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Irish Home Rule Bill

Irish Home Rule Bill

There were four Irish Home Rule Bills in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to reverse parts of the Act of Union 1800. Only two were passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and one of these was never implemented. The bill of 1914 was opposed by Edward Carson who had helped to raise the Ulster Volunteer Force to prevent it, and was instrumental in organising of the Ulster Covenant. Irish Unionist opposition to the bills were epitomised by the poem Ulster 1912 by Rudyard Kipling. In Unionist circles "Home Rule was Rome Rule". Rome Rule They were:
- 1886: First Irish Home Rule Bill defeated in the House of Commons and never introduced in the House of Lords.
- 1894: Second Irish Home Rule Bill passed the House of Commons, but defeated in the House of Lords.
- 1914: Third Irish Home Rule Act passed but never came into force, due to the intervention of World War I (1914–18) and of the Easter Rising in Dublin (1916).
- 1920: Fourth Irish Home Rule Act (Government of Ireland Act 1920)

External Links

- [http://www.proni.gov.uk/ulstercovenant/ Ulster Covenant - Public Record Office of Northern Ireland]
- [http://www.belfastsomme.com/uvf.htm History of the 1912 UVF]
- [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/ CAIN - University of Ulster Conflict Archive] Category:Home Rule in the United Kingdom Category:History of Ireland 1801-1922

Home rule

:For "devolution" as a term sometimes misapplied to evolution, see devolution (fallacy) Devolution or home rule is the granting of powers from central government to government at regional or local level. It differs from federalism in that the powers devolved are temporary and ultimately reside in central government, thus the state remains unitary. Any devolved assemblies can be repealed by central government in the same way as an ordinary law can be. Federal systems differ in that subnational government is guaranteed in the constitution. The devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving regions a budget which was formerly administered by central government. However, the power to make legislation relevant to the area may also be granted. See devolved government for more information. In the United States, the District of Columbia offers an excellent illustration of the nature of devolved government. The District is separate from any state, and has its own elected government; in many ways, on a day-to-day basis, it operates much like another state, with its own laws, court system, Department of Motor Vehicles, public university, and so on. However, the governments of the 50 states have a broad range of powers reserved to them by the U.S. Constitution, and most of their laws cannot be voided by any act of the U.S. federal government. The District of Columbia, by contrast, is constitutionally under the sole control of the United States Congress, which created the current District government by statute. Any law passed by the District legislature can be nullified by Congressional action, and indeed the District government could be significantly altered or eliminated entirely by a simple majority vote in Congress. For more details, see District of Columbia home rule. In the United Kingdom, devolved government was created following referenda in Wales and Scotland in September 1997. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales, Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London Assembly were established. The move came eighteen years after similar proposals were defeated in referenda in Wales and Scotland on March 1979. England remains without regional government. Following the defeat of plans for a regional assembly in the North East of England in 2004, Tony Blair's Labour Government abandoned plans for English devolution. The West Lothian question still remains unresolved. There is also a system of home rule in Denmark for Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The term Home Rule appears in the first stanza of the English language version of the National Anthem of the Isle of Man.

History

Irish home rule

The issue of Irish home rule was the dominant political question of British politics at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. 20th From the late nineteenth century, leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party under Isaac Butt, William Shaw and Charles Stewart Parnell had demanded a form of home rule, with the creation of a subsidiary Irish parliament within the United Kingdom. This demand led to the eventual introduction of four Irish Home Rule Bills, of which only the last two were approved by the British Parliament, and only the final one was enacted: the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The bills were opposed by Irish Unionists who raised the Ulster Volunteer Force and signed the Ulster Covenant to oppose the bill, thereby raising the spectre of civil war. This Act created the parliaments of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland — although the latter did not in reality function and most of Ireland became the Irish Free State in 1922 after the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The home rule demands of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century differed from earlier demands for Repeal by Daniel O'Connell in the first half of the nineteenth century. Whereas home rule meant a subsidiary parliament under Westminster, repeal meant the repeal of the Act of Union 1800 and the creation of an entirely independent Irish state, separated from the United Kingdom, with only a shared monarch joining them both.
- 1886: First Irish Home Rule Bill never made it through the House of Commons.
- 1893: Second Irish Home Rule Bill defeated in the House of Lords
- 1912: Third Irish Home Rule Act passed (as the Government of Ireland Act 1914) but never came into force, due to the intervention of World War I (1914–18) and of the Easter Rising in Dublin (1916).
- 1920: Fourth Irish Home Rule Act (Government of Ireland Act 1920) Category:History of Ireland 1801-1922

