The Government of Ireland Act 1914 (4 & 5 Geo. 5 c. 90), also known as the Home Rule Act, and before enactment as the Third Home Rule Bill, was an Act passed by the

Parliament of the United Kingdom 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 suprem ...

intended to provide

home rule Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wi ...

(self-government within the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

) for

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

. It was the third such bill introduced by a Liberal government during a 28-year period in response to agitation for Irish Home Rule. The Act was the first law ever approved by the Parliament of the United Kingdom that provided for a devolved government in any part of the UK proper (as opposed to colonial territories). However, the implementation of both it and the equally controversial Welsh Church Act 1914 was formally postponed for a minimum of twelve months with the beginning of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. The continuation of the war beyond 1915 and subsequent developments in Ireland resulted in further postponements, meaning that the Act never became effective; it was finally superseded by a fourth home rule bill, enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which partitioned Ireland, creating

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

and Southern Ireland, both intended to have Home Rule.

History

During 1909, a constitutional crisis began when the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminst ...

rejected

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...

's Finance Bill. Two general elections occurred in January and December 1910, both of which left the Liberals and Conservatives equally matched, with John Redmond's Irish Parliamentary Party having the balance of power in the House of Commons. The Irish Party, which had campaigned for

home rule for Ireland 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 ...

since the 1870s, pledged to assist the Liberals in return for the introduction of a home rule bill.James F. Lydon,
The Making of Ireland: From Ancient Times to the Present
', Routledge, 1998, p. 326 The

Parliament Act 1911 The Parliament Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5 c. 13) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is constitutionally important and partly governs the relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two Houses of Pa ...

then replaced the unlimited veto of the Lords with one lasting only 2 years, ensuring that a bill passed by the Commons could not be blocked for more than two years.

The Bill

The Prime Minister,

H. H. Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ...

, introduced the Bill on 11 April 1912. Allowing more autonomy than its two predecessors, the bill provided that: * A

bicameral Bicameralism is a type of legislature, one divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single gr ...

Irish Parliament would be established in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

(a 40-member Senate and a 164-member House of Commons) with powers to deal with most national affairs. Each of the four provinces of Ireland would be represented by ten senators elected by proportional representation. * A reduced number of members of parliament representing Ireland would continue to attend the

(42 MPs, rather than 103). * The Dublin Castle administration would be eliminated, although with the retention of the Lord Lieutenant. The financial situation was a concern. Irish taxes had yielded a surplus of £2 million in 1893, but by 1910 that had become a current spending net deficit of £1.5m, which had to be raised by London. An annual "Transferred Sum" mechanism was proposed, so that public spending in Ireland could be continued at the same level. The Bill was passed by the Commons by a majority of 10 votes in 1912, but in January 1913 the House of Lords rejected it by 326 votes to 69. Later in 1913 it was reintroduced and again passed by the Commons and rejected by the Lords, this time by 302 votes to 64. In 1914, after the third reading, the Bill was passed by the Commons on 25 May 1914 by a majority of 77. Having been defeated a third time in the Lords, the Government used the provisions of the

to override the Lords and send the bill for

Royal Assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...

Ulster crisis

Unionists in Ulster were opposed to a home-rule Ireland governed from Dublin. Hostility to the Home Rule Bill was increasing in the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Londonderry. Early in 1912, some of the residents of that area began forming small local militias. By April 1912, the Irish Unionist Alliance's managing politician, Sir Edward Carson, could review 100,000 marching Ulster Volunteers. On 28 September 1912, more than 500,000 Unionists signed the Ulster Covenant pledging to defy Home Rule by all means possible. The Covenant was developed by Carson and organised by

Sir James Craig James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon PC PC (NI) DL (8 January 1871 – 24 November 1940), was a leading Irish unionist and a key architect of Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom. During the Home Rule Crisis of 191 ...

. This Covenant specifically pledged not to acknowledge any Parliament out of Dublin, nor to obey its laws, nor pay any taxes levied by its government. This would be problematic especially since Ulster was the wealthiest and most prosperous part of Ireland. In January 1913, the Unionist Council reorganised their volunteers into a paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), whose members threatened to resist by physical force the implementation of the Act and the authority of any restored Dublin Parliament by force of arms. On 28 November 1913, Irish Nationalists responded by forming the Irish Volunteers "to secure the rights and liberties common to all the people of Ireland". The government's willingness to effectively oppose the Unionist threat was rendered highly questionable by the "

Curragh Mutiny The Curragh incident of 20 March 1914, sometimes known as the Curragh mutiny, occurred in the Curragh, County Kildare, Ireland. The Curragh Camp was then the main base for the British Army in Ireland, which at the time still formed part of the U ...

" of 20 March 1914, when many British Army officers at Curragh in County Kildare, the main Army camp in Ireland, threatened to resign or accept dismissal rather than deploy against the Ulster Volunteers, forcing the government to cancel planned troop movements.

Partition

At the Bill's third reading in the Commons on 21 May 1914 several members asked about a proposal to exclude the whole of Ulster for six years. Asquith was seeking any solution that would avoid a civil war. During the emotional debate which lasted until 25 May 1914, Sir Edward Carson made the statement:

"I say this to my Nationalist fellow-countrymen, and indeed also to the Government, you have never tried to win over Ulster. You have never tried to understand her position. You have never alleged, and you cannot allege, that this Bill gives her one atom of advantage."

