Irish Parliamentary Party - Home Rule Succeeds

Home Rule Succeeds

Following the January 1910 general election a second December 1910 general election was called, in which the Liberals lost their majority, and became dependent on the Irish (IPP and AFIL) Party's 84 seats, as well as Labour's. Redmond, holding the balance of power in the Commons, renewed the old "Liberal Alliance" this time with H. H. Asquith as Prime Minister. For budget reasons, Asquith had no choice but to agree to a new Home Rule Bill and the removal of the veto power of the Lords. The passing of the Parliament Act 1911 limited the Lords to a two year delaying power and ensured that Redmond’s reward of a Government of Ireland Bill for the whole of Ireland introduced in 1912 would subsequently achieve national self-government in Dublin by 1914.

This prospect after 40 years of struggle was greeted optimistically, even when self-government was initially limited to running Irish affairs. But for Unionists, convinced the Union with the United Kingdom was economically best for Ireland, and for Protestants, now that Devlin’s paramilitary AOH organisation had saturated the entire island, fearing a Church dominated nationalist government, it was a disaster.

After the Bill passed its first readings in 1913, Ulster Unionists' opposition became a repeat scenario of events in 1886 and 1893, their leader Sir Edward Carson approving of an Ulster Volunteer militia to oppose Home Rule. Unionists and the Orange Order in mass demonstrations determined to ensure that Home Rule would not apply for them. Nationalists in turn formed their own armed group, the Irish Volunteers to enforce Home Rule. The initiative for a series of meetings leading up to the public inauguration of the Volunteers came from the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). The Volunteers had 180,000 members by May 1914. Redmond, worried by the growth of nationalist mass movement outside the Party, quickly tried to take control of the Volunteers. He demanded and was given a position on its leadership council and rapidly filled its ranks with IPP supporters.

Unfortunately Redmond and his IPP nationalists, as later those who succeeded them in 1919, had little or no knowledge of Belfast, underestimating Unionist resistance as a bluff, insisting "Ulster will have to follow". William O’Brien who in 1893 worked closely on passing the Second Home Rule Bill, warned to no avail, that if adequate provisions were not made for Ulster, All-Ireland self-government would never be achieved.

The Bill was the centre of intense parliamentary debate and controversy throughout 1913–14 before it passed its final reading in May, denounced by the O’Brienite Party as a "partition deal" after Carson forced through an Amending Bill providing for the exclusion of Ulster, permanent or provisional to be negotiated, which ultimately led to the partition of Ireland. This was deeply resented among northern nationalists and southern unionists who felt themselves abandoned. The Third Home Rule Act 1914 received Royal Assent in September 1914, celebrated with bonfires across southern Ireland.