Scotland and Wales

In May 1997, the Labour government of Tony Blair was elected with a promise of creating devolved institutions in Scotland and Wales. In late 1997, referenda were held in those nations, which both resulted in a "yes" vote. The newly-created Scottish Parliament (as a result of the Scotland Act ) had powers to make primary legislation in certain areas of policy, in addition to some limited tax raising powers (which to date have not been exercised). The Welsh Assembly (as a consequence of the Government of Wales Act) possesses the power to determine how the government budget for Wales is spent and administered. Devolution for Scotland & Wales was justified on the basis that it would aid in bringing government closer to the people in these nations. Such a need was apparent, since the populations of Scotland and Wales felt detached from the Westminster government (largely because of the policies of the Conservative governments led by Margaret Thatcher and John Major). Critics of devolution believed that it would seek to undermine the existence of the United Kingdom.

Northern Ireland

A devolved Assembly was created as a consequence of the 1998 Belfast Agreement. However, at present it is not operational, due to a breakdown in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Movements Calling For Devolution

Movements calling for devolution also exist in Cornwall and to a limited degree in England and some English Regions such as Wessex, as well in Northern Italy, led by the Lega Nord, for the homerule of "Padania".

Other meanings of the term devolution

In some hierarchical churches, especially Anglican churches including the Church of England, devolution is a bishop's appointment of a person to a benefice (e.g. a parish) when the ordinary patron or collator (i.e. the person or body with the right to appoint) has failed to do so, either because an improper candidate has been nominated or because no candidate could be found.

External links

- [http://www.senedhkernow.com/ Cornish Constitutional Convention]
- [http://www.devolve.org/ Devolve England]
- [http://www.thecep.org.uk/ The Campaign for an English Parliament]
- [http://hometown.aol.co.uk/crackytown/myhomepage/opinion.html/ The Wessex Regionalist Party]
- [http://www.independentmercia.org/ Mercian Regionalists]
- [http://www.englishconstitutionalconvention.com/ English Constitutional Convention] Category:Anglicanism Category:Politics of the United Kingdom

20th century

The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar. Common usage sometimes regards it as lasting from 1900 to 1999, but this is incorrect since counting of calendar years begins with the year 1. The 20th century is also sometimes known as the nineteen hundreds (1900s). Decades are almost always considered as starting with the "0" year and named accordingly ("1960s", etc.). However, a number of arguments have been used to justify the common usage. One was advanced, erroneously, by Stephen Jay Gould. He claimed that the first decade had only nine years, thus contradicting the definition of decade equaled 10 years. Another argument is that the astronomical year numbering system for years does have a year zero, the year normally known as 1 BC. In 2000 the International Organization for Standardization clarified ISO 8601 to use the astronomical year numbering system, which could be interpreted as retrospectively endorsing all the people who had celebrated the new century a few months earlier. The term is also used to describe various periods that overlap with the calendar definition, most notably the Short twentieth century, which claims that the 20th Century spanned from 1914 to 1989, rendering the pre-WWI 1900s into the 19th Century and putting the 1990s at the beginning of the 21st Century. Indeed, the part of the 20th Century before World War I is quite identical to the late 1800s culturally and technologically and the 1990s decade pointed in many ways (such as the rise of the Internet) to the 21st Century and is seen by some as not being truly a part of the 20th Century.

