World War I (1914-18)

After the 1910 election, the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) was in a position to push for Home Rule. Griffith, and Sinn Fein, supported the Home Rule Bill as it would ultimately be to the benefit of Ireland. However, if a bill was not passed, stated Griffith, “Sinn Fein must be ready to form the rallying center of a disappointed nation.”[1] In April 1912, the third Home Rule Bill was introduced to the House of Commons.[2] Due to the elimination of the House of Lords’ veto power and the Irish-based majority in the House of Commons, the passage of the bill seemed inevitable.[3] Anti-Home Rule opposition soon mounted. In Ireland, opposition was led by the Ulster Protestants who sought to court Conservatives in Parliament and urge them to reject the bill at all costs. However, since the emergence of the Home Rule movement, Ireland had undergone a vast transformation. By 1909, the land crisis was successfully addressed with many Irishmen now owners of their farms. It appeared to many, including such Conservatives as Winston Churchill, that Ireland’s fiery violent spirit had been calmed. To some it seemed time to grant Ireland Home Rule. To others, the Conservative reforms (political concessions) that had stabilized Ireland seemed reason enough to reject Home Rule—what use would it be now?[4] Debates continued and in 1913 the two sides on the Home Rule Bill became clear. Sir Edward Carson, an Irish Unionist politician, defined the Ulster position:

…the vast majority of our fellow countrymen who are Nationalists in the South and West of Ireland will have Home Rule is this Bill becomes law ,and we shall not have power to stop it. All we propose to do is to prevent Home Rule becoming law in our own part of the country.[5]

William O’Brien, Irish nationalist, politician and journalist claimed that the nationalists would do whatever possible to garner the support of Ulster, “with one exception—that is, the partition of our country.”[6] In January 1913, an Ulster Volunteer Force was assembled. Parliament felt the pressure of the Ulstermen and their demands of exclusion were actively considered. Carson repeatedly refused any form of compromise. In 1914, Parliament offered a more viable solution in which Ulster would be temporarily excluded from Home Rule for six years. After those six years, Ulster’s position would be reevaluated and, if they remained adamant, they would be excluded from Home Rule. The compromise had the support of nationalists who believed Ulster could be convinced of joining the rest of Ireland in Home Rule. Yet Carson rejected the compromise. The British Government vowed that such an offer would be its last, and if the bill is passed, they will see to it that it be enforced.[7]

In 1914, Parliament passed the third Home Rule Bill. But it was too little to late. Not only did the bill feel insufficient after decades of pushing for it, but the outbreak of World War I prevented its implementation. The Easter Rising in 1916—and the declaration of an Irish Republic—ultimately made the bill obsolete.[8]

[1] Robert Kee, The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism (Penguin Books, 1972), 456.

[2] Kee, The Green Flag, 462.

[3] Kee, The Green Flag, 463.

[4] Kee, The Green Flag, 470.

[5] Kee, The Green Flag, 477.

[6] Kee, The Green Flag, 477.

[7] Kee, The Green Flag, 483.

[8] Kee, The Green Flag, 484.