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The Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned forself-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement ofIrish nationalism from 1870 to the end ofWorld War I.
Isaac Butt founded theHome Government Association in 1870. This was succeeded in 1873 by theHome Rule League, and in 1882 by theIrish Parliamentary Party. These organisations campaigned for home rule in theHouse of Commons of the United Kingdom introduced theFirst Home Rule Bill in 1886, but the bill was defeated in the House of Commons after a split in the Liberal Party. After Parnell's death, Gladstone introduced theSecond Home Rule Bill in 1893; it passed the Commons but was defeated in theHouse of Lords. After theremoval of the Lords' veto in 1911, theThird Home Rule Bill was introduced in 1912, leading to theHome Rule Crisis. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I it was enacted, but implementationwas suspended until the conclusion of the war.
Following theEaster Rising of 1916, particularly thearrests and executions that followed it, public support shifted from the Home Rule movement to the more radicalSinn Féin party. In the1918 General Election the Irish Parliamentary Party suffered a crushing defeat with only a handful of MPs surviving, effectively dealing a death blow to the Home Rule movement. The elected Sinn Féin MPs were not content merely with home rule within the framework of the United Kingdom; they instead set up a revolutionary legislature,Dáil Éireann, and declared Ireland an independent republic. Britain passed a Fourth Home Rule Bill, theGovernment of Ireland Act 1920, aimed at creating separate parliaments for Northern Ireland andSouthern Ireland. The former was established in 1921, and the territory continues to this day as part of the United Kingdom, but the latter never functioned. Following theAnglo-Irish Treaty that ended theAnglo-Irish War, twenty-six of Ireland's thirty-twocounties became, in December 1922, theIrish Free State, adominion within theBritish Empire which later evolved into the present Republic of Ireland.
Under theAct of Union 1800, the separate Kingdoms ofIreland andGreat Britain were merged on 1 January 1801 to form theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.[1] 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 ofDaniel O'Connell and hisRepeal Association to repeal the Act of Union and restore theKingdom of Ireland, without breaking the monarchical connection with Great Britain (i.e.,personal union). The movement collapsed when O'Connell called off a meeting atClontarf, Dublin, which had been banned by the authorities.[2]
Until the 1870s, most Irish voters elected members of the main British political parties, theLiberals and theConservatives, as theirmembers of parliament (MPs). The Conservatives, for example, won a majority in the1859 general election in Ireland. Conservatives and (after 1886)Liberal Unionists fiercely resisted any dilution of the Act of Union, and in 1891 formed theIrish Unionist Alliance to oppose home rule.
The term "Home Rule" (Irish:Rialtas Dúchais[3]), first used in the 1860s, meant an Irish legislature with responsibility for domestic affairs. It was variously interpreted, from the 1870s was seen to be part of a federal system for the United Kingdom: a domestic Parliament for Ireland while the Imperial Parliament atWestminster would continue to have responsibility for Imperial affairs. The Republican concept as represented by theFenians and theIrish Republican Brotherhood, strove to achieve total separation from Great Britain, if necessary by physical force, and complete autonomy for Ireland. For a while they were prepared to co-operate withHome Rulers under the"New Departure". In 1875John O'Connor Power told a New York audience that "[Ireland] has elected a body of representatives whose mission is simply – I almost said solely – but certainly whose mission is particularly to offer unrelenting hostility to every British Ministry while one link of the imperial chain remains to fetter the constitutional freedom of the Irish nation."[4]Charles Stewart Parnell sought through the "constitutional movement", as an interim measure a parliament inDublin with limited legislative powers. ForUnionists, Home Rule meant a Dublin parliament dominated by theCatholic Church to the detriment of Ireland's economic progress, a threat to their cultural identity as both British and Irish and possible discrimination against them as a religious minority.[5][6][7] In England theLiberal Party underWilliam Ewart Gladstone was fully committed to introducing Home Rule whereas theConservatives tried to alleviate any need for it through "constructive unionism". This was chiefly embodied by the passing acts of parliament and enacting ministerial decisions viewed as addressing Ireland's problems and political demands during Conservative periods of government such asBalfour's decision asChief Secretary for Ireland to create theCongested Districts Board, his earlier push for the1885 Purchase of Land Act and the1887 Land Law (Ireland) Act which expanded the Liberal's1881 loan programme for small farmers to purchase lands (the programme overall was in response to thePlan of Campaign by Irish MPs), or the later Conservative government's implementation of theLocal Government (Ireland) Act of 1898.