Overview

The twentieth century saw a remarkable shift in the way that vast numbers of people lived, as a result of technological, medical, social, ideological, and political innovations. Terms like ideology, world war, genocide, and nuclear war entered common usage and became an influence on the lives of everyday people. War reached an unprecedented scale and level of sophistication; in the Second World War (1939-1945) alone, approximately 57 million people died, mainly due to massive improvements in weaponry. The trends of mechanization of goods and services and networks of global communication, which were begun in the 19th century, continued at an ever-increasing pace in the 20th. In spite of the terror and chaos, the 20th century saw many attempts at world peace. As the 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy said: :What kind of peace do we seek? I am talking about a genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living. Not merely peace in our time, but peace in all time. Our problems are man-made, therefore they can be solved by man. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's future, and we are all mortal. Virtually every aspect of life in virtually every human society changed in some fundamental way or another during the twentieth century and for the first time, any individual could influence the course of history no matter their background. Arguably, the 20th century re-shaped the face of the planet in more ways than any previous century.
- Death rates
- Infant mortality
- Infectious disease
- Life expectancy
- Maternal death rates
- Battles Scientific discoveries such as relativity and quantum physics radically changed the worldview of scientists, causing them to realize that the universe was much more complex than they had previously believed, and dashing the hopes at the end of the preceding century that the last few details of knowledge were about to be filled in. For a more coherent overview of the historical events of the century, see The 20th century in review. The 20th century has sometimes been called, both within and outside the United States, the American Century, though this is a controversial term.

Important developments, events and achievements

Science and technology

- The assembly line and mass production of motor vehicles and other goods allowed manufacturers to produce more and cheaper products. This allowed the automobile to become the most important means of transportation.
- The invention of heavier-than-air flying machines and the jet engine allowed for the world to become "smaller". Space flight increased knowledge of the rest of the universe and allowed for global real-time communications via geosynchronous satellites.
- Mass media technologies such as film, radio, and television allow the communication of political messages and entertainment with unprecedented impact
- Mass availability of the telephone and later, the computer, especially through the Internet, provides people with new opportunities for near-instantaneous communication
- Applied electronics, notably in its miniaturized form as integrated circuits, made possible the above mentioned rise of mass media, telecommunications, ubiquitous computing, and all kinds of "intelligent" appliances; as well as many advances in natural sciences such as physics, by the use of exponentially growing calculation power (see supercomputer).
- The development of Nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides resulted in significantly higher agricultural yield.
- Advances in fundamental physics through the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics led to the development of nuclear weapons (known informally as "the Bomb" and dropped on the industrial town of Hiroshima and the historic one of Nagasaki), the nuclear reactor, and the laser. Fusion power was studied extensively but remained an experimental technology at the end of the century.
- Inventions such as the washing machine and air conditioning led to an increase in both the quantity and quality of leisure time for the middle class in Western societies.
- Most influential inventions in the 20th century: antibiotics, oral contraceptives, new plastics, transistors, Internet
- More...

Wars and politics

- Democratic nations began to extend voting privileges to all adults.
- Rising nationalism and increasing national awareness were among the causes of World War I, the first of two wars to involve all the major world powers including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and the British Commonwealth. World War I led to the creation of many new countries, especially in Eastern Europe. Ironically, it was said by many to be the 'War to end all Wars'.
- The economic and political aftermath of World War I led to the rise of Fascism and Nazism in Europe, and shortly to World War II. This war also involved Asia and the Pacific, in the form of Japanese aggression against China and the United States. While the First World War mainly cost lives among soldiers, civilians suffered greatly in the Second -- from the bombing of cities on both sides, and in the unprecedented German genocide of the Jews and others, known as the Holocaust.
- During World War I, in Russia the Bolshevik putsch led to the Russian Revolution of 1917. After the Soviet Union's involvement in World War II, Communism became a major force in global politics, spreading all over the world: notably, to Eastern Europe, China, Indochina and Cuba. This led to the Cold War and proxy wars with the western world, including wars in Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1957 - 75).
- The "fall of Communism" in the late 1980s freed Eastern and Central Europe from Soviet supremacy. It also led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia into successor states, many rife with ethnic nationalism, and left the United States as the world's superpower.
- Through the League of Nations and, after World War II, the United Nations, international cooperation increased. Other efforts included the formation of the European Union, leading to a common currency in much of Western Europe, the euro around the turn of the millennium.
- The end of colonialism led to the independence of many African and Asian countries. During the Cold War, many of these aligned with the USA, the USSR, or China for defense.
- The creation of Israel, a Jewish state in a mostly Arab region of the world, fueled many conflicts in the region, which were also influenced by the vast oil fields in many of the Arab countries.
- The term Southeast Asia coined.

