Irish Home Rule

- Difficult and Bitter' relations between Ireland since 12thC (Lynch) - intensified in 19thC

- Home Rule, some level of devolved government for Ireland, considered a domestic issue

- Gladstone - great liberal - but Home Rule because of expediency?

- Parnell - deep hatred of the English, a nationalist hero? Created a sense of Ireland (A.J. P Taylor)

- Home Rule defeated 1886, 1893, 1912-1914 (curtailed by outbreak of war)

- Events of Ireland - another case of British Imperialism?

- Is home rule just another part of Gladstone's reforms or did he do it for political expediency 

- The rebellion of 1798 as our starting point, but need to bear in mind:
1. Religion - 90% of the Irish population Roman Catholic
2. Plantation Policy
3. Penal Laws
4. Economic Laws
5. Governing structures

- All add to growing enmity 

1798

- Revolutionary "fervor"

- Society of United Irishmen

- England vs. France - Ireland as pawn for France to get to England

- Suppression, but sense of Irish grievance continued to grow

1800-1801

- Formally made Ireland part of UK

- Catholic "emancipation"

- Short-term policy

- Daniel O'Connell

- O'Connell tries to extent Catholic rights - to "test the union"

- One of many "great individuals"

- Success: Tithe Act 1838: tithes payable on properties, not earnings, theoretically eased the burden on the peasantry

- Tenant farmers - basic self-sufficiency - no plan "B"

- Fungus phythopthera infestans arrives in 1845 - created the great famine (1845-1847). Natural disaster, but British response far from helpful. British indifference and landlord obstinacy?

1. Laissez-faire (consistent and contemporary economic thinking)

2. Corn Laws (1846) - "Soup laws", but infrastructure of 19thC not able to institute welfare reforms

3. Outcome: population decrease, 1840: 8 million, 1900: 4 million - exacerbating existing problems

- Irish nationalism becoming increasingly militant

- Land League formed in 1879, wanted to break the grip of indifferent landlords - would retaliate violently to evictions - architect of this Charles Stewart Parnell

- 'while no Irish leader of the nineteenth century has been so intensively studied, none remains so enigmatic and inaccessible.' (Lyons: 1973)

- Both wanted to resolve "the Irish question" - but to their own satisfaction

- Gladstone first becomes PM in 1868 (until 1874), liberal grandee - 'the state of Ireland after seven hundred years of our tutelage is an intolerable disgrace' Wants to 'pacify Ireland'. 'restless, reformist zeal' (Smith)

- Metaphor of the Upas Tree

- Legislation: Disestablishment of Irish Church (1869) Protection of Tenants against arbitrary eviction (1870) Irish University Bill (1873) - not far reaching enough - convinced nationalists that they could push for more reforms

- Parnell: Landowner, and Protestant - believed that once Ireland was given back its parliament (overturn 1800 Act of Union) Ireland 1) chart own destiny 2) solve its own problems

- 2 tier approach: rent strikes, and Irish MP's to be obstructive in parliament

- 1881 Land Act - Gladstone convinced that once the three "f's" were satisfied (fixity of tenure, fair rents and free sale) Irish question would be resolved peacefully - yet this was a failure - Gladstone reluctantly convinced that Home Rule only way forward

- Isaac **** (barrister) founds Home Rule Movement

- '**** founded the Home Rule movement and popularised the concept of Home Rule, yet his achievement remains in the shadow of that of his successor, Parnell' (Jackson)

- Parnell, 1885: 'I come back to the great question of national self-government for Ireland. No man has the right to say his country 'Thus far shalt thou go and no further', and we have never attempted to fix the ne plus ultra [the final limit] to the progress of Ireland's nationhood. and we shall never'

- Gladstone worried Home Rule would split the Liberal Party and that there would not be cross-party collaboration with the Conservative party

- Loss of Dike

- Gladstone's son reveals to the press that Gladstone supports home rule - his opposition are able to paint him as a ridiculous radical

- 1886 First Home Rule bill introduced 

- Gladstone is committed to home rule because he's a liberal reformer but in the context of a coalition government 

- Collation with Parnell's Irish MP's 

- 1893 - Second Home Rule Bill 'moral obligation' passed narrowly in commons but defeated in House of Lords

- Large protestant majority

- Defence of Ulster

- Split of Liberal Party

- 1912-1914 eventually passed - outbreak of war derails this