Home Rule Act 1914
Encyclopedia
The Government of Ireland Act 1914 (4 & 5 Geo. 5 c. 90), also known as the (Irish) Third Home Rule Bill, was an Act
passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom
intended to provide self-government
("Home Rule") for Ireland
within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
.
The Act was the first law ever passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom that sought to establish devolved government
in any part of the United Kingdom. However, the implementation of both it and the equally controversial Welsh Church Act 1914
was formally postponed
for a minimum of twelve months with the outbreak of the First World War
. Subsequent developments in Ireland led to further postponements, meaning that the Act never took effect; it was finally superseded by a fourth home rule bill (enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1920
).
Instead of home rule as envisioned in the 1914 Act, "Southern Ireland
" was granted dominion status in 1922 as the Irish Free State
; however, the six north-eastern counties that remained within the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland
did obtain home rule in the previous year
.
and Britain were merged on January 1, 1801, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
. Throughout the 19th century Irish opposition to the Union was strong, occasionally erupting in violent insurrection. In the 1830s and 1840s attempts had been made under the leadership of Daniel O'Connell
to repeal the Act of Union 1800
and restore the Kingdom of Ireland, without breaking the connection with Great Britain. These attempts to achieve what was simply called repeal, failed.
under Isaac Butt
sought to achieve a modest form of self-government, known as Home Rule
. Under it, Ireland would still remain part of the United Kingdom but would have limited self-government. The cause was then pursued by Charles Stewart Parnell
and two attempts were made by Liberal ministries under British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone
to enact home rule bills, accompanied by a revival of Ulster
's Orange Order
to resist any form of Home Rule. The first bill, with Gladstone's Irish Home Rule speech beseeching parliament to pass the Irish Government Bill 1886
and grant Home Rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to one day in humiliation, was defeated in the Commons by 30 votes; while the second Irish Government Bill 1893
was passed, but then defeated in the Lords. With the Conservative Party
's pro-unionist policy, and joined by a group of Liberal Unionists on this issue, the consequent majority could block any such bill from passing the Commons. Few expected a Home Rule bill to make it through the final stage, the Conservative-majority House of Lords
.
and the Commons, each of which accused the other of breaking historic conventions — the Commons accused the Lords of breaking the convention of not rejecting a budget after it had rejected the budget
of Chancellor of the Exchequer
David Lloyd George
, which was so framed by him that the Lords were certain to reject it. By this means Lloyd George hoped to clear the way for a determined onslaught on the privilege of the Lords and their veto on legislation. The Lords duly rejected the Finance Bill in November 1909 and the Liberals joined battle with the Lords. The Prime Minister H. H. Asquith
appealed to the country.
Two general elections followed in 1910 to decide the issue. Far from breaking the deadlock, they left the Liberals and Conservatives equally matched. In the December 1910 general election the Liberals having lost their majority, were dependent on the Irish Nationalists to hold on to government. The issue was now quite clear: if the Liberals were to bring down the House of Lords, they would need the vote of the Irish Party, and the price would be Home Rule for Ireland. With the promise of cooperation from both the late king, Edward VII
, and the new king, George V
, the Liberals threatened to swamp the Lords with sufficient new Liberal peers to assure the Government a Lords majority. The peers backed down, and the relationship between the Lords and Commons changed fundamentally.
The two general elections had left the nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party
under its leader John Redmond
with the balance of power in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Asquith came to an understanding with Redmond in which, if he supported his move to break the power of the Lords and support his budget, then Asquith would introduce a Home Rule Bill. The Parliament Act 1911
was passed in which the Lords agreed to a curtailment of their powers. Now they had no powers over finance bills and their unlimited veto
was replaced with one lasting only two years, if the House of Commons passed a bill in the third year and was then rejected by the Lords it would still become law without the consent of the Upper House. Thus the last obstacle to Home Rule was removed.
The financial situation was a concern. Irish taxes had yielded a surplus of £2 million in 1893, that had turned into a current spending net deficit of £1.5m by 1910 that had to be raised by London. An annual "Transferred Sum" mechanism was proposed to maintain spending in Ireland as it was.
The Bill was passed by the Commons by a majority of 10 votes but the House of Lords rejected it 326 votes to 69. In 1913 it was re-introduced and again passed the Commons but was again rejected by the Lords by 302 votes to 64. In 1914 after the third reading, the Bill passed the Commons on 25 May by a majority of 77. Having been defeated a third time in the Lords, the Government used the provisions of the Parliament Act to override the Lords and send it for Royal Assent
.
, Protestant
s were in a numerical majority. Much of the northeast was opposed to being governed from Dublin and losing their local supremacy — before the Act of Union in 1801, Protestants were the business, political élite
and landed aristocracy in Ireland. Catholics had only been allowed to vote again in 1793 and been excluded from sitting in parliament until Catholic Emancipation
in 1829. Since the Act of Settlement 1701
, no Catholic had ever been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
, the head of the British government in a country that was 75% Catholic. In 1800 Protestant privilege in Ireland was based on land ownership, but this had diminished from 1885 with the introduction of land purchase by a Land Commission and the Irish Land Acts
.
By 1912 Protestant influence remained strong in Ulster, based not on farmland but on new industries that had been developed after 1800.
Many Protestants in Ulster were Presbyterians, who had also been excluded from power before 1801, but now wanted to maintain the link with Britain. Further, Belfast
had grown from 7,000 people in 1800 to 400,000 by 1900, and was then the largest city in Ireland. This growth had depended largely on trade within the British Empire
, and it seemed that the proposed Dublin-based parliament elected by a largely rural country would have different economic priorities to those of Belfast and its industrial hinterland. The argument developed that 'Ulster' deserved separate treatment from the rest of Ireland, and that its majority was socially and economically closer to the rest of Britain. Unionists declared that the Irish economy had prospered during the Union, but with Ulster doing better than the rest of Ireland. The Protestants of Ulster had done well with their industries, particularly linen and shipbuilding. They feared a Dublin parliament run by farmers would hamper their prosperity by imposing barriers on trade with Britain. These apparent fears however were irrational as Cork city
was also a centre of textiles, heavy industry and shipbuilding on the Island of Ireland at that time.
, in general or as proposed in the Bill, were made by both sides from the day it was introduced in April 1912 The main issue of contention during the parliamentary debates was the "coercion of Ulster", and mention was made of whether or which counties
of Ulster should be excluded from the provisions of Home Rule. Irish Party
leaders John Dillon
and Joseph Devlin
contending "no concessions for Ulster, Ulster will have to follow". On ‘Ulster Day’ 28 September 1912 over five hundred thousand Unionists signed the Ulster Covenant
pledging to defy Home Rule by all means possible, drawn up by Irish Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson and organised by Sir James Craig
, who in January 1911 had spoken of a feeling in Ulster that Germany and the German Emperor would be preferred to the ‘rule of John Redmond, Patrick Ford (veteran Fenian
) and the Molly Maguires
'.
Unionists continued to demand that Ulster be excluded, the solution of partition
appealing to Craig; Carson however, as a Dublin man, did not want partition, which would leave 250,000 Southern Unionists at the mercy of a huge nationalist majority. He was willing to talk partition hoping that Redmond would give up Home Rule rather than agree to it. Redmond under-estimated the resilience and strength of their resistance and thought they were bluffing and would accept Home Rule after Parliament passed it. On New Year's Day 1913, Carson moved an amendment to the Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons
, to exclude all nine counties of Ulster and was supported in this by Bonar Law, then leader of the Conservative opposition.
