HOME RULE                                Click here to download Word doc

Today’s lecture is on the Irish Home rule bills, I have handed out a sheet which explains to the people who are not conversant with the term home rule what it means in general terms.

There were three attempts to get a Home Rule bill through the British parliament.  The first was in 1886, the second in 1893, and the third stretched from 1911 to 1914. Because the Home rule period spanned nearly thirty years and because the fight was mainly fought in the British parliament at Westminster it is necessary as I go along to sketch in the various British political events which were the background to the home rule story.

As you will probably know by now the demand for constitutional self-government, as opposed to physical force, had a long history in Ireland. Daniel O'Connell, with his repeal Association in 1840, had led a long fight for repeal of the Union. His aim was to go back to the Irish parliament, which had existed before the Union with Britain in 1801. This was taken up by Isaac Butt in the 1870s under the name of the Home Rule League but all these attempts were to end in failure. It was not until the election of 1880 that a chain of circumstances began which led to home rule looking like a distinct possibility.

The election of 1880 brought together two remarkable men. One of those men, who you will know about, was , the Irish Protestant landlord, who after the 1880 election became the leader of 63 Irish members of the British parliament. Parnell was soon to weld these members into a united, disciplined and determined Irish parliamentary party. The other man was  who, after the 1880 election, became prime minister of Britain for the second time.

Gladstone served a total of 61 years in parliament and was Prime Minister on four occasions, the last time at the age of 83 years. He was first elected Prime Minister in 1868. When the results of that election came in he was wielding an axe chopping down a tree—this was a favourite hobby of Gladstones. He stopped chopping and turned to a guest and said earnestly 'My mission is to pacify Ireland'. This he thought he could do in a couple of years and then retire to study his great love, which was the study of religion.

Gladstone's initial attempts to pacify Ireland resulted in among other things the Disastablishment of the church of Ireland, which the Catholics had long wished for. He also attempted to do something about the land situation in Ireland with his Irish land act of 1870.

His government was finally defeated in Parliament on a bill to set up a Roman Catholic university in 1873. And for some time he retired from parliament.

When the Liberals won the 1880 election he returned as Prime Minister but trouble with Ireland beset the whole of his period in government, it was the heyday of Parnell's parliamentary obstruction and the Land league's attempts to win justice. Gladstone was finally defeated in the early hours of 9 June 1885, after the conservatives and the Irish combined to defeat his government. Its true to say the Liberals were not sorry to be out of government, because their last days had been spent in a hopeless cabinet deadlock of whether or not to renew the crimes act, which was a coercive act applied to Ireland.

By this time, 1885, Parnell had formed the Irish party into a disciplined and determined group within the British parliament and they were determined to win self-government for Ireland by constitutional means. Both English parties realised they would have to come to some sort of accommodation with Parnell if they were to hold power.

After Gladstone's defeat the Conservatives formed a minority government—with the support of the Irish party—and they remained in government until the end of 1885, when an election was due.

The results of that election saw the Liberals winning  Conservatives 249 and Parnell's party 86. In other words neither of the British parties could govern without Parnell's support. All sorts of political manoeuvring went on in that December of 1885 but time does not allow me to go into it, suffice to say that Gladstone formed a government and set about formulating . He immediately encountered opposition from within his own party. The Liberal party at that time was divided into two factions. One of these factions was loosely under the leadership of  and were known as, Radicals. The others were the remnants of the once great Whig party under the leadership of Lord Hartington. Both these groups were totally opposed to granting Home Rule to Ireland. There was various reasons for this but suffice to say that the Whigs were to prove not to be true Liberals when it came to Ireland. May I suggest that the reasons for the radicals and the Whigs opposing Home Rule is an area you may like to look at in detail and again arrive at your own conclusions. The secondary literature on this subject discusses many reasons for their actions.

Anyway as the time drew closer to the Home rule bill being introduced the Radicals and Whig sections of the Liberal party stepped up their opposition and vowed to vote against it even though they knew that that action would split their party.

