Irish Home Rule movement
The Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the end of World War I.
Isaac Butt founded the Home Government Association in 1870. This was succeeded in 1873 by the Home Rule League, and in 1882 by the Irish Parliamentary Party. These organisations campaigned for home rule in the British House of Commons. Under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, the movement came close to success when the Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone introduced the First Home Rule Bill in 1886, but the bill was defeated in the House of Commons after a split in the Liberal Party. After Parnell's death, Gladstone introduced the Second Home Rule Bill in 1893; it passed the Commons but was defeated in the House of Lords. After the removal of the Lords' veto in 1911, the Third Home Rule Bill was introduced in 1912, leading to the Home Rule Crisis. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I it was enacted, but implementation was suspended until the conclusion of the war.
Following the
Historical background
Under the
Until the 1870s, most Irish voters elected members of the main British political parties, the
Different concepts
The term "Home Rule" (
Struggle for home rule
Former Conservative barrister Isaac Butt was instrumental in fostering links between Constitutional and Revolutionary nationalism through his representation of members of the Fenian Society in court. In May 1870, he established a new moderate nationalist movement, the Irish Home Government Association. In November 1873, under the chairmanship of William Shaw, it reconstituted itself as the Home Rule League. The League's goal was limited self-government for Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. In the 1874 general election, League-affiliated candidates won 53 seats in Parliament.
Butt died in 1879. In 1880, a radical young Protestant landowner,
Adversary Lords
Two attempts were made by
The Bill resulted in
The defeat of the bill caused Gladstone to temporarily lose power. Having returned to power after the
On this defeat the new Liberal leader
Home Rule bills
The four Irish Home Rule
- 1886: First Irish Home Rule Bill defeated in the House of Commons and never introduced in the House of Lords.
- 1893: Second Irish Home Rule Bill passed the House of Commons, but defeated in the House of Lords.
- 1912–14: Third Irish Home Rule Bill passed under the Parliament Act after House of Lords defeats, with royal assent as the Government of Ireland Act 1914 but never came into force, due to the intervention of World War I (1914–18) and of the Easter Rising in Dublin (1916).
- 1920: Southern Ireland as another but instead resulted in the partition of Ireland and Irish independence through the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922.
In 1920 the unionist peer Lord Monteagle of Brandon proposed his own Dominion of Ireland Bill in the House of Lords, at the same time as the Government bill was passing through the house.[8] This bill would have given a united Ireland extensive home rule over all domestic matters as a dominion within the empire, with foreign affairs and defence remaining the responsibility of the Westminster government. Lord Monteagle's bill was defeated at second reading.[8]
Home Rule in sight
Following the 1895 general election, the Conservatives were in power for ten years. The significant Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 (following the English Act of 1888) introduced for the first time the enfranchisement of local electors, bringing about a system of localised home rule in many areas. In the 1906 general election the Liberals were returned with an overall majority, but Irish Home Rule was not on their agenda until after the second 1910 general election when the nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party under its leader John Redmond held the balance of power in the House of Commons. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith came to an understanding with Redmond, that if he supported his move to break the power of the Lords, Asquith would then in return introduce a new Home Rule Bill. The Parliament Act 1911 forced the Lords to agree to a curtailment of their powers. Now their unlimited veto was replaced with a delaying one lasting only two years.
The
Changed realities
With the participation of
A core element of the remaining Irish Volunteers who opposed the nationalist constitutional movement towards independence and the Irish support for the war effort, staged the
Home Rule enacted
After the end of the war in November 1918 Sinn Féin secured a majority of 73 Irish seats in the general election, with 25 of these seats taken uncontested. The IPP was decimated, falling to only six seats; it disbanded soon afterward.
In January 1919 twenty-seven Sinn Féin MPs assembled in Dublin and proclaimed themselves unilaterally as an independent parliament of an Irish Republic. This was ignored by Britain. The Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) ensued.
Britain went ahead with its commitment to implement Home Rule by passing a new Fourth Home Rule Bill, the
The Home Rule
The Parliament of Northern Ireland continued in operation until 30 March 1972, when it was suspended in favour of direct rule by the Northern Ireland Office during The Troubles. It was subsequently abolished under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. Various versions of the Northern Ireland Assembly re-established home rule in 1973–74, 1982–86, intermittently from 1998 to 2002, and from 2007 onward. The Assembly attempts to balance the interests of the unionist and republican factions through a "power sharing" agreement.