Represented mainly by the Ulster Unionist Party
and backed by the Orange Order
, the unionists established in January 1913 the paramilitary
Ulster Volunteer Force, with 100,000 members who threatened to resist by physical force the implementation of the Act and the authority of any restored Dublin Parliament by force of arms, fearing that Dublin rule would mean the ascendency of Catholicism—in the words of one MP, that "'home rule' in Ireland would prove to be 'Rome Rule
'." Later that year Carson and other leading men in Ulster were fully prepared to abandon the Southern Unionists, Carson's concern for them largely exhausted.
The Nationalists in turn raised the Irish Volunteers
from late 1913 and planned to help Britain enforce the Act whenever it passed, and to oppose Ulster separatism. In the Curragh incident
of 20 March 1914, dozens of army officers stationed in Ireland offered to resign or accept dismissal rather than enforce Home Rule on Ulster. In April 1914 the Ulster Volunteers illegally imported 24,000 rifle
s from Imperial Germany, being worried that force would be used to impose the Act upon the northeast. Nationalists
, led by John Redmond, were adamant that any partition was unacceptable, and he declared that they could never assent to the mutilation of the Irish nation. "Ireland is a unit . . . . the two-nation theory is to us an abomination and a blasphemy". In June 1914 Erskine Childers
imported 900 German rifles for the Irish Volunteers in his yacht. In mid-July Padraig Pearse complained of Redmond's takeover of the Volunteers, that he wanted to arm them for the wrong reasons - 'not against England, but against the Orangemen'. It seemed that Ireland would slide into a civil war
.
The economic arguments for and against Home Rule were hotly debated, but all agreed that without the ability to tax Ulster's industrial areas the future prospects for the rest of Ireland would be worse. The case in favour was put by Erskine Childers' "The Framework of Home Rule" (1911) and the arguments against by Arthur Samuels
in 1912. Both books assumed Home Rule for all of Ireland; by mid-1914 the situation had changed dramatically.
"Let them bring in their amending Bill under the Standing Orders before next Tuesday. It is perfectly manifest that somebody is going to be tricked. There is no genuine honest reason for making a secret of this kind. My hope is that it is the Nationalist party who are going to be tricked. It may be them, or it may be us, but that somebody is going to be tricked is perfectly plain.."
It now appears that in late May Asquith sought any solution that would avoid, or at least postpone, an Irish civil war. He had not been frank about the new temporary-partition possibility, leaving everyone wondering what, exactly, they were voting for in the main Bill, when it might be seriously altered by the as-yet-unseen Amending Bill that was to be launched in the House of Lords.
Sir Edward Carson and the Irish Unionist Party
(mostly Ulster
MPs) backed by a Lords'
recommendation, supported the government's Amending Bill in the Lords on 8 July 1914 for the "temporary exclusion of Ulster" from the workings of the future Act, but the number of counties (four, six or nine) and whether exclusion was to be temporary or permanent, all still to be negotiated.
The compromise proposed by Asquith was straightforward. Six counties of the northeast of Ireland (roughly two thirds of Ulster), where there was arguably or definitely a Protestant majority, were to be excluded "temporarily" from the territory of the new Irish parliament and government, and to continue to be governed as before from Westminster and Whitehall. How temporary the exclusion would be, and whether northeastern Ireland would eventually be governed by the Irish parliament and government, remained an issue of some controversy.
Redmond fought tenaciously against the idea of partition, but conceded only after Carson had forced through an Amending Bill which would have granted limited local autonomy to Ulster within an all-Ireland settlement. The British government in effect accepted no immediate responsibility for the political and religious antagonisms which in the end led to the partition of Ireland
, regarding it as clearly an otherwise unresolvable internal Irish problem. To them, the Nationalists had led the way towards Home Rule from the 1880s without trying hard enough to understand Unionist apprehensions, and were instead relying on their mathematical majority of electors. In the background, the more advanced nationalist views of ideologues such as D. P. Moran
had nothing to offer the Unionists.
William O'Brien
alone made a concerted effort to accommodate Unionist concerns in his All-for-Ireland League
(AFIL) political programme, prepared to concede any reasonable concessions to Ulster, denounced by both the Irish Party and clergy. The eight Independent AFIL Party MPs abstained from voting on the final passing of the Bill on 25 May in protest that it had not taken any account of Protestant minority concerns and fears, being in effect a "partition deal" after the government introduced an Amending Bill into the House of Lords to give effect to the exclusion of Ulster constructed on the basis of county option and six year exclusion, the same formula rejected by Unionists in March. To save endless debate in parliament, George V
called a Buckingham Palace Conference
with two MPs from each of the British parties, and two each from the nationalists and unionists, held between 21 and 24 July, which achieved very little, except a flicker of understanding between Carson and the Nationalists, that if Ulster were to be excluded, then in its entirety, that the province should come in or out as a whole.
which was presented for Royal Assent
simultaneously with both the Government of Ireland Act 1914 and the Welsh Church Act 1914
; although the two controversial Bills had now finally reached the statute books on 18 September 1914, the Suspensory Act ensured that Home Rule would be postponed for the duration of the conflict and would not come into operation until the end of the war. The Unionist opposition in Parliament claimed that this manouevure by Asquith was a breach of the political truce agreed on at the start of the war. However, with the Home Rule Bill effectively put into limbo , and the arguments surrounding it still capable of being resurrected before home rule was actually to come into operation, Unionist politicians soon left the issue aside in the face of more pressing concerns.
The Ulster question was 'solved' in the same way: through the promise of amending legislation which was left undefined. Unionists were in disarray, wounded by the enactment of Home Rule. and by the absence of any definite arrangement for the exclusion of Ulster. Nationalists, in the belief that independent self-government had finally been granted, celebrated the news with bonfires alighting the hill-tops across the south of Ireland. But as the Act had been suspended for the duration of what was expected to be a very short war, this decision was to prove crucial to the subsequent course of events.
in August 1914, looming civil war in Ireland was averted. Both mainstream nationalists and unionists, keen to ensure the implementation of the Act on the one hand and to influence the issue of how temporary was partition to be on the other, rallied in support of Britain's war commitment to the Allies
under the Triple Entente
(See: Ireland and World War I
).
The Irish Volunteers
split into the larger National Volunteers
and a rump who kept the original title. The NV and many other Irishmen, convinced at the time that Ireland had won freedom and self-government under the Act, joined Irish regiments of the 10th (Irish) Division or the 16th (Irish) Division of the New British Army
to "defend the freedom of other small nations" and to fight in France and Belgium for a Europe free from oppression. The men of the Ulster Volunteers went on to join the 36th (Ulster) Division, and unlike their nationalist counterparts who apart from Irish Generals William Hickie
and Bryan Mahon
, lacked prior military training to act as officers, were allowed their own local reserve militia officers.
However, a fringe element of nationalism, represented by the remaining Irish Volunteers, opposed Irish support for the war effort, believing Irishmen who wanted to "defend the freedom of small nations" should focus on one closer to hand. In Easter 1916 a rebellion, the Easter Rising
, took place in Dublin. Initially widely condemned in view of the heavy Irish war losses on the Western Front
and in the disastrous Gallipoli
V beach landing at Cape Helles (the main nationalist newspaper, the Irish Independent
, demanded the execution of the rebels), the British government's mishandling of the aftermath of the Rising, including the protracted executions of the Rising's leaders by General Maxwell
, led to the rise of an Irish republican movement in Sinn Féin
, a small previously separatist monarchist party taken over by the rebellion's survivors, after it had been wrongly blamed for the rebellion by the British.
