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But each inning of violence seems worse than the one before, and another eruption would only strengthen the hand of the Protestant hard-liners like Paisley and Craig, who would be tempted to deal with the Catholics as Oliver Cromwell did. Since those with sufficient influence to succeed him are too far to the right to be acceptable to London or to the Catholics, Faulkner would be Ulster's last Prime Minister—and his successor would be a British proconsul appointed by London and backed by the British army.
Perhaps the most discouraging feature of Ulster's bloody week was the fact that the militants on both sides, who hold the whip hand, were growing in strength while moderates stood helplessly by. As Ivan Cooper, the only Protestant M.P. among the Ulster Parliament's Catholic opposition, says: "In this country, moderate is spelled coward. We have too much religion and not enough Christianity." Ulster's problem is also that it has all too many extremists, sometimes spelled bigots.