Irish Home Rule movement

Until the 1870s, most Irish people elected MPs from the main British political parties, including Liberals and Conservatives. In the 1859 general election, for instance, the Conservatives secured a majority in Ireland. Additionally, a significant minority supported Unionists who staunchly opposed any dilution of the Act of Union.

In the 1870s, Isaac Butt, a former Conservative barrister turned nationalist, founded the Home Rule League, promoting a moderate nationalist agenda. After Butt’s death, leadership passed to William Shaw and then to Charles Stewart Parnell, a radical Protestant landowner. Parnell transformed the Home Rule movement, rebranded as the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), into a dominant political force in Ireland, marginalizing the traditional Liberal, Conservative, and Unionist parties. This shift was evident in the 1880 general election when the IPP won 63 seats, and even more so in the 1885 general election when it secured 86 seats, including one in Liverpool.

Parnell’s movement advocated for Ireland’s right to self-govern as a region within the United Kingdom, contrasting with earlier nationalist Daniel O'Connell's demand for a complete repeal of the Act of Union. Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone introduced two Home Rule Bills in 1886 and 1893, but both failed to become law. Gladstone faced opposition from rural English supporters and a Unionist faction within the Liberal Party led by Joseph Chamberlain, which allied with the Conservatives.

The push for Home Rule polarized Ireland, particularly in Ulster, where Unionists, supported by the revived Orange Order, feared discrimination and economic harm from a Dublin-based parliament. Riots erupted in Belfast in 1886 during debates on the first Home Rule Bill.

In 1889, Parnell’s leadership suffered a blow due to a scandal involving his long-term relationship with Katharine O’Shea, the estranged wife of an MP. The scandal alienated Parnell from both the pro-Home Rule Liberal Party and the Catholic Church, leading to a split within the Irish Party. Parnell lost his struggle for control and died in 1891, leaving the party and the country divided between pro-Parnellites and anti-Parnellites.

The United Irish League, founded in 1898, eventually reunified the party under John Redmond by the 1900 general election. After a failed attempt by the Irish Reform Association to introduce devolution in 1904, the Irish Party held the balance of power in the House of Commons following the 1910 general election.

The last significant barrier to Home Rule was removed with the Parliament Act 1911, which curtailed the House of Lords' veto power. In 1912, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith introduced the Third Home Rule Bill, which passed its first reading in the House of Commons but was again defeated in the House of Lords. The ensuing two-year delay saw escalating militancy, with both Unionists and Nationalists arming and drilling openly, culminating in a Home Rule crisis by 1914.