Gladstone pressed on grimly, only conceding small points in order to attempt to win over the dissidents. The Government of Ireland Bill (which all Home rule bills were called) when it was finally presented to a packed House of Commons on 8 April 1886 was hardly revolutionary. The Irish were going to be allowed to govern themselves except on matters affecting the Crown, foreign policy, defence, customs and excise, religious establishments, posts, and coinage. (one wonders just what they would have been left to govern). Also the Irish were not to have any members in the British parliament. Regardless of his initial reasons for opposing the Bill, Joseph Chamberlain insisted that he could not accept the bill if the Irish had no representation at Westminster because he felt that this would lead to complete separation. This became the final sticking point, although it was conceded by Gladstone at the end.

Gladstone piloted the bill skillfully, delivering five major set speeches, but it was all to no avail as some of the radicals and most of the Whigs combined with the Conservatives and defeated the bill . The dissenters from the Liberal party moved over to the Conservative camp and the Conservative Party for many years after became known as the Unionist party. Gladstone had seriously miscalculated the opposition within his own party but nevertheless he had tried to bring justice to Ireland.

In the long, unhappy history of Anglo-Irish relations few events are more tragic than the rejection of the first Home Rule in 1886. The opportunity of settlement had come, perhaps the greatest of English statesmen was ready to grasp it, but the chance passed by through failures inherent in human nature and miscalculations by many including the two major protagonists.

In the aftermath of the home rule defeat Gladstone dissolved the parliament and called another election at which he was severely beaten.  The electorate had voted against Home rule and with the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, which the dissidents were now called, holding 394 seats against the Liberals and Irish nationalists 276 Home rule was shelved for the next 6 years and the Liberal party was irrevocably split.

In 1892 the Liberal party won the  election and, at the age of 83, the indefatigable Gladstone once again set about , which was almost similar to the first. The main difference was that 80 members from Ireland would sit at Westminster, voting only on imperial matters or on matters that affected the Irish nation. Gladstone facetiously remarked that that would perhaps be 99% of what came before the imperial parliament. The campaign of opposition in parliament was intensive. The campaign was threefold, with the Conservatives concentrating on the unfairness of’ the bill’s provision in regard to England and the English taxpayer; the Liberal Unionists on the danger to the empire and prestige of the United Kingdom; while the Ulster Unionists emphasised the danger to Irish loyalists.

The intensity of Unionist opposition can be gauged by the amount of time spent on the bill, which occupied parliament for eighty-two days. The nature of their opposition was simply to obstruct the passage of the bill by any possible means.

 It was all to no avail because this time Gladstone had a united party behind him, and in 1893 he easily won a majority vote for his second home rule bill in the House of commons. However, when the bill went to the House of Lords, it was just as easily chucked it by the crushing majority of . Gladstone wanted to call an election and risk all on an appeal to the people but his followers would have none of that, eventually Gladstone retired from politics ostensibly on a dispute over naval estimates but in reality because of his disappointment with his failure to carry home rule.

At the next election in 1895 the Conservatives came into power and all hope of Home rule disappeared. Anyway the British people were tired of it, and as Gladstone and Parnell had both gone (Parnell had died in 1891) and the Irish party had split into two camps over the downfall of Parnell in a divorce case, home rule quickly faded into the background.

Home rule still remained a plank of the Liberal's policy but they were out of office until 1906. In that year they won a landslide victory, the conservatives, or unionists as they were now known, held only 157 seats against the Liberals 377. The Irish party—re-united again under John Redmond—won 83 seats, but the Liberals still had a majority over the all other parties combined. Home Rule had not been an issue at the election, and with such a majority it seemed unlikely to figure prominently in the next parliament. It seems that the Liberals only supported Home rule when they needed the Irish.  Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who was the Liberal leader at this time, had stated the Liberal's Home Rule Policy on 23 November 1905 as being 'step by step', by which he effectively meant that it was to be postponed as long as possible.