Culture and entertainment

- Movies, music and the media had a major influence on fashion and trends in all aspects of life. As many movies and music originate from the United States, American culture spread rapidly over the world.
- After gaining political rights in the United States and much of Europe in the first part of the century, and with the advent of new birth control techniques women became more independent throughout the century.
- Rock and Roll and Jazz styles of music are developed in the United States, and quickly become the dominant forms of popular music in America, and later, the world. The Beatles, a 1960s British Rock and Roll band, becomes one of the most successful acts of all time, and is credited, in their experimental later albums, with permanently changing what was thought possible in popular music.
- Modern art developed new styles such as expressionism, cubism, and surrealism.
- The automobile provided vastly increased transportation capabilities for the average member of Western societies in the early to mid-century, spreading even further later on. City design throughout most of the West became focused on transport via car. The car became a leading symbol of modern society, with styles of car suited to and symbolic of particular lifestyles.
- Sports became an important part of society, becoming an activity not only for the privileged. Watching sports, later also on television, became a popular activity.

Disease and medicine

- Although the availability and quality of medicine continued to improve, epidemic diseases continued to spread, aided by modern transportation. An influenza pandemic, the Spanish Flu, killed 25 million between 1918 and 1919, while AIDS is yet uncured and treatments remain too expensive for wide use in developing countries.
- Advances in medicine, such as the invention of antibiotics, decreased the number of people dying from diseases. Contraceptive drugs and organ transplantation were developed. The discovery of DNA molecules and the advent of molecular biology allowed for cloning and genetic engineering.

Natural resources and the environment

- The widespread use of petroleum in industry -- both as a chemical precursor to plastics and as a fuel for the automobile and airplane -- led to the vital geopolitical importance of petroleum resources. The Middle East, home to many of the world's oil deposits, became a center of geopolitical and military tension throughout the latter half of the century. (For example, oil was a factor in Japan's decision to go to war against the United States in 1941, and the oil cartel, OPEC, used an oil embargo of sorts in the wake of the Yom Kippur War in the 1970s).
- A vast increase in fossil fuel consumption leads to depletion of natural resources, while air pollution has led to the develoment of an ozone hole and, many believe, global warming and both local and global climate change. The problem is increased by world-wide deforestation, also causing a loss of biodiversity. The problem of a depletion of natural resources is decreased by advances in drilling technology which led to a net increase in the amount of fossil fuel that is readily obtainable at the end of the century, as compared with the amount considered obtainable at the beginning of the century.

Significant people

Act of Union 1800

The Act of Union 1800 merged the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain (itself a merger of England and Scotland under the Act of Union 1707) to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on 1 January 1801. The Act was passed by both the British and Irish parliaments. The Irish parliament had been given a large measure of independence by the Constitution of 1782, after centuries of being subordinated to the English (and later, British) Parliament. Thus, many members had guarded its autonomy jealously, including Henry Grattan, and had rejected a previous motion for Union in 1799. However, a concerted campaign by the British government, and the uncertainty that followed the Irish Rebellion of 1798, made Union a more palatable prospect. The final passage of the Act in the Irish Parliament was achieved with substantial majorities, and was marked by mass bribery of Irish MPs by the British government, including the granting of titles and lands. Under the terms of the union, Ireland had over 100 MPs representing it in the united parliament, meeting in the Palace of Westminster (more than would be proportionate according to population). Part of the attraction of the Union for many Irish Catholics was the promise of Catholic Emancipation, thereby allowing Roman Catholic MPs (which had not been allowed in the Irish Parliament). However this was blocked by King George III who argued that emancipating Roman Catholics would breach his Coronation Oath; it was delayed until 1829. 1829] The flag created by the merger of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801 still remains the flag of the United Kingdom. Known as the "Union Flag" (or Union Jack), it combines the flags of England and Scotland with St Patrick's Cross, representing Ireland.

External links

- [http://www.actofunion.ac.uk/ Act of Union - Virtual Library]
- [http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/abstract.asp?ref=0018-2648&vid=82&iid=266&aid=35&s=&site=1 Abstract] of an article from the journal History about the Act of Union. Category:British laws Category:History of Great Britain Category:History of England Category:History of Ireland Category:History of Ireland 1801-1922 Category:Irish constitutional law Category:1800 in law Category:United Kingdom constitution

Edward Carson

The Right Honourable Edward Henry Carson, Baron Carson, PC (9 February 1854 – 22 October 1935) was a leader of the Irish Unionists, a Barrister and a Judge.

