The Ulster Covenant was signed by just under half a million of men and women from Ulster, Ireland, on and before September 28, 1912, in protest of a Home Rule bill introduced by the British Government in that same year. Sir Edward Carson was the first person to sign the Covenant at the Belfast City Hall with a silver pen destined for immortality followed by Lord Londonderry, representatives of the Protestant Churches, and then by Lord Craigavon. The signers were all unionists, who were against the establishment of an Irish parliament in Dublin. The Ulster Covenant is immortalised in Rudyard Kipling`s poem Ulster 1912.
The Covenant had two basic parts: the Covenant itself, which was signed by men, and the Declaration, which was signed by women. In total, the Covenant was signed by 237,368 men, and the Declaration by 234,046 women