Now that the Liberals had a massive majority in the Commons the House of Lords began acting in a transparently partisan way. For the almost twenty years of mainly Conservative rule the House of Lords had caused no trouble at all; now that the Liberals had an overwhelming majority in the lower house, the peers became the chosen and willing instruments of Conservative leaders who were powerless in the Commons. Many of the Liberal government's important plans and obligations were defeated in the House of Lords. An education bill in 1906, a plural voting bill in the same year, a series of land reform bills in 1907, and a new licensing bill in 1908. Needless to say, Irish Home Rule would have met a similar fate had the government dared to attempt to introduce it in this climate.

In late 1909 the lords rejected the budget and that was the last straw to the Liberals, so they called an election for January 1910.  At that election the Liberals won 275 seats against the conservatives 273, but 82 Irish members and 40 members from the emerging labour party now held the balance. The Liberals again formed a government, with the support of the Irish, and they set out to reduce the power of the Lords. If the power of the Lords could be curtailed there was a great chance of the Irish finally getting home rule.

The Liberals brought in a parliament bill, which aimed to reduce the power of the Lords, but of course the lords threw it out. Another election was called in December 1910 but it produced almost an identical result as the previous January’s. Nevertheless, after a long protracted fight and a threat by the Liberals to create a mass of Liberal peers, the Liberals managed to get the parliament bill through the Lords in August 1911. The Parliament bill provided that any bill which was passed by the commons three times and rejected three times by the lords would automatically become law. The historic power of the Lords was now gone and the way was open for home rule. The Liberals together with the Irish had a large majority in the commons and if the lords rejected the home rule bill three times it would only have to be repassed by the commons three times for it to become law.

The Liberals under Prime Minister  set out to bring in a third .  It would be unfair to conclude that the Liberals only brought in a home rule bill in 1911 because of their dependence on Irish votes but it was certainly a factor. Winston Churchill—a member of the Liberal government—conceded many years later that it was the power of the 'eighty Irish votes [that] was the spur which alone extorted action' on Home Rule in 1911.

The Cabinet committee on Home Rule, which was set up, took a leisurely approach to the formulation of the Home Rule Bill. They deliberated for almost a year before presenting their bill to the Irish leaders. Incidentally the Irish leaders were never consulted during these discussions.

In spite of the time taken to produce the bill it was very similar to Gladstone's 1893 bill. It provided for the establishment of an Irish parliament, consisting of a nominated Senate and an elected House of Commons, subject to the supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament. The Irish Parliament was granted general powers to legislate for the 'peace, order and good government of Ireland', except for those subjects specifically excluded. The latter included matters concerning the Crown, the making of war and peace, the army and navy, defence, treaties and foreign trade. This list followed the 1893 Bill very closely, but an entirely new set of' reserved matters, such as land purchase, old age pensions and national insurance, were necessary to deal with social reforms since 1893.

As in Gladstone's bills there was no provision for any special treatment of Ulster. In fact, in spite of warnings of likely Ulster resistance to home rule from the then Irish Chief Secretary, Augustine Birrell, there is no evidence that the cabinet ever considered Ulster until February 1912 when Lloyd George and Churchill presented cabinet with a formal proposal for Ulster exclusion.

By this time the Ulster Unionists were starting to get organised in their resistance to Home rule. The Protestants in Ulster, the Northern province of Ireland's four provinces, were totally opposed to any form of separate Irish government. Many of Ulster's population were descendants of settlers who had come from England and Scotland in the 17th Century. Separated by history, religion, and economics from the Gaelic, Catholic South, they considered themselves more British than Irish, and they wanted to maintain the Union with Britain. The British Conservative party was also opposed to Home Rule, the maintenance of the Union was one of the central planks of their political philosophy. They felt that the granting of self-government to Ireland would eventually lead to the break up of the British Empire.

