Солтүстік Ирландияның 1943-1963 жылдардағы премьер-министрі: Бэзил Брукбороуғ туралы

Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1943 to 1963

Basil Stanlake Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, (9 June 1888 – 18 August 1973), styled Sir Basil Brooke, 5th Baronet, between 1907 and 1952, and commonly referred to as Lord Brookeborough, was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician who served as the third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from May 1943, until March 1963. Lord Brookeborough had previously held several ministerial positions in the Government of Northern Ireland, and has been described as "perhaps the last Unionist leader to command respect, loyalty and affection across the social and political spectrum". Equally well, he has also been described as one of the most hard line anti Catholic leaders of the UUP, and his legacy involves founding his own paramilitary group, which fed in to the reactivation of the Ulster Volunteers (UVF). He was the eldest son of Sir Arthur Douglas Brooke, 4th Baronet, whom he succeeded as 5th Baronet when his father died in 1907. His mother was Gertrude Isabella Batson. He was a nephew of Field Marshal The 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff during World War II, who was only five years his senior. His sister Sheelah married Sir Henry Mulholland, Speaker of the Stormont House of Commons and son of Lord Dunleath. He was educated for five years at St. George's School in Pau, France, and then at Winchester College (1901–05).

After graduating from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, the young Sir Basil Brooke, 5th Bt, was commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers on 26 September 1908 as a second lieutenant. He transferred to the 10th Hussars in 1911. He was awarded the Military Cross and Croix de Guerre with palm for his service during the First World War. Brooke was a very active Ulster Unionist Party member and ally of Edward Carson. He founded his own paramilitary group, Brooke's Fermanagh Vigilance, from men returning from the war front in 1918. Although the umbrella Ulster Volunteers (UVF) had been quiescent during the war, it was not defunct. It re emerged strongly in 1920, subsuming groups like Brooke's. In 1920, having reached the rank of captain, Brooke left the British Army to farm the Colebrooke Estate, his family's country estate at Brookeborough in west Ulster, at which point he turned towards a career in politics.

Brooke had a very long political career. When he resigned the Premiership of Northern Ireland in March 1963, he was Northern Ireland's longest serving prime minister, having held office for two months short of 20 years. In later years he expressed regret for the statement. However, on 19 March 1934 Brooke publicly repeated his feelings on the employment of Catholics – "I recommend people not to employ Roman Catholics, who are 99 per cent disloyal."