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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Home Rule
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The question of whether the Act of Union of 1800 should be repealed, giving *Ireland back a parliament in Dublin, was on the agenda at Westminster from the day when *O'Connell took his seat in 1829; and it became the single most burning issue of the late 19C. A Home Rule party was established in 1870, and was led from 1880 by *Parnell. In 1886 *Gladstone introduced the first Home Rule bill. The issue split his Liberal party, leading to the emergence of the *Unionists. His second attempt, in 1893, was passed in the Commons but rejected in the Lords.
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The third Home Rule bill, brought in by *Asquith in 1912, seemed certain to pass, since the Lords' power of veto had been curtailed the previous year. But it provoked a serious threat of insurrection and civil war from *Carson and the Unionists. As a result *Northern Ireland, with its Protestant majority, was excluded from the bill which was finally passed in 1914. Its implementation was delayed until after World War I, by which time the *IRA were violently emphasizing that limited autonomy within the United Kingdom, as provided by Asquith's bill, was no longer enough for southern Ireland. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 established the *Irish Free State (now the republic of *Ireland) but excluded the six counties of *Northern Ireland.
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