The Unionists knew that Home Rule could be passed regardless of their opposition in the Lords. However the Home Rule Bill would take two years to pass through all stages, and in this time the Unionists could hope to force a dissolution or alternatively force the Government to come to the conclusion that passing a Home Rule Bill would be an act of folly. The Ulster Unionists were led by Sir  who represented Dublin University in the House of Commons.  Although he was a Southern Unionist, Carson was elected leader of the Ulster Unionist parliamentarians when Walter Long vacated the post in February 1910. Carson eventually wore the mantle of leader of all the Ulster resistance to Home Rule. He was an ideal choice for this role, since he was absolutely devoted to the maintenance of the Union. In later years he recalled, 'From the day I first entered Parliament, devotion to the Union has been the guiding star of my political life’. Carson told his fellow Unionist, James Craig, that he was 'not for a mere game of bluff', but was 'prepared to make any sacrifice—my time, business, money, or even my liberty' to defeat Home Rule. Carson addressed a huge meeting at Craigavon, Craig's residence near Belfast, on 23 September 1911, and told the vast crowd that with the help of God we 'will yet defeat the most nefarious conspiracy that has ever been hatched against a free people.' He also told them that the moment Home Rule was passed they must be prepared to form a government for Ulster. Two days later the unionists made plans to frame a constitution for a provisional government to take over in Ulster in the event of home rule being passed.

The Conservative opposition quickly saw the political advantages in playing the orange card. When  become leader of the Conservative Party on 13 November 1911, Carson gained a formidable ally. Bonar Law was born in Canada of Scottish Presbyterian stock and felt deeply his compatriots desire not to be ruled by Roman Catholics. He was deeply devoted to the Ulster cause, and his ascension to the leadership was to have a far-reaching effect on subsequent events.

The Liberals were now being brought face to face with Ulster intransigence and just before Asquith introduced the third home rule bill in April 1912 a mass meeting was held at Balmoral, near Belfast, attended by 100,000 people including Bonar Law and seventy English, Welsh and Scottish members of Parliament.

More embarrassment was caused when the Ulster Unionists staged a theatrical signing of a Solemn League and Covenant in September 1912.  It was eventually signed by 500,000 people, who pledged themselves to use all means necessary to defeat Home Rule. Unionist obstruction in the House of Commons became so strong that Asquith was forced to introduce the closure accompanied by the guillotine which meant that discussion would cease at a set hour each day.

In December 1912 Carson placed an amendment to the Home Rule Bill on the order paper to exclude the whole of Ulster, but the government rejected it.

When Parliament was prorogued on 15 August 1913 the Home Rule Bill had passed through the Commons twice and had been rejected twice by the Lords. Under the terms of the Parliament Act it would become law when passed once more in the Commons. The Unionists, confronted with what looked like a fait accompli, started to put pressure on the King. To them, the King, if he exercised his power of dismissal or dissolution was the only person who could prevent Home Rule. In response to the Unionist arguments the King wrote two memoranda to Asquith on 11 August and 22 September. Asquith replied arguing that the Royal veto had not been exercised for two hundred years and that the King should accept his ministers' advice. (shades of our 1975 constitutional crisis) The King remained agitated and continued to receive conflicting advice from various sources. He invited various politicians to Balmoral and suggested to them that an all-party conference should be held at the earliest possible date. Meanwhile by now a shift in opinion towards Ulster exclusion was apparent in the Cabinet. The Cabinet meeting on 11 November discussed two recent by-election setbacks, and Asquith's reported on his meeting with Bonar Law suggesting that Bonar Law was 'ready to come to a compromise, if possible.' Lloyd George chose this time to introduce a scheme to temporarily exclude Ulster, with automatic inclusion at the end of five or six years. The proposal met with a good deal of support. However Redmond was horrified at the proposals and told Asquith that neither the Nationalists nor the Unionists would accept it.

