Kind Of Home Rule For Ireland example essay topic

The Irish problem was very serious to the Liberal government. Ireland was almost in a state of civil war and probably would have ended up in civil war had World War One not begun when it did. Militant groups armed themselves and the country was split over the issue of home rule. Unionists were dedicated to remaining a part of the United Kingdom while Nationalists were strongly in favour of an Irish republic which was independent of the United Kingdom. Each group had support and each group was armed and ready to fight for what they believed should happen.

The Liberal government of this time was faced with the problem of deciding exactly what to do since the only two obvious options would seemingly trigger a civil war (the two options being giving Ireland home rule, or not giving Ireland home rule). The liberals came to power in the 1906 election and immediately were faced with a number of important issues. The Irish situation was volatile since the Ulster Unionist Council and Sinn Fein had both been formed in 1905. However, the government could not really make a legitimate attempt to deal with the problem until after 1911. This was because the Conservatives dominated the House of Lords until the Parliament Act of 1911 and so could (and almost certainly would have) blocked possible attempts by the Liberals to provide any kind of Home Rule for Ireland. The Parliament Act took this power away from the Lords and so home rule for Ireland was again a major issue to the government.

It was an especially important to the Liberal government because they came to power on the promise that would address the problem. A large portion of their support, which without they may not have gained power, consisted of Irish Nationalists. To maintain this support it was vital that they provided home rule for Ireland but the Protestant minority in the North would never submit to a nationalist rule. However, after 1911 this support was not as essential as it previously had been, and while still being seen as the "party of home rule" the Liberals failed to give any urgency in the situation.

Other problems were being dealt with (social reforms, women's suffrage) but Irish Nationalists were favouring the Labour party and the Conservatives were backing the Unionists. The Liberal party had failed to deal with the problem so far but introduced the Home Rule Bill in April 1912. There were still problems though. The new Irish Parliament would still answer to Westminster on issues such as finance, defence and foreign affairs.

Some extreme nationalists were unhappy at the extent of the new powers for the Irish Parliament, and the Unionists based in the North (Ulster) completely despised the Bill. Ulster was largely catholic and there was a deep rooted opinion of a great union with England and the rest of the UK which existed since the 17th century. Asquith never really understood this and as a consequence he didn't deal with Ulster as a separate case. He didn't realise how serious the Ulster resistance would become and created more problems for himself by applying Home Rule to all of Ireland, including Ulster. The Ulster Volunteer Force formed in 1912 and the Nationalist Irish Volunteers were formed in 1913. It was clear that the Liberal government had to do something but military action against Ulster was not the solution because as demonstrated by the Curagh Mutiny of 1914, the British Army itself was largely unreliable if asked to fight against unionists in Ulster since many had Ulster connections and supported the cause.

It seemed that the Liberals now had to turn elsewhere for a solution having still not achieved much in Ireland. They did this passing the Home Rule Bill but excluding six northern counties. Nationalists were angered and the Easter Rising of 1916 ensued. The Liberals were meeting opposition whichever way they turned, and had failed to deal with the problem. Had it not been for the beginning of World War One then Ireland would most likely entered into civil war. The Liberal attempt to deal with the Irish problem had been poor, but in the Liberals defence it was a complicated situation to which a solution was not easy to create.

Any action the Liberal government took would be met by some kind of opposition, be it from the Nationalists or the Unionists since pleasing one group would mean angering the other. But the government still took years to actively deal with Ireland which left Irish people in general expecting Home Rule to never actually come about even though it had been discussed for quite a long time. A much earlier and clearer stand needed to be taken by the Liberals, and this decision should have been kept and enforced by the British Army so that neither the Nationalists or the Unionists could reach the stage where they had their own paramilitary groups and civil war was a threat. The Liberals actually wavered not from Home Rule or not Home Rule, but from Home Rule for Ireland or Home Rule with certain counties excluded. This failure to identify the North as needing separate measures taken from the rest of Ireland was the government's main flaw in their attempt to deal with the Irish problem.