The Irish Dominion League was an Irish political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 in 1919–21 which advocated 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 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 British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

, and opposed 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...

 into separate southern and northern jurisdictions. It attracted modest support from middle-class Dubliners of moderate unionist

Unionism in Ireland

Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...

 and nationalist

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...

 backgrounds, anxious to achieve a compromise in the face of the escalating conflict

Irish War of Independence

The Irish War of Independence , Anglo-Irish War, Black and Tan War, or Tan War was a guerrilla war mounted by the Irish Republican Army against the British government and its forces in Ireland. It began in January 1919, following the Irish Republic's declaration of independence. Both sides agreed...

 between the Irish Republican Army

Irish Republican Army

The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...

 and the British.

The League was launched in June 1919 by Horace Plunkett, with a 12-point manifesto signed by Plunkett and 43 others, including many who had participated in 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...

 of 1917–18. Plunkett had founded the Irish Reconstruction Association at the time of the November 1918 election, after the failure of the Irish Convention. The new League merged the Irish Reconstruction Association with the Irish Centre Party, founded months earlier by Stephen Gwynn, formerly of the pro-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....

 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...

. The Unionist Anti-Partition League of St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton

St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton

William St John Fremantle Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton, KP, PC , known as St John Brodrick until 1907 and as The Viscount Midleton between 1907 and 1920, was a British Conservative Party politician....

 discussed joining but decided the platform was too nationalist. The founders also approached 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....

 but were rebuffed.

The manifesto was based on an earlier "Proposals for an Irish Settlement" drafted anonymously by Diarmuid Coffey and Frank Cruise O'Brien (father of Conor Cruise O'Brien

Conor Cruise O'Brien

Conor Cruise O'Brien often nicknamed "The Cruiser", was an Irish politician, writer, historian and academic. Although his opinion on the role of Britain in Northern Ireland changed over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, he always acknowledge values of, as he saw, the two irreconcilable traditions...

). Thomas Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon

Thomas Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon

Thomas Spring Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon KP was an Irish peer. He became Baron Monteagle of Brandon in 1866 on the death of his grandfather Thomas Spring Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon and was appointed a Knight of the Order of St Patrick on 9 February 1885....

 introduced a Dominion of Ireland Bill in the 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....

 in 1920 in line with the League's views. The government of David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

 proceeded instead with its own bill, which became 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...

. The League was dissolved in November 1921. The following year Warre B. Wells wrote, "The Irish Dominion League did not attract a great deal of active support in Ireland, but it was hardly expected to do so inasmuch as it was chiefly a propagandist organisation".

Irish Statesman

The Irish Statesman

Irish Statesman

The Irish Statesman was a weekly journal promoting the views of the Irish Dominion League. It ran from 27 June 1919 to June 1920, edited by Warre B. Wells and with contributions from W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and George William Russell...

, a weekly journal promoting the views of the Irish Dominion League, ran from 27 June 1919 to June 1920, edited by Warre B. Wells and with contributions from W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

, and George William Russell

George William Russell

George William Russell who wrote under the pseudonym Æ , was an Irish nationalist, writer, editor, critic, poet, and painter. He was also a mystical writer, and centre of a group of followers of theosophy in Dublin, for many years.-Organisor:Russell was born in Lurgan, County Armagh...

. The League's manifesto was first published in the journal's first issue. The title was revived in 1923, after the League was defunct, with the new series running till 1930.