Buckingham Palace Conference - The Conference

The Conference

The conference assembled in Buckingham Palace between 21 and 24 July 1914. Though the issue of home rule had been on the political agenda since the 1870s, the 1914 conference was the first time that a formal peace conference had been called involving both Nationalists and Unionists. Those who attended were the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, Lloyd George, the Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond, his deputy, John Dillon, across the table the leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance, Edward Carson together with Bonar Law, James Craig and Lord Lansdowne. The Speaker of the House of Commons presided.

By the second day Asquith saw that no solution as to which counties were to be temporarily excluded was going to emerge. He wrote to an associate:

"I have rarely felt more helpless in any particular affair, an impasse with unspeakable consequences, upon a matter which to English eyes seems inconceivably small and to Irish eyes immeasurably big. Isn't it a real tragedy?"

The conference broke up after three days without agreement. All sides however argued that it had been a useful engagement, with Unionists and Nationalists for the first time having meaningful discussions on how to allay each other's fears about the other. A limited understanding emerged between Carson and the Nationalists, that if Ulster were to be excluded, then in its entirety, that the province should come in or out as a whole.

The conference was overtaken by developments in Europe. In little over a month the First World War had begun, leading to the suspension of the Home Rule Act for its duration. A further attempt to reach an understanding with Ulster was to prove equally unsuccessful during the 1917–18 Irish Convention. This conference was seen to be a 'waste of time' due to the lack of outcome it produced. Many people saw it as a time for each party to slander each other.