This marked a crucial turning on the path to attaining self-government. The rising put an end to the democratic constitutional and conciliatory parliamentary movement and replaced it with a radical physical-force approach. Unionists became even more trenchant in their views on All-Ireland self-government, ultimately leading to a perpetuation of partition.
, then Minister for Munitions, to open negotiations between Redmond and Carson. As to how long the period of partition was to last, due to the ambiguities of the wording of the final document purposely intrigued by Walter Long to jeopardise Home Rule, Redmond, understanding it would be temporary, broke off negotiations when he realised this was not so. The tragedy of the failure to reach agreement between Redmond and Carson is underlined by the narrow division separating the disputants and the fact that the deal was very nearly concluded had Long not undermined it.
A second attempt to introduce self-government in Dublin was made by Britain with the calling of the Irish Convention
in July 1917, to which Lloyd George, now Prime Minister, invited representatives of all parties. Two refused to attend, William O'Brien
's dissident All-for-Ireland Party
because Redmond objected to prominent Unionists he wished to have invited, and Sinn Féin on the grounds that the Convention would not lead to the Irish Republic
they aspired to. The Convention sat until March 1918, discussing various options from Dominion
status to a federal solution
within or outside the United Kingdom. Southern Unionists, opposing the Northern Unionists
, eventually sided with Redmond's Nationalists, and proposed under their Midleton Plan the setting up a single Home Rule parliament in Dublin without partition. Miller, Dr. David W.: Church, State and Nation in Ireland 1898-1921 – Ch. XVIII ‘The Irish Convention’ pp.371-73, Gill & Macmillan (1973) ISBN 0 7171 0645 4 This possible settlement was blocked by Northern Nationalist delegates. Redmond died in March 1918. The proposals contained in the Convention's final report later formed the basis for a new Home Rule Act, a dual Home Rule parliament settlement from which just one evolved as Ireland's first Home Rule Parliament established in Northern Ireland
in 1921.
of 21 March swept all before it, smashing the Allied and Irish Divisions, both the Irish Convention and any hope of Irish self-government. Britain had a manpower shortage and planned to enact Home Rule immediately, but under a dual policy of Home Rule linked with conscription
. Britain could not have chosen a worse time or manner to introduce either to Ireland.
The issue now became the threat of conscription; all interest in Home Rule dissipated when moderate Nationalists and Sinn Féin stood united during the Conscription Crisis of 1918. Fortunately an Allied defeat was staved off, just as American support reached the front, so that the military draft bill was never implemented. However its threat resulted in a dramatic rise in popularity for Sinn Féin and a swing away from the Irish Party. The Armistice
ended the Great War on 11 November 1918.
December saw Sinn Féin secure a clear majority of seventy-three Irish seats in the general election
, twenty five of these seats taken unopposed. Twenty-six Sinn Féin MPs assembled in Dublin (the rest were imprisoned) and proclaimed themselves as an independent parliament of an Irish Republic
, the First Dáil
where they ratified the Irish Republic
(Poblacht na hÉireann) proclaimed in 1916 and announced a Unilateral Declaration of Independence
, only Russia recognising it internationally. A ministry (Aireacht
) was formed under Éamon de Valera
. The Dáil unrealistically refused to negotiate any understanding with London and abstained
from attending Westminster
, thereby abandoning Ulster and its Catholic Nationalists to their fate. The killing of two local RIC
constables at Soloheadbeg
in county Tipperary
became the first shots of the Irish War of Independence (Anglo-Irish War) fought between 1919 and 1921.
responded by replacing the suspended Home Rule Act of 1914 with a new (Fourth) Home Rule Bill, the Government of Ireland Act 1920
, which was largely shaped by Walter Long's Committee which followed most of the recommendations contained in the Irish Convention's March 1918 report. Long, now with a free hand to shape Home Rule in Ulster's favour, partitioned Ireland into Northern Ireland
and Southern Ireland
; strict adherence to the policy of abstentionism
meant that there was no Sinn Féin MP or Dáil envoy at Westminster to voice a protest. Lloyd George foresaw in each case a bicameral legislature and an executive presided over by a shared royal representative, the Lord Lieutenant.
Whilst Home Rule for Northern Ireland did come to pass in June 1921, Southern Ireland remained a political entity on paper only: the overwhelming majority of Irish MPs refused to recognise either of the enacted Houses of the Parliament of Southern Ireland
, sitting instead as Teachtaí Dála
(Deputies) of the Second Dáil
. Just three MPs and four senators turned up for the state opening of the "Parliament of Southern Ireland". The war continued until a truce was agreed in 1921. Dáil Éireann delegated five envoy
s, with plenipotentiary powers, to negotiate terms of secession
with the British government, Éamon de Valera
remaining in Dublin having been informed in advance by Lloyd George that under no circumstances would a republic be conceded.
, signed on 6 December 1921, modelled largely on the foregone Fourth Home Rule Act, but giving Ireland Commonwealth
Dominion
status under the British Crown, and effectively abolished the Irish Republic
. All of Ireland would become the Irish Free State
, but Northern Ireland would be allowed to vote itself out of the Free State within a month. After a long and acrimonious debate lasting some weeks, the Dáil ratified the Treaty on 7 January 1922 by 64 votes to 57. Those opposed (led by Éamon de Valera
) refused to accept the decision of the constitutionally elected Second Dáil and led their anti-Treaty forces into the Irish Civil War
six months later, boycotting the Third Dáil
after it had been elected.
The Parliament of Southern Ireland functioned as such only once, when pragmatically and in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty, the House of Commons of Southern Ireland assembled in Dublin in January 1922 to ratify it.
Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty a provisional parliament, the Third Dáil
, was elected on 16 June 1922. This parliament was recognised both by pro-Treaty Sinn Féin and the British Government and so replaced both the Parliament of Southern Ireland and the Second Dáil with a single body. Ninety-four out of a total of 128 elected members of the new Dáil attended, thus democratically sanctioning it. The Irish Civil War
started on 28 June 1922. The Irish Free State
or Saorstát Éireann was established on 6 December 1922. Northern Ireland voted to exclude itself on 8 December, as expected, leaving 26 counties out of 32 (Leinster
, Connaught
and Munster
plus three counties of Ulster) in the new Free State.
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...
passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
intended to provide self-government
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
("Home Rule") for Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
.
The Act was the first law ever passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom that sought to establish devolved government
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
in any part of the United Kingdom. However, the implementation of both it and the equally controversial Welsh Church Act 1914
Welsh Church Act 1914
The Welsh Church Act 1914 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom under which the Welsh part of the Church of England was separated and disestablished, leading to the creation of the Church in Wales...
was formally postponed
Suspensory Act 1914
The Suspensory Act 1914 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which suspended the coming into force of two other Acts: the Welsh Church Act 1914 , and the Government of Ireland Act 1914...
for a minimum of twelve months with the outbreak of the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Subsequent developments in Ireland led to further postponements, meaning that the Act never took effect; it was finally superseded by a fourth home rule bill (enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1920
Government of Ireland Act 1920
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which partitioned Ireland. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or as the Fourth Home Rule Act.The Act was intended...
).