Early life

Carson was from a wealthy Dublin Protestant family. He was educated at Portarlington School and Trinity College, Dublin where he read law, and was an active member of the College Historical Society. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1877. He soon gained a reputation for fearsome advocacy and supreme legal ability. He was made a Queen's Counsel in 1889. He began a political career in 1892 when he was appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland on June 20, although he was not then in the House of Commons. He was elected as MP for the University of Dublin in the 1892 general election for the Conservatives, although they lost the election. He was admitted to the English Bar by The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple in 1893 and from then on mainly practised in London. He was appointed Solicitor-General for England on May 7 1900, receiving an ex officio knighthood. He served in this position until the Conservative government resigned in December 1905, when he was rewarded with membership of the Privy Council.

Wilde trial

In 1895 he was engaged by the Marquess of Queensberry to lead his defence against Oscar Wilde's libel action. This meant his job was in effect to prosecute Wilde, who had been his contemporary and rival at Trinity College. When Wilde heard of his appointment, he remarked "No doubt he will pursue his case with all the added bitterness of an old friend". Carson's cross-examination of Wilde is a supreme example of a battle of wits.

Unionism

In 1910 it became clear that the House of Lords' veto on the Third Irish Home Rule Bill was about to be lifted. When James Craig and other leading Unionists asked Carson, who was their most effective speaker, to assume their leadership, he accepted. He was a natural choice but was not ideal because the vast majority of Irish Unionists came from Ulster sundawn . Ulster] Carson campaigned against Home Rule using a variety of means, both constitutional and illegal. He spoke against the Bill in the House of Commons and organised rallies in Ireland. At one such rally, 100,000 strong, Carson told the crowd that a provisional government for "the Protestant province of Ulster" should be ready should a Third Home Rule Bill come into law. On September 28, 1912 he was the first signatory on the Ulster Covenant, which bound its signatories to resist Home Rule by "all means necessary". In January 1913 he established the Ulster Volunteer Force, the first loyalist paramilitary group. The UVF received a large arms cache from Germany in April 1914 (see Larne gunrunning). Imperial Germany was very eager to promote political tension in the United Kingdom at the time and readily allowed the delivery of arms to both sides of the political divide in Ireland. Despite Carson's best efforts, the Home Rule Bill was passed by the Commons on 25 May 1914 by a majority of 77 and due to the Parliament Act of 1911, it did not need the Lords consent, so the bill was awaiting royal assent. To enforce the legislation, given the activities of the Unionists, Herbert Asquith's Liberal government prepared to send troops to Ulster. This sparked the Curragh incident on July 20. Ulster was on the brink of civil war when the outbreak of the First World War led to the suspension of Home Rule.

Cabinet member

On May 25, 1915, Asquith appointed Carson Attorney-General when the Coalition Government was formed after the Liberal government was bought down by the Shell Crisis. However he resigned on October 19, ostensibly over his opposition to Government policy on war in the Balkans, but in reality in the hopes of destabilizing Asquith's government. When Asquith resigned, he returned to office on December 10, 1916 as First Lord of the Admiralty, becoming a Minister without Portfolio on July 17, 1917. Early in 1918 the government decided to extend conscription to Ireland, and that Ireland would have to be given home rule in order to make it acceptable. Carson disagreed in principle and again resigned on January 21, 1918. He gave up his seat at the University of Dublin in the 1918 general election and was instead elected for Belfast Duncairn. He continued to lead the Unionists but when the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was introduced, advised his party to work for the exemption of six Ulster counties from Home Rule as the best compromise (a compromise he had previously rejected). This proposal passed and as a result the Parliament of Northern Ireland was established. After the partition of Ireland, Carson repeatedly warned Ulster Unionist leaders not to alienate northern Catholics, as he accurately foresaw this would make Northern Ireland unstable. In 1921 he stated: "We used to say that we could not trust an Irish parliament in Dublin to do justice to the Protestant minority. Let us take care that that reproach can no longer be made against your parliament, and from the outset let them see that the Catholic minority have nothing to fear from a Protestant majority." His calls went unheeded.

