It would bring about, he thought, the ruin of Ulster's prosperity.

"For us it would mean the nullification of our hopes and aspirations for the future." It would stereotype an old evil in the region where it still existed.

What Ulster really feared, he said, was the loss, not of freedom or prosperity, but of Protestant ascendancy.
This was the truth; Protestant ascendancy, which in his boyhood had existed throughout all Ireland, was in consequence of the Irish party's work dead in three provinces.

It remained and must remain in Ulster, where Protestants were a majority, but it would be qualified if that region came under the control of a parliament elected by all Ireland.
That was and is the true reason of Ulster's resistance to national self-government.

What he would concede and what he would reject, Redmond indicated in general words: "There is no demand, however extravagant and unreasonable it may appear to us, that we are not ready carefully to consider, so long as it is consistent with the principle for which generations of our race have battled, the principle of a settlement based on the national self-government of Ireland.