Instead of home rule as envisioned in the 1914 Act, "Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland was a short-lived autonomous region of the United Kingdom established on 3 May 1921 and dissolved on 6 December 1922.Southern Ireland was established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 together with its sister region, Northern Ireland...
" was granted dominion status in 1922 as the Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
; however, the six north-eastern counties that remained within the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
did obtain home rule in the previous year
Government of Ireland Act 1920
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which partitioned Ireland. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or as the Fourth Home Rule Act.The Act was intended...
.
Background
The separate Kingdoms of IrelandKingdom of Ireland
The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...
and Britain were merged on January 1, 1801, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
. Throughout the 19th century Irish opposition to the Union was strong, occasionally erupting in violent insurrection. In the 1830s and 1840s attempts had been made under the leadership of Daniel O'Connell
Daniel O'Connell
Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847; often referred to as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, was an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century...
to repeal the Act of Union 1800
Act of Union 1800
The Acts of Union 1800 describe two complementary Acts, namely:* the Union with Ireland Act 1800 , an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, and...
and restore the Kingdom of Ireland, without breaking the connection with Great Britain. These attempts to achieve what was simply called repeal, failed.
Struggle for Home Rule
In the 1870s the Home Rule LeagueHome Rule League
The Home Rule League, sometimes called the Home Rule Party, was a political party which campaigned for home rule for the country of Ireland from 1873 to 1882, when it was replaced by the Irish Parliamentary Party.-Origins:...
under Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt Q.C. M.P. was an Irish barrister, politician, Member of Parliament , and the founder and first leader of a number of Irish nationalist parties and organisations, including the Irish Metropolitan Conservative Society in 1836, the Home Government Association in 1870 and in 1873 the Home...
sought to achieve a modest form of self-government, known as Home Rule
Home rule
Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....
. Under it, Ireland would still remain part of the United Kingdom but would have limited self-government. The cause was then pursued by Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...
and two attempts were made by Liberal ministries under British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
to enact home rule bills, accompanied by a revival of Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
's Orange Order
Orange Institution
The Orange Institution is a Protestant fraternal organisation based mainly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, though it has lodges throughout the Commonwealth and United States. The Institution was founded in 1796 near the village of Loughgall in County Armagh, Ireland...
to resist any form of Home Rule. The first bill, with Gladstone's Irish Home Rule speech beseeching parliament to pass the Irish Government Bill 1886
Irish Government Bill 1886
The Government of Ireland Bill 1886, commonly known as the First Home Rule Bill, was the first major attempt made by a British government to enact a law creating home rule for part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
and grant Home Rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to one day in humiliation, was defeated in the Commons by 30 votes; while the second Irish Government Bill 1893
Irish Government Bill 1893
The Government of Ireland Bill 1893 was the second attempt made by William Ewart Gladstone, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to enact a system of home rule for Ireland...
was passed, but then defeated in the Lords. With the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
's pro-unionist policy, and joined by a group of Liberal Unionists on this issue, the consequent majority could block any such bill from passing the Commons. Few expected a Home Rule bill to make it through the final stage, the Conservative-majority House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
.
The Parliament Act
In 1909, a crisis erupted between the House of LordsHouse of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
and the Commons, each of which accused the other of breaking historic conventions — the Commons accused the Lords of breaking the convention of not rejecting a budget after it had rejected the budget
People's Budget
The 1909 People's Budget was a product of then British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, introducing many unprecedented taxes on the wealthy and radical social welfare programmes to Britain's political life...
of Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
, which was so framed by him that the Lords were certain to reject it. By this means Lloyd George hoped to clear the way for a determined onslaught on the privilege of the Lords and their veto on legislation. The Lords duly rejected the Finance Bill in November 1909 and the Liberals joined battle with the Lords. The Prime Minister H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...
appealed to the country.
Two general elections followed in 1910 to decide the issue. Far from breaking the deadlock, they left the Liberals and Conservatives equally matched. In the December 1910 general election the Liberals having lost their majority, were dependent on the Irish Nationalists to hold on to government. The issue was now quite clear: if the Liberals were to bring down the House of Lords, they would need the vote of the Irish Party, and the price would be Home Rule for Ireland. With the promise of cooperation from both the late king, Edward VII
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
, and the new king, George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
, the Liberals threatened to swamp the Lords with sufficient new Liberal peers to assure the Government a Lords majority. The peers backed down, and the relationship between the Lords and Commons changed fundamentally.
The two general elections had left the nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...
under its leader John Redmond
John Redmond
John Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918...
with the balance of power in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Asquith came to an understanding with Redmond in which, if he supported his move to break the power of the Lords and support his budget, then Asquith would introduce a Home Rule Bill. The Parliament Act 1911
Parliament Act 1911
The Parliament Act 1911 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is constitutionally important and partly governs the relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords which make up the Houses of Parliament. This Act must be construed as one with the Parliament Act 1949...
was passed in which the Lords agreed to a curtailment of their powers. Now they had no powers over finance bills and their unlimited veto
Veto
A veto, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to unilaterally stop an official action, especially enactment of a piece of legislation...
was replaced with one lasting only two years, if the House of Commons passed a bill in the third year and was then rejected by the Lords it would still become law without the consent of the Upper House. Thus the last obstacle to Home Rule was removed.
The Third Home Rule Bill
On 11, April 1912, the Prime Minister introduced the Third Home Rule Bill which foresaw granting Ireland self-government. Allowing more autonomy than its two predecessors, the bill provided for:- A bicameralBicameralismIn the government, bicameralism is the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers. Thus, a bicameral parliament or bicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of two chambers or houses....
Irish Parliament to be set up in Dublin (a 40-member Senate and a 164-member House of Commons) with powers to deal with most national affairs; - A number of Irish MPs would continue to sit in the Imperial ParliamentParliament of the United KingdomThe Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
in WestminsterPalace of WestminsterThe Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
(42 MPs, rather than 103). - The abolition of Dublin CastleDublin Castle administration in IrelandThe Dublin Castle administration in Ireland was the government of Ireland under English and later British rule, from the twelfth century until 1922, based at Dublin Castle.-Head:...
, though with the retention of the Lord LieutenantLord Lieutenant of IrelandThe Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the British King's representative and head of the Irish executive during the Lordship of Ireland , the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
.
The financial situation was a concern. Irish taxes had yielded a surplus of £2 million in 1893, that had turned into a current spending net deficit of £1.5m by 1910 that had to be raised by London. An annual "Transferred Sum" mechanism was proposed to maintain spending in Ireland as it was.
The Bill was passed by the Commons by a majority of 10 votes but the House of Lords rejected it 326 votes to 69. In 1913 it was re-introduced and again passed the Commons but was again rejected by the Lords by 302 votes to 64. In 1914 after the third reading, the Bill passed the Commons on 25 May by a majority of 77. Having been defeated a third time in the Lords, the Government used the provisions of the Parliament Act to override the Lords and send it for Royal Assent
Royal Assent
The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...
.
Conflict of interests
In UlsterUlster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
, Protestant
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
s were in a numerical majority. Much of the northeast was opposed to being governed from Dublin and losing their local supremacy — before the Act of Union in 1801, Protestants were the business, political élite
Protestant Ascendancy
The Protestant Ascendancy, usually known in Ireland simply as the Ascendancy, is a phrase used when referring to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church during the 17th...
and landed aristocracy in Ireland. Catholics had only been allowed to vote again in 1793 and been excluded from sitting in parliament until Catholic Emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...
in 1829. Since the Act of Settlement 1701
Act of Settlement 1701
The Act of Settlement is an act of the Parliament of England that was passed in 1701 to settle the succession to the English throne on the Electress Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant heirs. The act was later extended to Scotland, as a result of the Treaty of Union , enacted in the Acts of Union...