See also
- Irish issue in British politics
- Edward Carson
- James Craig
- Charles Stewart Parnell
- John Redmond
- John Dillon
- John O'Connor Power
- William O'Brien
- Hugh Heinrick
- Loyalist Anti-Repeal Union
- Parliament of Southern Ireland
- Parliament of Northern Ireland
- Solemn League and Covenant (Ulster)
- Unionists (Ireland)
- Devolution
- Easter Rising
- Gladstone's Irish Home Rule speech (beseech in its favour)
- Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
- History of the Republic of Ireland
- Partition of Ireland
- History of Ireland (1801–1923)
Notes
References
- ^ "Act of Union | United Kingdom [1801]". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 21 July 2017. Retrieved 17 July 2017.
- ^ Dorney, John (8 October 2011). "Today in Irish History, The Repeal Meeting at Clontarf is Banned, 8 October 1843". The Irish Story. Archived from the original on 11 May 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
- ^ "Asgard: From Gun-Running to Recent Conservation | Decorative Arts & History". Archived from the original on 26 December 2017. Retrieved 26 December 2017.
- ^ "The Condition of Ireland, Social, Political and Industrial", John O'Connor Power, lecture, as reported in The Irish Canadian, 20 October 1875.
- ^ The Ulster Crisis: Resistance to Home Rule, A. T. Q. Stewart
- ^ The Green Flag, volume 2, Robert Kee, Penguin Books, London
- ^ Carson; a biography by Geoffrey Lewis
- ^ a b Hansard (House of Lords, 1 July 1920, vol 40 cc 1113–1162) "Dominion of Ireland Bill. [H.L.]". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 1 July 1920. Archived from the original on 2 July 2009. Retrieved 6 February 2011.
- ^ Graham, Rev. John (1829). A History of the Siege of Londonderry and Defence of Enniskillen in 1688–9 (2nd ed.). Dublin: William Curry.
- ISBN 0856404985.
- ISBN 0-571-08066-9
- ^ Jackson, Alvin: Ch. 9, pp. 212–213
- ^ "The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 | History Today". www.historytoday.com. Archived from the original on 12 May 2018. Retrieved 17 July 2017.
Further reading
- Government of Ireland Act 1914, available from the House of Lords Record Office
- Wikidata Q107151188.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link - Hennessey, Thomas: Dividing Ireland, World War 1 and Partition, (1998), ISBN 0-415-17420-1
- Irish Government Bill 1893, available from the House of Lords Record Office
- Jackson, Alvin: Home Rule, an Irish History 1800–2000, Phoenix Press (2003), ISBN 0-7538-1767-5
- ISBN 0-14-029165-2
- Lewis, Geoffrey: Carson, the Man who divided Ireland (2005),ISBN 1-85285-454-5
- Loughlin, James Gladstone, Home Rule and the Ulster Question, 1882–1893, Dublin: (1986)
- MacDonagh, Michael: The Home Rule Movement, Talbot Press, Dublin (1920)
- Wikidata Q107340700.
- O'Connor Power, John, The Anglo-Irish Quarrel: A Plea for Peace, a reprint of recent articles in the Manchester Guardian, revised by the author (London, 1886)
- O'Donnell, F. Hugh, 'A History of the Irish Parliamentary Party', 2 vols (London, 1910)
- Rodner, W. S.: "Leaguers, Covenanters, Moderates: British Support for Ulster, 1913–14" pages 68–85 from Éire-Ireland, Volume 17, Issue #3, 1982.
- Smith, Jeremy: "Bluff, Bluster and Brinkmanship: Andrew Bonar Law and the Third Home Rule Bill" pages 161–174 from Historical Journal, Volume 36, Issue #1, (1993)
- Stanford, Jane, "That Irishman: The Life and Times of John O'Connor Power", History Press Ireland, 2011, ISBN 978-1-84588-698-1
- Turner, Edward Raymond (1917). "Opposition to Home Rule". American Political Science Review. 11 (3): 448–460.
External links
- Ulster Covenant – Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
- History of the 1912 UVF Archived 28 March 2005 at the Wayback Machine
- CAIN – University of Ulster Conflict Archive
- Ulster, 1912 (Kipling) at Words (etext library)
- Text of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (repealed 2.12.1999) as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.
- Text of the Act as applied in Northern Ireland in 1956
- Text of the Act as originally enacted in 1920, from BAILII
- House of Lords Library – Record Office, for Texts of Irish Government bills
- Department of the Taoiseach – Irish Soldiers in the First World War.