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Former Conservative barristerIsaac Butt was instrumental in fostering links between Constitutional and Revolutionary nationalism through his representation of members of theFenian Society in court. In May 1870, he established a new moderate nationalist movement, theIrish Home Government Association. In November 1873, under the chairmanship ofWilliam Shaw, it reconstituted itself as theHome Rule League. The League's goal was limited self-government for Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. In the1874 general election, League-affiliated candidates won 53 seats in Parliament.
Butt died in 1879. In 1880, a radical young Protestant landowner,Charles Stewart Parnell became chairman, and in the1880 general election, the League won 63 seats. In 1882, Parnell turned the Home Rule League into theIrish Parliamentary Party (IPP), a formally organized party which became a major political force. The IPP came to dominate Irish politics, to the exclusion of the previous Liberal, Conservative, and Unionist parties that had existed there. In the1885 general election, the IPP won 85 out of the 103 Irish seats; another Home Rule MP was elected forLiverpool Scotland.
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Two attempts were made byLiberals under British Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone to enact home rule bills. Gladstone, impressed by Parnell, had become personally committed to granting Irish home rule in 1885. With a three-hourIrish Home Rule speech Gladstone beseeched parliament to pass theGovernment of Ireland Bill 1886, and grant home rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to do so one day in humiliation. The bill was defeated in the Commons by 30 votes.
The Bill led toserious riots in Belfast during the summer and autumn of 1886 in which many were killed, and was the cause of a split in the Liberal Party. TheLiberal Unionists allied withLord Salisbury's Conservatives on the issue of Home Rule until formally merging in 1912. The defeat of the bill caused Gladstone to lose office.
After returning to government after the1892 general election Gladstone, made a second attempt to introduce Irish Home Rule following Parnell's death with theGovernment of Ireland Bill 1893. This bill was drafted in secret and considered flawed.[by whom?] It was steered throughthe Commons byWilliam O'Brien, with a majority of 30 votes, only to be defeated in theConservative's pro-unionist majority controlledHouse of Lords.
In 1894, the new Liberal leaderLord Rosebery adopted the policy of promising Salisbury that the majority vote of English MPs would have a veto on any future Irish Home Rule Bills. The Nationalist movement divided in the 1890s. The Liberals lost the 1895 general election and their Conservative opponents remained in power until 1905.
The four Irish Home Rulebills introduced in theHouse of Commons of the United Kingdom during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were intended to grant self-government and national autonomy to the whole of Ireland within theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and reverse parts of theActs of Union 1800. Of the two that passed theParliament of the United Kingdom the Third Bill, enacted as theGovernment of Ireland Act 1914 and then suspended, while the Fourth Bill, enacted as theGovernment of Ireland Act 1920 established two separate Home Rule territories in Ireland, of which the one was implemented by theParliament of Northern Ireland, but the secondParliament of Southern Ireland was not implemented in the rest of Ireland. The bills were:
In 1920 the unionist peerLord Monteagle of Brandon proposed his own Dominion of Ireland Bill in the House of Lords, at the same time as the Government bill was passing through the house.[8] This bill would have given a united Ireland extensive home rule over all domestic matters as a dominion within the empire, with foreign affairs and defence remaining the responsibility of the Westminster government. Lord Monteagle's bill was defeated at second reading.[8]
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Following the 1895 general election, the Conservatives were in power for ten years. The significantLocal Government (Ireland) Act 1898 (following the English Act of 1888) introduced for the first time the enfranchisement of local electors, bringing about a system of localised home rule in many areas. In the1906 general election the Liberals were returned with an overall majority, but Irish Home Rule was not on their agenda until after the second1910 general election when the nationalistIrish Parliamentary Party under its leaderJohn Redmond held the balance of power in the House of Commons. Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith came to an understanding with Redmond, that if he supported his move to break the power of the Lords, Asquith would then in return introduce a new Home Rule Bill. TheParliament Act 1911 forced the Lords to agree to a curtailment of their powers. Now their unlimited veto was replaced with a delaying one lasting only two years.