, no Catholic had ever been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the British King's representative and head of the Irish executive during the Lordship of Ireland , the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
, the head of the British government in a country that was 75% Catholic. In 1800 Protestant privilege in Ireland was based on land ownership, but this had diminished from 1885 with the introduction of land purchase by a Land Commission and the Irish Land Acts
Irish Land Acts
The Land Acts were a series of measures to deal with the question of peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by the government of the United Kingdom between 1870 and 1909...
.
By 1912 Protestant influence remained strong in Ulster, based not on farmland but on new industries that had been developed after 1800.
Many Protestants in Ulster were Presbyterians, who had also been excluded from power before 1801, but now wanted to maintain the link with Britain. Further, Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
had grown from 7,000 people in 1800 to 400,000 by 1900, and was then the largest city in Ireland. This growth had depended largely on trade within the British Empire
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
, and it seemed that the proposed Dublin-based parliament elected by a largely rural country would have different economic priorities to those of Belfast and its industrial hinterland. The argument developed that 'Ulster' deserved separate treatment from the rest of Ireland, and that its majority was socially and economically closer to the rest of Britain. Unionists declared that the Irish economy had prospered during the Union, but with Ulster doing better than the rest of Ireland. The Protestants of Ulster had done well with their industries, particularly linen and shipbuilding. They feared a Dublin parliament run by farmers would hamper their prosperity by imposing barriers on trade with Britain. These apparent fears however were irrational as Cork city
History of Cork
Cork, located on Ireland's south coast, is the Republic of Ireland's second largest city and the largest city in the province of Munster. Its history dates back to the 6th century.-Origins:...
was also a centre of textiles, heavy industry and shipbuilding on the Island of Ireland at that time.
Ulster crisis unfolds
All the arguments for and against Home RuleHome rule
Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....
, in general or as proposed in the Bill, were made by both sides from the day it was introduced in April 1912 The main issue of contention during the parliamentary debates was the "coercion of Ulster", and mention was made of whether or which counties
Counties of Ireland
The counties of Ireland are sub-national divisions used for the purposes of geographic demarcation and local government. Closely related to the county is the County corporate which covered towns or cities which were deemed to be important enough to be independent from their counties. A county...
of Ulster should be excluded from the provisions of Home Rule. Irish Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...
leaders John Dillon
John Dillon
John Dillon was an Irish land reform agitator from Dublin, an Irish Home Rule activist, a nationalist politician, a Member of Parliament for over 35 years, and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party....
and Joseph Devlin
Joseph Devlin
Joseph Devlin, also known as Joe Devlin, was an Irish journalist and influential nationalist politician...
contending "no concessions for Ulster, Ulster will have to follow". On ‘Ulster Day’ 28 September 1912 over five hundred thousand Unionists signed the Ulster Covenant
Ulster Covenant
The Ulster Covenant was signed by just under half a million of men and women from Ulster, on and before September 28, 1912, in protest against the Third Home Rule Bill, introduced by the Government in that same year...
pledging to defy Home Rule by all means possible, drawn up by Irish Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson and organised by Sir James Craig
James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon
James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon, PC, PC , was a prominent Irish unionist politician, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland...
, who in January 1911 had spoken of a feeling in Ulster that Germany and the German Emperor would be preferred to the ‘rule of John Redmond, Patrick Ford (veteran Fenian
Fenian
The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...
) and the Molly Maguires
Ancient Order of Hibernians
The Ancient Order of Hibernians is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be Catholic and either Irish born or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is now in the United States, where it was founded in New York City in 1836...
'.
Unionists continued to demand that Ulster be excluded, the solution of partition
Partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
appealing to Craig; Carson however, as a Dublin man, did not want partition, which would leave 250,000 Southern Unionists at the mercy of a huge nationalist majority. He was willing to talk partition hoping that Redmond would give up Home Rule rather than agree to it. Redmond under-estimated the resilience and strength of their resistance and thought they were bluffing and would accept Home Rule after Parliament passed it. On New Year's Day 1913, Carson moved an amendment to the Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
, to exclude all nine counties of Ulster and was supported in this by Bonar Law, then leader of the Conservative opposition.
Represented mainly by the Ulster Unionist Party
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
and backed by the Orange Order
Orange Institution
The Orange Institution is a Protestant fraternal organisation based mainly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, though it has lodges throughout the Commonwealth and United States. The Institution was founded in 1796 near the village of Loughgall in County Armagh, Ireland...
, the unionists established in January 1913 the paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
Ulster Volunteer Force, with 100,000 members who threatened to resist by physical force the implementation of the Act and the authority of any restored Dublin Parliament by force of arms, fearing that Dublin rule would mean the ascendency of Catholicism—in the words of one MP, that "'home rule' in Ireland would prove to be 'Rome Rule
Rome Rule
"Rome Rule" was a term used by Irish unionists and socialists to describe the belief that the Roman Catholic Church would gain political control over their interests with the passage of a Home Rule Bill...
'." Later that year Carson and other leading men in Ulster were fully prepared to abandon the Southern Unionists, Carson's concern for them largely exhausted.
The Nationalists in turn raised the Irish Volunteers
Irish Volunteers
The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...
from late 1913 and planned to help Britain enforce the Act whenever it passed, and to oppose Ulster separatism. In the Curragh incident
Curragh Incident
The Curragh Incident of 20 March 1914, also known as the Curragh Mutiny, occurred in the Curragh, County Kildare, Ireland. The Curragh Camp was then the main base for the British Army in Ireland, which at the time formed part of the United Kingdom....
of 20 March 1914, dozens of army officers stationed in Ireland offered to resign or accept dismissal rather than enforce Home Rule on Ulster. In April 1914 the Ulster Volunteers illegally imported 24,000 rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
s from Imperial Germany, being worried that force would be used to impose the Act upon the northeast. Nationalists
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
, led by John Redmond, were adamant that any partition was unacceptable, and he declared that they could never assent to the mutilation of the Irish nation. "Ireland is a unit . . . . the two-nation theory is to us an abomination and a blasphemy". In June 1914 Erskine Childers
Robert Erskine Childers
Robert Erskine Childers DSC , universally known as Erskine Childers, was the author of the influential novel Riddle of the Sands and an Irish nationalist who smuggled guns to Ireland in his sailing yacht Asgard. He was executed by the authorities of the nascent Irish Free State during the Irish...
imported 900 German rifles for the Irish Volunteers in his yacht. In mid-July Padraig Pearse complained of Redmond's takeover of the Volunteers, that he wanted to arm them for the wrong reasons - 'not against England, but against the Orangemen'. It seemed that Ireland would slide into a civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
.
The economic arguments for and against Home Rule were hotly debated, but all agreed that without the ability to tax Ulster's industrial areas the future prospects for the rest of Ireland would be worse. The case in favour was put by Erskine Childers' "The Framework of Home Rule" (1911) and the arguments against by Arthur Samuels
Arthur Warren Samuels
Arthur Warren Samuels was an Irish Unionist Alliance Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom Parliament and subsequently a Judge. The Irish Unionists were the Irish wing of the Conservative Party....
in 1912. Both books assumed Home Rule for all of Ireland; by mid-1914 the situation had changed dramatically.