Judge

He was naturally asked by the Unionists to lead them into the election and become the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. However, Carson declined due to his lack of connections with Ulster. Instead, he was appointed as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and created a life peer on 1 June 1921 as Baron Carson, of Duncairn in the County of Antrim.

Later years

Lord Carson retired in 1929. After his death on 22 October 1935, the Northern Ireland Government gave him a state funeral and he was buried in St. Anne's Cathedral, Belfast, as yet the only person to have received that honour. In 1932 he had unveiled a large statue of himself in front of the Parliament Building of Northern Ireland at Stormont, Belfast. Carson, Edward Carson, Edward Carson, Edward Carson, Edward Carson, Edward Carson, Ed Carson, Edward Carson, Edward Carson, Edward Carson, Edward

Ulster Covenant

The Ulster Covenant was signed by hundreds of thousands of men all over Ulster, Ireland, on and before September 28, 1912, in protest of a Home Rule bill introduced by the British government in that same year. The signers were Ulster loyalists, who were against the establishment of an Irish parliament in Dublin. The Ulster Covenant is immortalised in Rudyard Kipling`s poem Ulster 1912. Rudyard Kipling Ulster Unionist Council approving the Ulster Covenant Rudyard Kipling Belfast on Ulster Day, 28 September 1912 The Covenant had two basic parts: the Covenant itself, which was signed by men, and the Declaration, which was signed by women.

The Covenant (for men)

BEING CONVINCED in our consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster as well as of the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship, and perilous to the unity of the Empire, we, whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V, humbly relying on the God whom our fathers in days of stress and trial confidently trusted, do hereby pledge ourselves in solemn Covenant, throughout this our time of threatened calamity, to stand by one another in defending, for ourselves and our children, our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. And in the event of such a Parliament being forced upon us, we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognize its authority. In sure confidence that God will defend the right, we hereto subscribe our names. And further, we individually declare that we have not already signed this Covenant. Covenant

The Declaration (for women)

We, whose names are underwritten, women of Ulster, and loyal subjects of our gracious King, being firmly persuaded that Home Rule would be disastrous to our Country, desire to associate ourselves with the men of Ulster in their uncompromising opposition to the Home Rule Bill now before Parliament, whereby it is proposed to drive Ulster out of her cherished place in the constitution of the United Kingdom, and to place her under the domination and control of a Parliament in Ireland. Praying that from this calamity God will save Ireland, we hereto subscribe our names. Ireland

External links

- [http://www.proni.gov.uk/ulstercovenant/ Ulster Covenant pages at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland]
- [http://www.belfastsomme.com/uvf.htm History of the 1912 UVF]

Unionists (Ireland)

In the context of Irish politics, Unionists are people in Northern Ireland, who wish to see the continuation of the Act of Union 1800, as amended by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, under which Northern Ireland, created in that latter Act, remains part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Unionists are mostly, but not exclusively, from Protestant backgrounds in terms of religion. In the context of Irish history, the term refers to those who opposed home rule for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The terms Unionist and Loyalist are often used interchangeably; however, the term "loyalist" is often used in recent times to denote unionists who are not above breaking the law to maintain the status quo, or whose views are unusually hardline. Since the start of the Northern Ireland peace process, most unionists are reluctant to describe themselves as loyalists.