A government amending bill was introduced in the

on 23 June 1914 (before the Lords had considered the original Home Rule bill itself) and passed there with amendments on 8 July. Carson and the Irish Unionist Party (mostly Ulster MPs) backed the amending bill, which provided for "temporary exclusion of Ulster" from the workings of the future Act. The Lords' amendments to the amending bill were unacceptable to the government. What was still to be negotiated were the number of counties excluded (four, six or nine) and whether exclusion would be temporary or permanent. The compromise proposed by Asquith was straightforward. Six counties in northeast Ulster were to be excluded "temporarily" from the territory of the new Irish parliament and government, and continue to be governed as before from Westminster and Whitehall. The length of the exclusion remained an issue of some controversy. To save prolonged debate in parliament,

George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother ...

called the

Buckingham Palace Conference The Buckingham Palace Conference, sometimes referred to as the Buckingham Palace Conference on Ireland, was a conference called in Buckingham Palace in 1914 by King George V to which the leaders of Irish Nationalism and Irish Unionism were invite ...

with two MPs each from the Liberal, Conservative, IPP and Irish Unionist parties. The conference, held between 21 and 24 July 1914, achieved very little.

Passing of the Bill

With the beginning of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

on 4 August 1914, Asquith decided to abandon his Amending Bill, and instead rushed through a new bill, the Suspensory Act 1914, which was presented for

simultaneously with both the Government of Ireland Act 1914 and the Welsh Church Act 1914. Although the two controversial Bills had now finally become statute on 18 September 1914, the Suspensory Act ensured that Home Rule would be postponed for the duration of the conflictJackson, Alvin: p.164 and would not come into operation until the end of the war. (Eventually Home Rule was considered by the

Irish Convention The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Dublin, Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the '' Irish question'' and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wi ...

in 1917–18, and by the cabinet from September 1919; the Welsh Church Act was delayed until March 1920). The Ulster question was 'solved' in the same way: through the promise of amending legislation which was left undefined. Dublin was a battlefield for a week during the

Easter Rising The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with t ...

of 1916. This rebellion would have a major effect on the Home Rule passage and many Home Rulers would be troubled by this event. After the Rising, two attempts were made during the

to implement the Act. The first attempt came in June 1916, when Prime Minister

sent

, then Minister for Munitions, to Dublin to offer immediate implementation to the leaders of the Irish Party, Redmond and Dillon. The scheme concerned partition, officially a temporary arrangement, as understood by Redmond. Lloyd George however gave the Ulster politician, Carson, a written guarantee that Ulster would not be forced into a self-governing Ireland. His tactic was to ensure that neither side would find out before a compromise was implemented.Maume, Patrick: ''The long Gestation, Irish Nationalist Life 1891–1918'', pp.182–84, Gill & Macmillan (1999) A modified Act of 1914 had been developed by the Cabinet on 17 June. The Act had two amendments enforced by Unionists on 19 July – permanent exclusion and a reduction of Ireland's representation in the Commons. When informed by Lloyd George on 22 July 1916, Redmond accused the government of treachery. This was decisive in determining the future fortunes of the Home Rule movement. Lloyd George, now Prime Minister, made a second attempt to implement Home Rule in 1917, with the calling of the

directed by Horace Plunkett. This consisted of Nationalist and Unionist representatives who, by April 1918, only succeeded in agreeing on a report with an 'understanding' on recommendations for the establishment of self-government. The end of the war, in November 1918, was followed in Ireland by the December 1918 general election, the majority of seats being won by the republican separatist

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gr ...

party, then in January 1919 by the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence () or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-mil ...

, so that the Act was never implemented. The future of Home Rule was determined by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It established

, with a functional government, and Southern Ireland, the governmental institutions of which never functioned completely. Southern Ireland, following the

Anglo-Irish Treaty The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty ( ga , An Conradh Angla-Éireannach), commonly known in Ireland as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the ...

, became the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...

Notes

References

* Hennessey, Thomas: ''Dividing Ireland'', World War 1 and Partition, (1998), . * Jackson, Alvin: ''HOME RULE, an Irish History 1800–2000'', (2003), . * Lewis, Geoffrey: ''Carson, the Man who divided Ireland'' (2005), * Lee, JJ: ''Ireland 1912–1985'' (1989), Cambridge University Press, * Smith, Jeremy: ''Bluff, Bluster and Brinkmanship: Andrew Bonar Law and the Third Home Rule Bill''
pages 161–74 from ''Historical Journal'', Volume 36, Issue #1, 1993. * Kee, Robert: ''The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism'' (2000 edition, first published 1972), . * Rodner, W. S.: ''Leaguers, Covenanters, Moderates: British Support for Ulster, 1913–14'' pages 68–85 from ''Éire—Ireland'', Volume 17, Issue #3, 1982. * Stewart, A.T.Q.: ''The Ulster Crisis, Resistance to Home Rule, 1912–14'', (Faber and Faber, London, 1967, 1979), * Government of Ireland Act 1914, available from the House of Lords Record Office
"Home Rule Finance" Arthur Samuels KC (1912)
Text online at Archive.org
Erskine Childers; ''The Framework of Home Rule''
Text online at Gutenberg.org

External links

* Gladstone's Irish Home Rule speech (beseech in its favour)
Government of Ireland Act 1914

"Government of Ireland Bill"
(matches 1912–17 relate to the 1912 bill, which became the 1914 act) {{DEFAULTSORT:Government of Ireland Act 1914 1914 in law United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1914 British constitutional laws concerning Ireland Home rule in Ireland 1914 in Ireland 1914 in international relations Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning Ireland Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed under the Parliament Act September 1914 events