The shaping of Partition
Even before the Bill became law, questions arose about proposals to exclude Ulster from the Act. At the Bill's third reading on 21 May several members asked about a proposal to exclude the whole of Ulster for six years; it seemed remarkable, as the proposal was being made as a new amending Bill in the House of Lords, where the government had less support. Liberal and Irish government supporters were instantly critical of any effort to water down the existing Bill. Lord Hugh Cecil, a Conservative MP, was also mystified, saying:"Let them bring in their amending Bill under the Standing Orders before next Tuesday. It is perfectly manifest that somebody is going to be tricked. There is no genuine honest reason for making a secret of this kind. My hope is that it is the Nationalist party who are going to be tricked. It may be them, or it may be us, but that somebody is going to be tricked is perfectly plain.."
It now appears that in late May Asquith sought any solution that would avoid, or at least postpone, an Irish civil war. He had not been frank about the new temporary-partition possibility, leaving everyone wondering what, exactly, they were voting for in the main Bill, when it might be seriously altered by the as-yet-unseen Amending Bill that was to be launched in the House of Lords.
Sir Edward Carson and the Irish Unionist Party
Irish Unionist Party
The Irish Unionist Alliance was a Unionist party founded in Ireland in 1891 to oppose plans for Gladstonian and Parnellite Home Rule for Ireland. The party was led for much of its life by Colonel Edward James Saunderson and later by the William St John Brodrick, Earl of Midleton...
(mostly Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
MPs) backed by a Lords'
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
recommendation, supported the government's Amending Bill in the Lords on 8 July 1914 for the "temporary exclusion of Ulster" from the workings of the future Act, but the number of counties (four, six or nine) and whether exclusion was to be temporary or permanent, all still to be negotiated.
The compromise proposed by Asquith was straightforward. Six counties of the northeast of Ireland (roughly two thirds of Ulster), where there was arguably or definitely a Protestant majority, were to be excluded "temporarily" from the territory of the new Irish parliament and government, and to continue to be governed as before from Westminster and Whitehall. How temporary the exclusion would be, and whether northeastern Ireland would eventually be governed by the Irish parliament and government, remained an issue of some controversy.
Redmond fought tenaciously against the idea of partition, but conceded only after Carson had forced through an Amending Bill which would have granted limited local autonomy to Ulster within an all-Ireland settlement. The British government in effect accepted no immediate responsibility for the political and religious antagonisms which in the end led to the partition of Ireland
Partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
, regarding it as clearly an otherwise unresolvable internal Irish problem. To them, the Nationalists had led the way towards Home Rule from the 1880s without trying hard enough to understand Unionist apprehensions, and were instead relying on their mathematical majority of electors. In the background, the more advanced nationalist views of ideologues such as D. P. Moran
D. P. Moran
David Patrick Moran , better known as simply D. P. Moran, was an Irish journalist, activist and cultural-political theorist, known as the principle advocate of a specifically Gaelic Catholic Irish nationalism during the early 20th century...
had nothing to offer the Unionists.
William O'Brien
William O'Brien
William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
alone made a concerted effort to accommodate Unionist concerns in his All-for-Ireland League
All-for-Ireland League
The All-for-Ireland League , was an Irish, Munster-based political party . Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland...
(AFIL) political programme, prepared to concede any reasonable concessions to Ulster, denounced by both the Irish Party and clergy. The eight Independent AFIL Party MPs abstained from voting on the final passing of the Bill on 25 May in protest that it had not taken any account of Protestant minority concerns and fears, being in effect a "partition deal" after the government introduced an Amending Bill into the House of Lords to give effect to the exclusion of Ulster constructed on the basis of county option and six year exclusion, the same formula rejected by Unionists in March. To save endless debate in parliament, George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
called a Buckingham Palace Conference
Buckingham Palace Conference
The Buckingham Palace Conference, sometimes referred to as the Buckingham Palace Conference on Ireland, was a conference called in Buckingham Palace in 1914 by King George V of the United Kingdom to which the leaders of Irish Nationalism and Irish Unionism were invited to discuss plans to introduce...
with two MPs from each of the British parties, and two each from the nationalists and unionists, held between 21 and 24 July, which achieved very little, except a flicker of understanding between Carson and the Nationalists, that if Ulster were to be excluded, then in its entirety, that the province should come in or out as a whole.
The passing of the Bill
With the outbreak of war with Germany in August 1914, Asquith decided to abandon his Amending Bill, and instead rushed through a new bill the Suspensory Act 1914Suspensory Act 1914
The Suspensory Act 1914 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which suspended the coming into force of two other Acts: the Welsh Church Act 1914 , and the Government of Ireland Act 1914...
which was presented for Royal Assent
Royal Assent
The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...
simultaneously with both the Government of Ireland Act 1914 and the Welsh Church Act 1914
Welsh Church Act 1914
The Welsh Church Act 1914 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom under which the Welsh part of the Church of England was separated and disestablished, leading to the creation of the Church in Wales...
; although the two controversial Bills had now finally reached the statute books on 18 September 1914, the Suspensory Act ensured that Home Rule would be postponed for the duration of the conflict and would not come into operation until the end of the war. The Unionist opposition in Parliament claimed that this manouevure by Asquith was a breach of the political truce agreed on at the start of the war. However, with the Home Rule Bill effectively put into limbo , and the arguments surrounding it still capable of being resurrected before home rule was actually to come into operation, Unionist politicians soon left the issue aside in the face of more pressing concerns.
The Ulster question was 'solved' in the same way: through the promise of amending legislation which was left undefined. Unionists were in disarray, wounded by the enactment of Home Rule. and by the absence of any definite arrangement for the exclusion of Ulster. Nationalists, in the belief that independent self-government had finally been granted, celebrated the news with bonfires alighting the hill-tops across the south of Ireland. But as the Act had been suspended for the duration of what was expected to be a very short war, this decision was to prove crucial to the subsequent course of events.
An Act overtaken by events
With the outbreak of what was expected to be a short World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
in August 1914, looming civil war in Ireland was averted. Both mainstream nationalists and unionists, keen to ensure the implementation of the Act on the one hand and to influence the issue of how temporary was partition to be on the other, rallied in support of Britain's war commitment to the Allies
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
under the Triple Entente
Triple Entente
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....
(See: Ireland and World War I
Ireland and World War I
During World War I , Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which entered the war in August 1914 as one of the Entente Powers, along with France and Russia, when it declared war to halt the military expansion of the Central Powers, consisting of the German Empire, the...
).
The Irish Volunteers
Irish Volunteers
The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...
split into the larger National Volunteers
National Volunteers
The National Volunteers was the name taken by the majority of the Irish Volunteers that sided with Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond after the movement split over the question of the Volunteers' role in World War I.-Origins:...
and a rump who kept the original title. The NV and many other Irishmen, convinced at the time that Ireland had won freedom and self-government under the Act, joined Irish regiments of the 10th (Irish) Division or the 16th (Irish) Division of the New British Army
Kitchener's Army
The New Army, often referred to as Kitchener's Army or, disparagingly, Kitchener's Mob, was an all-volunteer army formed in the United Kingdom following the outbreak of hostilities in the First World War...
to "defend the freedom of other small nations" and to fight in France and Belgium for a Europe free from oppression. The men of the Ulster Volunteers went on to join the 36th (Ulster) Division, and unlike their nationalist counterparts who apart from Irish Generals William Hickie
William Bernard Hickie
Sir William Bernard Hickie was an Irish born Major General of the British Army and an Irish nationalist politician....
and Bryan Mahon
Bryan Mahon
General Sir Bryan Thomas Mahon KCB, KCVO, PC, DSO was a British Army general and Irish Free State Senator.-Military career:Mahon was born at Belleville, County Galway...
