Irish issue in British politics

The status of Ireland was a major issue in British politics from the 1790s to the 1920s.

Ireland and the move to Home Rule

Main articles: History of Ireland (1801–1922) and Great Famine (Ireland)

Part of the agreement which led to the 1800 Act of Union stipulated that the Penal Laws in Ireland were to be repealed and Catholic Emancipation granted. However King George III blocked emancipation, arguing that to grant it would break his coronation oath to defend the Anglican Church. A campaign under lawyer and politician Daniel O'Connell, and the death of George III, led to the concession of Catholic Emancipation in 1829, allowing Catholics to sit in Parliament. O'Connell then mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the Repeal of the Act of Union.

When potato blight hit the island in 1846, much of the rural population was left without food because cash crops were being exported to pay rents. British politicians such as the Prime Minister Robert Peel were at this time wedded to the economic policy of laissez-faire, which argued against state intervention of any sort. While enormous sums were raised by private individuals and charities (American Indians sent supplies, while Queen Victoria personally gave the present-day equivalent € 70,000), lack of adequate action let the problem become a catastrophe. The class of cottiers or farm labourers was virtually wiped out in what became known in Britain as 'The Irish Potato Famine' and in Ireland as the Great Hunger.

Most Irish people elected as their MPs Liberals and Conservatives who belonged to the main British political parties (note: the poor didn't have a vote at that time). A significant minority also elected Unionists, who championed the cause of the maintenance of the Act of Union. A former Tory barrister turned nationalist campaigner, Isaac Butt, established a new moderate nationalist movement, the Home Rule League, in the 1870s. After Butt's death the Home Rule Movement, or the Irish Parliamentary Party as it had become known, was turned into a major political force under the guidance of William Shaw and in particular a radical young Protestant landowner, Charles Stewart Parnell. The Irish Parliamentary Party dominated Irish politics, to the exclusion of the previous Liberal, Conservative and Unionist parties that had existed. Parnell's movement proved to be a broad church, from conservative landowners to the Land League which was campaigning for fundamental reform of Irish landholding, where most farms were held on rental from large aristocratic estates.

Parnell's movement campaigned for 'Home Rule', by which they meant that Ireland would govern itself as a region within the United Kingdom, in contrast to O'Connell who wanted complete independence subject to a shared monarch and Crown. Two Home Rule Bills (1886 and 1893) were introduced by Liberal Prime Minister Ewart Gladstone, but neither became law, mainly due to opposition from the House of Lords. The issue divided Ireland, for a significant unionist minority (largely though by no means exclusively based in Ulster), opposed Home Rule, fearing that a Catholic-Nationalist parliament in Dublin would discriminate against them and would also impose tariffs on industry; while most of Ireland was primarily agricultural, six counties in Ulster were the location of heavy industry and would be affected by any tariff barriers imposed.

Irish Home Rule, Partition of Ireland and Irish Independence

Main articles: Irish Home Rule bills, Partition of Ireland, and Irish War of Independence

The 19th century and early 20th century saw the rise of Irish Nationalism especially among the Catholic population. Daniel O'Connell led a successful unarmed campaign for Catholic Emancipation. A subsequent campaign for Repeal of the Act of Union failed. Later in the century Charles Stewart Parnell and others campaigned for self government within the Union or "Home Rule", especially from 1900 John Redmond, the new leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party.

In 1912, the Irish Party had a further Home Rule bill passed by the House of Commons but was defeated in the House of Lords, as was the bill of 1893, but by this time the House of Lords had lost its veto on legislation under the 1911 Parliament Act and could only delay the bill by two years: until it was enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1914. During these two years the threat of civil war hung over Ireland with the creation of the Unionist Ulster Volunteers opposed to the Act and their nationalist counterparts, the Irish Volunteers supporting the Act. These two groups armed themselves by importing rifles and ammunition and carried out drills openly. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 put the crisis on political hold for the duration of the war. With the involvement of Ireland in the Great War the Unionist and Nationalist volunteer forces joined Lord Kitcheners new British Service Army voluntarily in their thousands and suffered crippling losses in the trenches.