Asquith and Bonar Law had held three secret meetings in an unsuccessful attempt to solve the problem. On 9 March 1914, when moving the second Reading of the Home Rule Bill, Asquith introduced an Amending Bill providing for any county in Ireland to vote for exclusion for six years but Carson contemptuously rejected Asquith's amending Bill with the words, 'We do not want a sentence of death with a stay of execution for six years'

In April 1914 the Ulster Volunteers managed to land a considerable amount of rifles and ammunition at Larne in Ulster and the situation was now becoming quite serious.

Meanwhile the Home Rule Bill passed its Third Reading in the Commons on 25 May. However, the Lords amended the Bill to exclude all the nine counties of Ulster permanently. It looked as if a complete deadlock had been reached. Asquith now decided that it was time for the all-party conference, which the King had been suggesting for some time. Europe was moving steadily towards war by now, and this was casting a shadow over the whole Irish imbroglio. Asquith was also under the further pressure of having to pass the Home Rule Bill by the end of the 1914 session, which was necessary under the provisions of the Parliament Act.

The all-party conference, which the King had called, held four meetings at Buckingham Palace between 21 and 24 July, but ended in failure Asquith sadly reported that 'nothing could have been more amicable in tone or more desperately futile in result.'

The conference met for the last time on 24 July. A Cabinet meeting was held that afternoon at which the government desperately searched for a way out of the imbroglio. It was at this point that Sir Edward Grey advised the Cabinet of the ultimatum Serbia had received from Austria-Hungary and in Churchill's famous words, 'The parishes of Fermanagh and Tyrone faded back into the mists and squalls of Ireland. The First World War had begun and Ireland was forgotten about.

In a brave speech on 3 August, Redmond pledged Ireland's support for the war, and promised that Irishmen would defend Ireland's shores.  However, Redmond wanted the Home Rule Bill to be enacted, and his pledge was based on the assumption that the Bill would be enacted before the end of the session.  Redmond wanted the Royal assent for the Bill with the provision that an Amending Bill would be introduced in the winter. The Unionists were totally opposed to putting the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book.  Carson told Redmond that 'if the Government dared to put the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book, he and the Tory Party would obstruct the Appropriation Bill and revive all the bitterness of the controversy.

Asquith vacillated over a decision but finally on 18 September the Government of Ireland Act was given the Royal Assent with two provisos; the first was that it was to be suspended until a date to be determined not being later than the end of the war; secondly it would not come into operation until special provision was made for Ulster in an Amending Bill.

The Act never came into force. By 1918 the whole Anglo-Irish situation had changed. The Dublin uprising of 1916 and the rise of Sinn Fein had changed everything. Behind the symbolic facade of the Dail more traditional modes of republicanism were forming.  The members of the Dail reaffirmed the Republic which had been proclaimed during the 1916 Rising, and they also declared that a state of war existed which would only end when Ireland was evacuated by the armed forces of Britain.

The lesson that came out of the whole home rule saga was basically that the English Liberals, particularly Gladstone, acted with good intentions but only when they were forced to. However, the English Liberals and the Irish nationalists saw the distant scene in sharply contrasting colours. The Liberals never considered Ireland to be a separate nation, to all shades of English political life the Union was sacrosanct, and they failed to comprehend the existence of a distinctive Irish outlook. The Irish, for their part, no more wanted their affairs to be determined by high minded English Liberals than they wanted them determined by the indigenous ascendancy establishment of which many of the Irish party were part. The whole home rule saga is a story of one British party's wavering and ineffectual allegiance to the principle of self-government to Ireland. It is the story of single-minded Irish determination to achieve self-government. It is a story of violent controversy and Ulster resistance, in which statesmanlike vision and abysmal ignorance of Irish life vied with intrigue and mean betrayal to produce a picture of bewildering contrasts.

I would like to conclude by pointing out that Northern Ireland was granted a form of Home rule in 1919, it was the only part of Ireland to be granted Home Rule. Ironically, this was the very part of Ireland that had fought against home rule and had never wanted it. but maybe that is also something you may wish to look at for yourselves.