First Home Rule Bill Rejected (1886)

The failure of the 1867 Fenian Rebellion indicated that a more modest approach ought to be pursued. The nationalist movement sought Home Rule; that is, the establishment of an Irish Parliament that dealt with internal Irish affairs, under the Crown.[1] This gradual approach to the nationalist movement was termed the ‘New Departure.’ More specifically, the New Departure called for the temporary

…shelving [of] the single uncompromising goal of an Irish Republic to be won by force of arms, and substituting a more gradualist approach of short-term objectives to be won at Westminster under the leadership of [Charles Stewart] Parnell. The theory was that this would help activate popular nationalist feeling, and parliamentarians were in turn to accept as a final goal a totally independent Ireland. [2]

By 1885, Home Rule had the support of an overwhelming majority of the Irish population, however, Parliament was unyielding. On its second reading on 8 June 1886, the Home Rule Bill was rejected.[3] Fears that granting Home Rule to the Irish would eventually lead to separation from Great Britain prevented conservatives and liberals from supporting the policy, despite Gladstone’s insistence.[4] The failure to grant Home Rule cemented the rise of a radical separatist nationalist movement, and a degradation of the Irish-British political relationship. For the next thirty years Irish nationality and identity was influenced by the Home Rulers. Most Irishmen viewed Irish nationality as a distinct, but not separate identity.

[1] Robert Kee, The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism (Penguin Books, 1972), 352.

[2] Kee, The Green Flag, 368.

[3] Kee, The Green Flag, 402.

[4] Kee, The Green Flag, 389.

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