A unilaterally declared "Irish Republic" was proclaimed in Dublin in 1916 during the Easter Rising. The uprising was quelled after six days of fighting and most of its leaders were court-martialled by General Maxwell and swiftly executed. This led to a major increase in support in Ireland for the insurgents. An attempt made by David Lloyd George to introduce Home Rule at the close of the 1917-18 Irish Convention, failed due to a dual policy of simultaneously imposing conscription on Ireland. As a result in the December 1918 General Election Sinn Féin won a majority of seats, its MPs refusing to take their seats at Westminster, instead choosing to sit in the First Dáil parliament in Dublin. A declaration of independence was ratified by Dáil Éireann, the self-declared Republic's parliament in January 1919. In 1920 the Government of Ireland Act 1920 enacted the partition of Ireland along the findings of the Irish Convention, into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, but the latter failed to achieve acceptance. Meanwhile, an Anglo-Irish War was fought between Crown forces and the Irish Republican Army between January 1919 and June 1921.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, negotiated between teams representing the British and Irish Republic's governments, and ratified by three parliaments,⁴ established the Irish Free State, which was initially a British Empire Dominion in the same vein as Canada or South Africa. The moribund declared Irish Republic then triggered an Irish Civil War. The Irish Free State subsequently left the British Commonwealth and became the Republic of Ireland after World War II, without constitutional ties with the United Kingdom. Six northern, predominantly Protestant, Irish counties (Northern Ireland) have remained part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland continued in name until 1927 when it was renamed as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927. Despite increasing political independence from each other from 1922, and complete political independence since 1949, the union left the two countries intertwined with each other in many respects. Ireland used the Irish Pound from 1928 until 2001 when it was replaced by the Euro. Until it joined the ERM in 1979, the Irish pound was directly linked to the Pound Sterling. Decimalisation of both currencies occurred simultaneously on Decimal Day in 1971. Irish Citizens in the UK have a status almost equivalent to British Citizens. They can vote in all elections and even stand for parliament. British Citizens have similar rights to Irish Citizens in the Republic of Ireland and can vote in all elections apart from presidential elections and referendums. People from Northern Ireland can have dual nationality by applying for an Irish passport in addition to, or instead of a British one.

Northern Ireland was created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, enacted by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland parliament in May 1921. Faced with divergent demands from Irish nationalists and Unionists over the future of the island of Ireland (the former wanted an all-Irish home rule parliament to govern the entire island, the latter no home rule at all) , and the fear of civil war between both groups, the British Government under David Lloyd George passed the Act in accordance with the findings of the 1917-18 Irish Convention, creating two home rule Irelands, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Southern Ireland never came into being as a real state and was superseded by the Irish Free State in 1922. That state is now known as the Republic of Ireland.

Having been given a Government of Northern Ireland in 1921 (even though they never sought self-government, and some like Sir Edward Carson were originally bitterly opposed) the Northern Ireland government under successive prime ministers from Sir James Craig (later Lord Craigavon) presided over discrimination against the nationalist/ Roman Catholic minority. Northern Ireland became, in the words of Nobel Peace Prize joint-winner, Ulster Unionist Leader and First Minister of Northern Ireland David Trimble, a "cold place for Catholics." Some local council boundaries were gerrymandered, usually to the advantage of Protestants. Voting arrangements for local elections which gave commercial companies votes and minimum income regulations also caused resentment.

See also

All-for-Ireland League, 1906-1918
Charles Stewart Parnell, 1846-1891
Cork Free Press
History of Ireland (1801-1923)
Home Rule Act 1914
Ireland and World War I
Irish Convention
Irish Home Rule movement, 1870-1921
Irish Land Acts, 1870-1901
Irish Land and Labour Association, 1890s
Irish Parliamentary Party, IPP, 1874-1918
Irish question
Irish Reform Association
Irish Republican Army
Irish nationalism
Irish War of Independence
John Redmond
Land Conference
Michael Davitt
National Volunteers
No Rent Manifesto
Plan of Campaign
Unionism in Ireland
United Irish League

Further reading

• Asch, R.G. ed. Three Nations: A Common History? England, Scotland, Ireland and British History c.1600–1920 (1993)
• Cannon, John, ed. The Oxford Companion to British History (2003), historical encyclopedia; 4000 entries in 1046pp excerpt and text search
• Connolly, S.J. ed. Kingdoms United? Great Britain and Ireland since 1500 (1999)
• Davies, Norman. 'The Isles: A History (Macmillan, 1999)
• Ensor, R. C. K. England, 1870–1914 (1936) online influential scholarly survey
• Havighurst, Alfred F. Modern England, 1901–1984 (2nd ed. 1987) online
• Hilton, Boyd. A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People?: England 1783–1846 (New Oxford History of England) (2008), scholarly synthesis excerpt and text search
• Hoppen, Theodore. The Mid-Victorian Generation 1846–1886 (New Oxford History of England) (2000) excerpt and text search
• Kearney, Hugh. The British Isles: a history of four nations (Cambridge UP, 1989)
• McCord, Norman and Bill Purdue. British History, 1815–1914 (2nd ed. 2007), 612 pp online, university textbook
• Pearce, Malcolm, and Geoffrey Stewart. British political history, 1867–2001: democracy and decline (Routledge, 2013).
• Pelling, Nick. Anglo-Irish Relations: 1798–1922 (Routledge, 2005).
• Searle, G. R. A New England?: Peace and War 1886–1918 (New Oxford History of England) (2005) excerpt and text search
• Tombs, Robert, The English and their History (2014 online review
• Ward, A. W. and G. P. Gooch, eds. The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783–1919 (3 vol, 1921–23), old detailed classic; vol 1, 1783–1815; vol 2, 1815–1866; vol 3. 1866–1919
• Welsh, Frank The Four nations: a history of the United Kingdom (Yale, 2003)