Peter Robinson (here: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/dup/pr290312.htm)
To nationalists Edward Carson was the man who divided Ireland - to unionists he was the man who saved Ulster for the Union. Edward Carson was not merely another historical figure; he was the chief architect and creator of the Northern Ireland state - maintaining it, against the odds, as an integral part of the United Kingdom - a constitutional outcome that remains to this day.