, lacked prior military training to act as officers, were allowed their own local reserve militia officers.
However, a fringe element of nationalism, represented by the remaining Irish Volunteers, opposed Irish support for the war effort, believing Irishmen who wanted to "defend the freedom of small nations" should focus on one closer to hand. In Easter 1916 a rebellion, the Easter Rising
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
, took place in Dublin. Initially widely condemned in view of the heavy Irish war losses on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
and in the disastrous Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
V beach landing at Cape Helles (the main nationalist newspaper, the Irish Independent
Irish Independent
The Irish Independent is Ireland's largest-selling daily newspaper that is published in both compact and broadsheet formats. It is the flagship publication of Independent News & Media.-History:...
, demanded the execution of the rebels), the British government's mishandling of the aftermath of the Rising, including the protracted executions of the Rising's leaders by General Maxwell
John Maxwell (British Army officer)
General Sir John Grenfell Maxwell GCB, KCMG, CVO, DSO, PC was a British Army officer and colonial governor. He served in the Mahdist War in the Sudan, the Boer War, and in the First World War, but he is best known for his role in the suppression of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland and subsequent...
, led to the rise of an Irish republican movement in Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
, a small previously separatist monarchist party taken over by the rebellion's survivors, after it had been wrongly blamed for the rebellion by the British.
This marked a crucial turning on the path to attaining self-government. The rising put an end to the democratic constitutional and conciliatory parliamentary movement and replaced it with a radical physical-force approach. Unionists became even more trenchant in their views on All-Ireland self-government, ultimately leading to a perpetuation of partition.
Attempted implementation
After the rebellion, the British Cabinet urgently decided in May 1916 that the 1914 Act should be brought into operation immediately and a Government established in Dublin. Asquith tasked Lloyd GeorgeDavid Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
, then Minister for Munitions, to open negotiations between Redmond and Carson. As to how long the period of partition was to last, due to the ambiguities of the wording of the final document purposely intrigued by Walter Long to jeopardise Home Rule, Redmond, understanding it would be temporary, broke off negotiations when he realised this was not so. The tragedy of the failure to reach agreement between Redmond and Carson is underlined by the narrow division separating the disputants and the fact that the deal was very nearly concluded had Long not undermined it.
A second attempt to introduce self-government in Dublin was made by Britain with the calling of the Irish Convention
Irish Convention
The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Dublin, Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the Irish Question and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wider future, discuss and come to an understanding on...
in July 1917, to which Lloyd George, now Prime Minister, invited representatives of all parties. Two refused to attend, William O'Brien
William O'Brien
William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
's dissident All-for-Ireland Party
All-for-Ireland League
The All-for-Ireland League , was an Irish, Munster-based political party . Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland...
because Redmond objected to prominent Unionists he wished to have invited, and Sinn Féin on the grounds that the Convention would not lead to the Irish Republic
Irish Republic
The Irish Republic was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from Great Britain in January 1919. It established a legislature , a government , a court system and a police force...
they aspired to. The Convention sat until March 1918, discussing various options from Dominion
Dominion
A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland,...
status to a federal solution
Federalism
Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...
within or outside the United Kingdom. Southern Unionists, opposing the Northern Unionists
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
, eventually sided with Redmond's Nationalists, and proposed under their Midleton Plan the setting up a single Home Rule parliament in Dublin without partition. Miller, Dr. David W.: Church, State and Nation in Ireland 1898-1921 – Ch. XVIII ‘The Irish Convention’ pp.371-73, Gill & Macmillan (1973) ISBN 0 7171 0645 4 This possible settlement was blocked by Northern Nationalist delegates. Redmond died in March 1918. The proposals contained in the Convention's final report later formed the basis for a new Home Rule Act, a dual Home Rule parliament settlement from which just one evolved as Ireland's first Home Rule Parliament established in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
in 1921.
World War I aftermath
But before anything could evolve from this new constellation of nationalists and unionists, the massive German Spring OffensiveSpring Offensive
The 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht , also known as the Ludendorff Offensive, was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during World War I, beginning on 21 March 1918, which marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914...
of 21 March swept all before it, smashing the Allied and Irish Divisions, both the Irish Convention and any hope of Irish self-government. Britain had a manpower shortage and planned to enact Home Rule immediately, but under a dual policy of Home Rule linked with conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
. Britain could not have chosen a worse time or manner to introduce either to Ireland.
The issue now became the threat of conscription; all interest in Home Rule dissipated when moderate Nationalists and Sinn Féin stood united during the Conscription Crisis of 1918. Fortunately an Allied defeat was staved off, just as American support reached the front, so that the military draft bill was never implemented. However its threat resulted in a dramatic rise in popularity for Sinn Féin and a swing away from the Irish Party. The Armistice
Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)
The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
ended the Great War on 11 November 1918.
December saw Sinn Féin secure a clear majority of seventy-three Irish seats in the general election
Irish (UK) general election, 1918
The Irish general election of 1918 was that part of the 1918 United Kingdom general election that took place in Ireland. It is seen as a key moment in modern Irish history...
, twenty five of these seats taken unopposed. Twenty-six Sinn Féin MPs assembled in Dublin (the rest were imprisoned) and proclaimed themselves as an independent parliament of an Irish Republic
Irish Republic
The Irish Republic was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from Great Britain in January 1919. It established a legislature , a government , a court system and a police force...
, the First Dáil
First Dáil
The First Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 1919–1921. In 1919 candidates who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled as a unicameral, revolutionary parliament called "Dáil Éireann"...
where they ratified the Irish Republic
Irish Republic
The Irish Republic was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from Great Britain in January 1919. It established a legislature , a government , a court system and a police force...
(Poblacht na hÉireann) proclaimed in 1916 and announced a Unilateral Declaration of Independence
Declaration of Independence (Ireland)
The Declaration of Independence was a document adopted by Dáil Éireann, the revolutionary parliament of the Irish Republic, at its first meeting in the Mansion House, Dublin, on 21 January 1919. It followed from the Sinn Féin election manifesto of December 1918...
, only Russia recognising it internationally. A ministry (Aireacht
Aireacht
The Aireacht or Ministry was the cabinet of the 1919–1922 Irish Republic. The Ministry was originally established by the Dáil Constitution adopted by the First Dáil in 1919, after it issued the Irish Declaration of Independence...
) was formed under Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
. The Dáil unrealistically refused to negotiate any understanding with London and abstained
Abstentionism
Abstentionism is standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate in the election itself...
from attending Westminster
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
, thereby abandoning Ulster and its Catholic Nationalists to their fate. The killing of two local RIC
Royal Irish Constabulary
The armed Royal Irish Constabulary was Ireland's major police force for most of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police controlled the capital, and the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police...
constables at Soloheadbeg
Soloheadbeg
Soloheadbeg is a small townland, some two miles outside Tipperary Town, near Limerick Junction railway station.The place is steeped in Irish history, for it was here that King Mahon of Thomond and his brother Brian Ború defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Solohead in 968...
in county Tipperary
County Tipperary
County Tipperary is a county of Ireland. It is located in the province of Munster and is named after the town of Tipperary. The area of the county does not have a single local authority; local government is split between two authorities. In North Tipperary, part of the Mid-West Region, local...
became the first shots of the Irish War of Independence (Anglo-Irish War) fought between 1919 and 1921.
