Lecture 6: Home Rule
Home Rule
• The objective of Irish constitutional
nationalists for over four decades
• The term was coined by Revd. Joseph A.
Galbraith – a member of the Home
Government Association
• ‘Transfiguring vagueness’ – politically
useful
• Moderates & extreme nationalists invested
the term with their own meanings
Issac Butt’s definition of Home Rule
• Ireland, Scotland and England would have
a common sovereign, executive, and
national council at Westminster for
international affairs
• Each country would have its own
parliament for domestic affairs
Isaac Butt (1813-1879)
• Barrister – defended
Fenians 1865-68.
• 1869: president of the
Amnesty Association
• 1870: Founded Home
Government Association
to campaign for federalist
system of Irish selfgovernment
• 1873: Initiated the broader
Home Rule League
• 1870-79: Led the home
rule party in Westminster
Isaac Butt
‘He did not at present ask the
house to concede Home Rule to
Ireland. That question remained
to be discussed, and perhaps to
be discussed for many years.’
March 1874
Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891)
Biggar’s ‘Four Gospels’
1. To work in government time
2. To aid anybody to spend
government time
3. Whenever you see a bill, block it
4. Whenever you see a raw [a
sensitive issue?], rub it.
…‘must tend to alienate our truest and best
English friends…It must expose us to the
taunt of being unfit to administer even the
forms of representative government…’
Butt
‘England respects nothing but power.’
‘What did they ever get in the past by trying
to conciliate them? They would never gain
anything from England unless they trod
upon her toes.’
Parnell
1880: Parnell had the support
of 24 out of 59 Home Rule
MPs
1885: 86 Home Rule MPs
who pledged to vote together
were elected
1874: 23 of 59 Home Rulers were landed
1880: 8 of 59 were landed
1885: 5 of 86 were landed
Between 1880 and 1885 the number of
farmers and shopkeepers, all Home
Rulers, rose from 2 to 22
The number of Catholic MPs increased from
37 in 1868 to 51 in 1874, 55 in 1880 and 75
in 1885.
Changes in the electorate
• 1872: popular participation in politics increased
with the introduction of the secret ballot.
• 1884: the third reform Act trebled the size of the
Irish electorate from about 230,000 to over
700,000.
• It brought Ireland into electoral line with England.
Only 4.4% of the Irish population had the vote in
1884, compared with 9.7% in England.
• After the 1884 Act 16% of the Irish population, the
same as in England, were entitled to vote.
• ‘The motor of this political transformation
was the simultaneous emergence of a
national land agitation and a dynamic
nationalist parliamentary party. The fusion
was achieved through the unique leadership
qualities of Charles Stewart Parnell. Before
Parnell, parliamentary politics were
conducted very much in the respectable way
that led Fenians to denounce them so
fiercely.’
Townshend, C., Ireland: The 20th Century,
p29.
Parnell addressing a meeting
‘While no Irish leader of the
nineteenth century has been so
intensively studied, none
remains so enigmatic and
inaccessible.’
Lyons, F. S. L., ‘The Political Ideas of Parnell’ in The
Historical Journal, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), p
749.
Cartoon by John Porter, 1889, entitled: “Good health
and success to both of you, say millions of Men all over
the World”.
The first Home Rule bill (1886)
• Introduced by Gladstone in April 1886
• A single-chamber assembly in Dublin, with
two ‘orders’ of representative, one elite and
one more popular.
• The members of the Dublin assembly would
legislate for Ireland but only within strict
parameters.
• Issues affecting the crown, defence and
foreign affairs were reserved for
Westminster.
The first Home Rule bill (1886)
• Control of customs and excise would remain in
London.
• Irish customs revenue would be used to fund
Ireland’s ‘imperial contribution’ of almost £4.25
million.
• There would be an Irish contribution of £360,000 to
the United Kingdom national debt.
• The United Kingdom parliament would continue to
tax Ireland, yet Irish representation at Westminster
would be abolished.
• Defeated in June 1886 by 341-311
Gladstone’s conversion to Home Rule
was perhaps the summit of Parnell’s
achievement
Home Rule seemed likely to succeed the
next time round
Over 200 British members supported a
principle which got only one British vote
when O’Connell raised it in 1834 and a
mere ten votes when Issac Butt proposed
it in the previous decade
On the Dissecting Table Again, 1886. Shown about to dismember
Erin are: Lord Salisbury, Hartingdon, Churchill and Chamberlain
Katharine O’Shea
c. 1876
Drawing of Captain O’Shea c. 1881
‘If the members of the Irish parliamentary party
do not wish to alienate the sympathy of the
radicals of England and Wales, and indefinitely
postpone the victory of a policy based on
justice and right, they must insist on Mr
Parnell’s immediate retirement. He must go.
British politics are not what they were. The
conscience of the nation is aroused. Men
legally convicted of immorality will not be
permitted to lead in the legislation of the
kingdom.’
An eminent Baptist, Dr Clifford quoted in The
Star 19 Nov. 1890.
The Bishops and the Party
That tragic story made,
A husband that had sold his wife
And after that betrayed;
But stories that live longest
Are sung above the glass,
And Parnell loved his country,
And Parnell loved his lass.
W.B. Yeats, ‘Come gather round me Parenllites’,
from Last Poems, 1936-39.
‘If the Land League can be reckoned one of the most
remarkable vehicles of agrarian agitation in nineteenthcentury Europe, Parnell’s party has some claim to be
considered among the most remarkable political
movements established in a primarily rural European
society. In leadership, organisational efficiency, debating
ability and political capacity it compared favourably with
most continental contemporaries. In no European society,
including England, did the transition from loosely
organised, largely local groups to the tight central control
of a national organisation occur so rapidly or effectively.
The tragedy of the fall of Parnell was not only the tragedy
of great leader, but also the tragedy of a great party.’
Lee, J., The Modernisation of Irish Society, 1848-1918, p109.