The Central Board was a scheme proposed in the mid-1880s to provide for the devolution of some legislative powers from the

Westminster Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

in England to a proposed elected body (a board) in Ireland. It was proposed to partially address the concerns of the

Irish Home Rule movement The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for Devolution, self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1 ...

. It was never pursued, and was superseded by the

First Home Rule Bill The Government of Ireland Bill 1886, commonly known as the First Home Rule Bill, was the first major attempt made by a British government to enact a law creating home rule for part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was intr ...

in 1886.

Background

After the Act of Union 1800, Ireland was under direct rule from England. While some

Catholic emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

efforts had slightly improved the position of native Irish Catholics,

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...

's broader campaign for a

Repeal of the Union The Repeal Association was an Irish mass membership political movement set up by Daniel O'Connell in 1830 to campaign for a repeal of the Acts of Union of 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland. The Association's aim was to revert Ireland to th ...

(of the 1830s and 1840s) had failed. By the 1870s and 1880s, a struggle for reform of land ownership had taken center stage. While several

Irish Land Acts The Land Acts (officially Land Law (Ireland) Acts) were a series of measures to deal with the question of tenancy contracts and peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by ...

were passed, there was still a call to create meaningful political structures which would have introduced a measure of

self-government __NOTOC__ Self-governance, self-government, or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority. It may refer to personal conduct or to any form of ...

to Ireland. The form of these structures was a matter of division and debate. The "Central Board" scheme was a structure which was advocated by

Joseph Chamberlain Joseph Chamberlain (8 July 1836 – 2 July 1914) was a British statesman who was first a radical Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist after opposing home rule for Ireland, and eventually served as a leading imperialist in coalition with the C ...

in 1884-1885. This proposal would have offered a form of local government which it is argued would have fallen considerably short of legislative independence. The exact structure of the board was subject to negotiation, however it was proposed to the democratically elected county councils would, in turn, elect a national body with powers mainly over local government issues. Chamberlain had received some support from the Catholic bishops. His contact with

Charles Stewart Parnell Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1875 to 1891, also acting as Leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882 and then Leader of the ...

was through Captain O'Shea, who led Chamberlain to believe that this would be acceptable as a final settlement. However, Chamberlain's proposal was too radical for the then

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern ...

William Gladstone who had not yet accepted the merits of Home Rule for Ireland. Lack of support led him to tender his resignation. Later, in 1886, he was an opponent of the

Home Rule Bill The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the e ...

. Rejection of his Central Board scheme may have created personal feelings of bitterness towards the

Irish Parliamentary Party The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nation ...

References

{{reflist History of Ireland (1801–1923)