Fourth Home Rule Bill
The British prime minister David Lloyd GeorgeDavid Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
responded by replacing the suspended Home Rule Act of 1914 with a new (Fourth) Home Rule Bill, the Government of Ireland Act 1920
Government of Ireland Act 1920
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which partitioned Ireland. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or as the Fourth Home Rule Act.The Act was intended...
, which was largely shaped by Walter Long's Committee which followed most of the recommendations contained in the Irish Convention's March 1918 report. Long, now with a free hand to shape Home Rule in Ulster's favour, partitioned Ireland into Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
and Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland
Southern Ireland was a short-lived autonomous region of the United Kingdom established on 3 May 1921 and dissolved on 6 December 1922.Southern Ireland was established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 together with its sister region, Northern Ireland...
; strict adherence to the policy of abstentionism
Abstentionism
Abstentionism is standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate in the election itself...
meant that there was no Sinn Féin MP or Dáil envoy at Westminster to voice a protest. Lloyd George foresaw in each case a bicameral legislature and an executive presided over by a shared royal representative, the Lord Lieutenant.
Whilst Home Rule for Northern Ireland did come to pass in June 1921, Southern Ireland remained a political entity on paper only: the overwhelming majority of Irish MPs refused to recognise either of the enacted Houses of the Parliament of Southern Ireland
Parliament of Southern Ireland
The Parliament of Southern Ireland was a home rule legislature set up by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence under the Fourth Home Rule Bill...
, sitting instead as Teachtaí Dála
Teachta Dála
A Teachta Dála , usually abbreviated as TD in English, is a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas . It is the equivalent of terms such as "Member of Parliament" or "deputy" used in other states. The official translation of the term is "Deputy to the Dáil", though a more literal...
(Deputies) of the Second Dáil
Second Dáil
The Second Dáil was Dáil Éireann as it convened from 16 August 1921 until 8 June 1922. From 1919–1922 Dáil Éireann was the revolutionary parliament of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic. The Second Dáil consisted of members elected in 1921...
. Just three MPs and four senators turned up for the state opening of the "Parliament of Southern Ireland". The war continued until a truce was agreed in 1921. Dáil Éireann delegated five envoy
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
s, with plenipotentiary powers, to negotiate terms of secession
Secession
Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...
with the British government, Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
remaining in Dublin having been informed in advance by Lloyd George that under no circumstances would a republic be conceded.
Treaty, Partition
The outcome was the Anglo–Irish TreatyAnglo-Irish Treaty
The Anglo-Irish Treaty , officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the secessionist Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of...
, signed on 6 December 1921, modelled largely on the foregone Fourth Home Rule Act, but giving Ireland Commonwealth
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
Dominion
Dominion
A dominion, often Dominion, refers to one of a group of autonomous polities that were nominally under British sovereignty, constituting the British Empire and British Commonwealth, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. They have included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland,...
status under the British Crown, and effectively abolished the Irish Republic
Irish Republic
The Irish Republic was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from Great Britain in January 1919. It established a legislature , a government , a court system and a police force...
. All of Ireland would become the Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
, but Northern Ireland would be allowed to vote itself out of the Free State within a month. After a long and acrimonious debate lasting some weeks, the Dáil ratified the Treaty on 7 January 1922 by 64 votes to 57. Those opposed (led by Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
) refused to accept the decision of the constitutionally elected Second Dáil and led their anti-Treaty forces into the Irish Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....
six months later, boycotting the Third Dáil
Third Dáil
The Third Dáil, also known as the Provisional Parliament or the Constituent Assembly, was:*the "provisional parliament" or "constituent assembly" of Southern Ireland from 9 August 1922 until 6 December 1922; and...
after it had been elected.
The Parliament of Southern Ireland functioned as such only once, when pragmatically and in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty, the House of Commons of Southern Ireland assembled in Dublin in January 1922 to ratify it.
Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty a provisional parliament, the Third Dáil
Third Dáil
The Third Dáil, also known as the Provisional Parliament or the Constituent Assembly, was:*the "provisional parliament" or "constituent assembly" of Southern Ireland from 9 August 1922 until 6 December 1922; and...
, was elected on 16 June 1922. This parliament was recognised both by pro-Treaty Sinn Féin and the British Government and so replaced both the Parliament of Southern Ireland and the Second Dáil with a single body. Ninety-four out of a total of 128 elected members of the new Dáil attended, thus democratically sanctioning it. The Irish Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....
started on 28 June 1922. The Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
or Saorstát Éireann was established on 6 December 1922. Northern Ireland voted to exclude itself on 8 December, as expected, leaving 26 counties out of 32 (Leinster
Leinster
Leinster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the east of Ireland. It comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Mide, Osraige and Leinster. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the historic fifths of Leinster and Mide gradually merged, mainly due to the impact of the Pale, which straddled...
, Connaught
Connacht
Connacht , formerly anglicised as Connaught, is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the west of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for...
and Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
plus three counties of Ulster) in the new Free State.
See also
- Sir Edward Carson
- John RedmondJohn RedmondJohn Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918...
- John DillonJohn DillonJohn Dillon was an Irish land reform agitator from Dublin, an Irish Home Rule activist, a nationalist politician, a Member of Parliament for over 35 years, and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party....
- William O'BrienWilliam O'BrienWilliam O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
- Parliament of Southern IrelandParliament of Southern IrelandThe Parliament of Southern Ireland was a home rule legislature set up by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence under the Fourth Home Rule Bill...
- Parliament of Northern IrelandParliament of Northern IrelandThe Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended...
- Solemn League and Covenant (Ulster)
- Unionists (Ireland)
- DevolutionDevolutionDevolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
- Curragh incidentCurragh IncidentThe Curragh Incident of 20 March 1914, also known as the Curragh Mutiny, occurred in the Curragh, County Kildare, Ireland. The Curragh Camp was then the main base for the British Army in Ireland, which at the time formed part of the United Kingdom....
- Easter RisingEaster RisingThe Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
- Irish Government Bill 1886Irish Government Bill 1886The Government of Ireland Bill 1886, commonly known as the First Home Rule Bill, was the first major attempt made by a British government to enact a law creating home rule for part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
(First Irish Home Rule Bill) - Gladstone's Irish Home Rule speech (beseech in its favour)
- Irish Government Bill 1893Irish Government Bill 1893The Government of Ireland Bill 1893 was the second attempt made by William Ewart Gladstone, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to enact a system of home rule for Ireland...
(Second Irish Home Rule Bill) - Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898The Local Government Act 1898 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, Wales and Scotland by legislation in 1888 and 1889...
- Parliament Act 1911Parliament Act 1911The Parliament Act 1911 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is constitutionally important and partly governs the relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords which make up the Houses of Parliament. This Act must be construed as one with the Parliament Act 1949...
- Government of Ireland Act 1920Government of Ireland Act 1920The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which partitioned Ireland. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or as the Fourth Home Rule Act.The Act was intended...
(Fourth Irish Home Rule Bill) - History of the Republic of IrelandHistory of the Republic of IrelandThe Irish state originally came into being in 1922 as the Irish Free State, a dominion of the British Commonwealth, having seceded from the United Kingdom under the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It comprises of 26 of Ireland's 32 counties...
- History of Ireland (1801–1922)