The Home Rule Crisis

Gabriel Doherty teaches in the Department of History, University College Cork. He received his BA in Modern History from Oxford University, having studied at Magdalen College between 1986 and 1989. He organised the conference 'Cork Studies in the Irish Revolution: The Home Rule Crisis 1912-14, which took place in UCC in October 2012. He is the editor of 'Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish State' and many other successful history titles.

The Home Rule Bill, passed by the British parliament in 1912, was due, when it came into effect in 1914, to give Ireland some control over her own affairs for the first time since the Act of Union in 1800. However, this was postponed when the First World War broke out and by the time the war had ended the political landscape in Ireland had changed irrevocably.
The nationalist movement split into the followers of John Redmond who chose to fight for the British in the war in the hope that their loyalty would be rewarded and those on the other side who felt that this was just a delaying tactic and that 'England's difficulty [was] Ireland's opportunity'. Meanwhile the Unionists were violently opposed to any form of Irish self government, believing that 'Home rule is Rome rule' and this led to the signing of the Ulster Covenant and the establishment of the Ulster Volunteers.

The respected historians who have contributed to this book examine the reaction to the Home Rule Bill across many shades of political opinion across these islands and give a fascinating analysis of what might have been if external events had not overtaken local ones.

Contents Cork studies in the Irish revolution 5 Acknowledgements 6 List of Contributors 7 Introduction 13 Opening Address: The 1912 Home Rule bill: then and now 15 Dominick Chilcott 1 When histories collide: the third Home Rule bill for Ireland 22 Thomas Bartlett 2 The politics of comparison: the racialisation of Home Rule in British science, politics and print, 1886-1923 36 Matthew Schownir 3 Literary provocateur: revival, revolt and the demise of the Irish Review, 1911-14 63 Kurt Bullock 4 Liberal public discourse and the third Home Rule bill 81 James Doherty 5 Ulster 'will not fight': T. P. O'Connor and the third Home Rule bill crisis, 1912-14 102 Erica S. Doherty 6 Myopia or utopia? The discourse of Irish nationalist MPs and the Ulster question during the parliamentary debates of 1912-14 118 Pauline Collombier-Lakeman 7 The All-for-Ireland League and the Home Rule debate, 1910-14 138 John O'Donovan 8 The Murnaghan memos: Catholic concerns with the third Home Rule bill, 1912 164 Conor Mulvagh 9 'Resigned to take the bill with its defects': the Catholic Church and the third Home Rule bill 185 Daithi O Corrain 10 'Neither Whigs, Tories, nor party politicians'? The Church of Ireland and the Ulster crisis, 1910-14 210 Andrew Scholes 11 Irish Presbyterians and the Ulster Covenant 241 Laurence Kirkpatrick 12 'Grotesque proceedings'? Localised responses to the Home Rule question in Ulster 276 Jonathan Bardon 13 The Ulster Volunteer Force, 1913-14 304 Timothy Bowman 14 The persistence of Liberal Unionism in Irish politics, 1886-1912 333 Ian Cawood 15 The role of the leaders: Asquith, Churchill, Balfour, Bonar Law, Carson and Redmond 353 Martin Mansergh 16 The centenary commemoration of the third Home Rule crisis 373 Gabriel Doherty 17 The third Home Rule bill in British history 412 Eugenio Biagini Index 443