either waging a war of reconquest or negotiating peace with the insurgents, they opened secret talks with James Craig and Eamon de Valera.

James Craig

James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon (1871–1940), British politician and Prime Minister of Northern Ireland

Joseph Davison

When Prime Minister of Northern Ireland James Craig attempted to ban all marches from 18 June, Davison led the objections, and the ban was lifted within days.


Charlotte Square

Initially named St. George's Square in James Craig's original plan, it was renamed before completion after King George III's Queen and first daughter, to avoid confusion with George Square, in the south of the city.

George Square

This grid iron masterplan across the lands of Meadowflats and eventually as far west as Blythswood Hill, was largely the work of the notable contemporary architects James Barry, James Craig and James Gillespie Graham.

Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital

James Craig (1861–1933), physician to the hospital, was a professor of medicine and an independent TD.


see also