TheThird Home Rule Bill introduced in 1912 was as in 1886 and 1893 ferociously opposed byUlster unionists, for whom Home Rule was synonymous withRome Rule as well as being indicative of economic decline and a threat to their cultural and industrial identity.[10]Edward Carson andJames Craig, leaders of the unionists, were instrumental in organising theUlster Covenant against the "coercion of Ulster", at which time Carson reviewed Orange and Unionist volunteers in various parts of Ulster. These were united into a single body known as theUlster Volunteers at the start of 1912.[11] This was followed in the south by the formation of theIrish Volunteers to restrain Ulster. Both Nationalists and Republicans, except for theAll-for-Ireland Party, brushed unionist concerns aside with "no concessions for Ulster", treating their threat as a bluff. The Act receivedRoyal Assent and was placed on the statute books on 18 September 1914, but under theSuspensory Act was deferred for no longer than the duration ofWorld War I which had broken out in August. The widely held assumption at the time was that the war would be short lived.
With the participation ofIreland in the First World War, the southern Irish Volunteers split into the largerNational Volunteers and followed Redmond's call to support theAllied war effort to ensure the future implementation of Home Rule by voluntarily enlisting inIrish regiments of the10th (Irish) Division or the16th (Irish) Division of Kitchener'sNew Service Army. The men of the Ulster Volunteers joined the36th (Ulster) Division. Between 1914 and 1918 Irish regiments suffered severe losses.
A core element of the remaining Irish Volunteers who opposed the nationalist constitutional movement towards independence and the Irish support for the war effort, staged theEaster Rising of 1916 in Dublin. Initially widely condemned in both Britain and Ireland, theBritish government's mishandling of the aftermath of the Rising, including the rushed executions of its leaders byGeneral Maxwell, led to a rise in popularity for anIrish republican movement namedSinn Féin, a small separatist party taken over by the survivors of the Easter Rising. Britain made two futile attempts to implement Home Rule, both of which failed because of Ulster unionists' protesting against its proposed implementation for the whole island of Ireland; first after the Rising and then at the end of theIrish Convention of 1917–1918. With the collapse of the allied front during theGerman spring offensive andOperation Michael, the British Army had a serious manpower shortage, and the Cabinet agreed on 5 April to enact Home Rule immediately, linked in with a "dual policy" of extendingconscription to Ireland. This signalled the end of a political era,[12] which resulted in a swing of public opinion towards Sinn Féin andphysical force separatism. Interest in Home Rule began to fade as a result.
After the end of the war in November 1918 Sinn Féin secured a majority of 73 Irish seats in thegeneral election, with 25 of these seats taken uncontested. The IPP was decimated, falling to only six seats; it disbanded soon afterward.
In January 1919 twenty-seven Sinn Féin MPs assembled in Dublin and proclaimed themselves unilaterally as anindependent parliament of anIrish Republic. This was ignored by Britain. TheIrish War of Independence (1919–1921) ensued.
Britain went ahead with its commitment to implement Home Rule by passing a new Fourth Home Rule Bill, theGovernment of Ireland Act 1920, largely shaped by theWalter Long Committee which followed findings contained in the report of the Irish Convention. Long, a firm unionist, felt free to shape Home Rule in Unionism's favour, and formaliseddividing Ireland (andUlster) into Northern Ireland andSouthern Ireland. The latter never functioned, but was replaced under theAnglo-Irish Treaty by theIrish Free State which later became the Republic of Ireland.[13]
The Home RuleParliament of Northern Ireland came into being in June 1921. At its inauguration, inBelfast City Hall, KingGeorge V made a famous appeal drafted by Prime MinisterLloyd George for Anglo-Irish and north–south reconciliation. The Anglo-Irish Treaty had provided for Northern Ireland's Parliament to opt out of the new Free State, which was a foregone conclusion. TheIrish Civil War (1922–1923) followed.
The Parliament of Northern Ireland continued in operation until 30 March 1972, when it was suspended in favour of direct rule by theNorthern Ireland Office duringThe Troubles. It was subsequently abolished under theNorthern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. Various versions of theNorthern Ireland Assembly re-established home rule in 1973–74, 1982–86, intermittently from 1998 to 2002, and from 2007 onward. The Assembly attempts to balance the interests of the unionist and republican factions through a "power sharing" agreement.
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