.jpg)
TheBuckingham Palace Conference, sometimes referred to as theBuckingham Palace Conference on Ireland, was aconference called inBuckingham Palace in 1914 by KingGeorge V to which the leaders ofIrish Nationalism, John Redmond andIrish Unionism Edward Carson, were invited to discuss plans to introduceIrish Home Rule and avert a feared civil war on the issue. The King's initiative brought the leaders of Nationalism and Unionism together for the first time in a conference.
Since the 1870s, a concerted campaign had been made by Irish nationalist leaders atWestminster, in particular byCharles Stewart Parnell, to haveHome Rule (regional self-government) introduced into Ireland. This demand, however, was opposed by the leaders of Irish Unionism, who feared being placed under aCatholic-Nationalist dominated Irish parliament inDublin. For Unionists, the ultimate safeguard to prevent Home Rule had been the existence of the power of theHouse of Lords to veto legislation. The Lords, with an inbuilt pro-UnionistConservative Party majority, exercised its veto, in 1893, to block theSecond Home Rule Bill.
As a result of a reduction of its powers under theParliament Act 1911, the Lords' ability to veto Bills was greatly restricted. In 1912 the government ofH. H. Asquith introduced theThird Home Rule Bill. Under the Parliament Act, the Lords could block a Bill for only three sessions. As a result, the Bill finally completed its passage and received theRoyal Assent in mid-1914.
The threat that the Bill would this time become law led to protests among Unionists. The leaders of the opposition Conservative Party opted to play the "Orange Card": in 1886,Lord Randolph Churchill had used the phrase:"Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right". In 1912, leaderBonar Law threatened to give support for whatever actions Unionists took, whether legal or illegal, to prevent home rule.
Illegal gun-running occurred among both unionists (at Larne) and nationalists (at Howth), and both sides openly organised mass militia movements (theUlster Volunteers and theIrish Volunteers respectively). Faced with what seemed to be imminentcivil war, King George – a strongHibernophile since his days as a naval officer based inCork – intervened to stop what be believed was the slide to civil war, and took the unprecedented step of inviting the leaders of both communities, along with the British government, to the Palace for a conference.
The conference met in Buckingham Palace between 21 and 24 July 1914. Though the issue of home rule had been on the political agenda since the 1870s, the 1914 conference was the first formal peace conference involving both Nationalists and Unionists. Those who attended were the Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith,Lloyd George, theIrish Parliamentary Party leaderJohn Redmond, his deputy,John Dillon, across the table the leader of theIrish Unionist Alliance,Edward Carson together withBonar Law,James Craig andLord Lansdowne. The Speaker of theHouse of Commons presided.[1]
By the second day Asquith saw that no agreement as to which counties were to be temporarily excluded was going to emerge. He wrote to an associate:
"I have rarely felt more helpless in any particular affair, an impasse with unspeakable consequences, upon a matter which to English eyes seems inconceivably small and to Irish eyes immeasurably big. Isn't it a real tragedy?"[2]
The conference broke up after three days without agreement. The issue was whether countiesFermanagh andTyrone would be part of a proposed north-eastern state. All sides, however, stated that it had been a useful engagement, with Unionists and Nationalists for the first time having meaningful discussions on how to allay their fears about the other. A limited understanding emerged between Carson and the Nationalists that if Ulster were to be excluded, in its entirety, the province should come in or out as a whole.[3] The conference was overtaken by developments in Europe. Eleven days after the conference ended, the King declared war on Germany and Britain entered World War I. Parliament voted for the Home Rule Act and for its suspension for the war's duration.[4]
A further attempt to reach an understanding with Ulster was to prove equally unsuccessful during the 1917–18Irish Convention. This conference was seen to be a 'waste of time,' as it produced no agreement or resolutions; people saw it as a time for each party to slander the other.
In retrospect, the conference was the first occasion where thePartition of Ireland was discussed as a concrete political option. At the time it was envisioned as involving continued British rule over the whole island, with one part included in the autonomous "Home Rule" and another part excluded from it, while partition as finally realized in 1922 involved creating an international border between theIrish Free State (laterIrish Republic) and the British ruled Northern Ireland. Still, the basic reason for the actual 1922 partition was the same as for the one discussed at Buckingham Palace eight years before – i.e. the total refusal of the Ulster Unionists to become part of a predominantly Irish Catholic entity, whether or not under an overall British rule.
The King's idea of hosting all-party talks on Ireland had echoes in later negotiations that produced the power-sharing executive in theSunningdale Agreement in the 1970s, and in the negotiations that produced theBelfast Agreement in the late 1990s.
King George intervened on a number of subsequent occasions on Ireland. In 1920 he made clear his opposition to the behaviour of theBlack and Tans paramilitary force being used by the British Government during theIrish War of Independence and unsuccessfully intervened to try to save the life ofhunger strikerTerence MacSwiney.[5] After theGovernment of Ireland Act 1920 was passed, he made a passionate appeal for reconciliation in Ireland at the opening of theParliament of Northern Ireland in 1921 which contributed to a truce between theIrish Republic and theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, paving the way for theAnglo-Irish Treaty.[6]
In 1932 he defused a row between thePresident of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State,Éamon de Valera, and theGovernor-General of the Irish Free State,James McNeill, by getting de Valera to withdraw a request for McNeill's dismissal, and then getting McNeill to take early retirement.[5] De Valera later admitted that the Irish government's criticism of McNeill had been unwarranted.[citation needed]
| Premiership | .jpg) | |
|---|---|---|
| General elections | ||
| Constituencies | ||
| Family |
| |
| Career | ||
| See also | ||
| Premiership |  | |
|---|---|---|
| General elections | ||
| Career |
| |
| Parties | ||
| Constituenies | ||
| Family |
| |
| Cultural depictions |
| |
| Related articles | ||