Irish Home Rule

Prior to 1912, Unionists wished to see the Act of Union 1800 (which had merged the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801) remain in place. They opposed Irish Home Rule, which mainstream Irish nationalists had sought since the 1860s. The Unionists of this period (especially outside Ulster) were almost entirely made up of the governing and landowning classes and the minor gentry. Home Rule would have involved Ireland having its own regional parliament while still remaining in the United Kingdom. This demand, the policy of nationalist leaders such as Isaac Butt. William Shaw, Charles Stewart Parnell, John Redmond and John Dillon, became the aim of the Nationalist Party, also known as the Home Rule League and later the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Home Rule League/Irish Parliamentary Party won the majority of Irish parliamentary seats in the Westminster parliaments from the 1870s to 1914. Various British governments introduced four successive Bills to set up an Irish Home Rule parliament in Dublin. The Irish Home Rule Bill 1886 never made it through the House of Commons but managed to destroy the Liberal Party government, with Whig and Radical elements leaving to form the Liberal Unionist Party in alliance with the Conservative Party. Eventually the two parties merged, calling themselves the Conservative and Unionist Party. The Irish Home Rule Bill 1893 passed in the Commons but succumbed to the veto of the House of Lords.The House of Lords had far more Conservatives than the House of Commons. The Home Rule Act 1914 passed (or at least passed all stages under the Parliament Act, 1911, which curbed the veto power of the Lords) but never came into force, due to the onset of World War I (1914–18). The fourth Bill, known as the Government of Ireland Act 1920, envisaged two Irish home rule states: Southern Ireland which would have had a nationalist majority, and Northern Ireland which would have a much smaller unionist majority. Only the latter became a reality, while the former became the Irish Free State. Irish unionists opposed Home Rule for many reasons. Much of their support in southern and western Ireland (the provinces of Munster, Leinster and Connacht) came from landed gentry who feared that a nationalist assembly would introduce property and taxation laws more suitable to a small island than the laws imposed from Westminster, which were designed for a much larger area, the entire United Kingdom. Some also feared that they would experience a similar sort of discrimination that the Protestant Parliament of Ireland up to 1800 had practised on Catholics, namely the notorious Penal Laws, or the more subtle discrimination that followed, although this is hard to credit as Ireland would have remained part of the UK. Others identified strongly with the Crown and British rule, and wished to see both continue unchanged in Ireland. However one should not presume that Irish unionist support came entirely from the landed gentry, or that all Protestants supported Unionism. Many working class and middle class Unionists and some gentrified Catholics supported the maintenance of the union, while many Protestants (most notably Charles Stewart Parnell) supported home rule. Other Unionists, particularly in Ulster, had economic fears, suspecting that a nationalist parliament in Dublin, on a predominantly agricultural island, would impose economic tariffs against industry. Parts of Ulster were then the most industrialised parts of Ireland and would have suffered. For much of the period up until 1920, though the Unionist support base predominated in four of the nine counties of Ulster (where Presbyterians and Anglicans outnumbered Roman Catholics), the Irish Unionist Party's leadership came from the rest of Ireland. Its most prominent leader, the Dublin-born barrister and politician Sir Edward Carson, opposed not merely Home Rule but any attempt to divide Ireland into two. Other southern Unionist leaders included the Earl of Middleton and the Earl of Dunraven. When, following the curbs placed on the power of the House of Lords in 1911 it became clear that home rule would come, Unionists, particularly in parts of Ulster, mounted a campaign that threatened to establish a Provisional Government of Ulster through the use of violence if Home Rule were to come about. They set up the Ulster Volunteer Force, the first modern Irish paramilitary organisation, and imported 25,000 rifles from Imperial Germany, to fight the British government. 90,000 men had joined by the middle of 1914. Irish Unionism received the support in the period from the 1880s to 1914 from leading English Conservative politicians, notably Lord Randolph Churchill and future British prime minister Andrew Bonar Law. Slogans such as Ulster Will Fight and Ulster Will Be Right expressed the determination of unionists to oppose Irish Home Rule by whatever means it deemed necessary.

Partition

The creation of the Unionist-dominated Northern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, and the later creation of the Irish Free State in the territory the above Act had called Southern Ireland separated southern and northern unionists. Unionists were in the majority in four counties (Antrim, Derry, Down and Armagh) but insisted on control over the counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone as well. As these counties had a large land area but were thinly populated compared to the other four, it was felt that the slight dilution of the pro-Union population was worth it for the extra territory. The exclusion of three Ulster counties, Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan from Northern Ireland, and hence the United Kingdom, left Ulster unionists there feeling isolated and betrayed. They established an association to canvass their fellow unionists to reconsider the border, but to no avail. Many assisted in the policing of the new region, serving in the B-Specials, while continuing to live in the Free State. See [http://www.reform.org/TheReformMovement_files/article_files/articles/donegal.htm external link] Some unionists in the south simply adapted and began to associate themselves with the new southern Irish regime of William T. Cosgrave and Cumann na nGaedhael. On January 19th 1922, leading unionists held a meeting and unanimously decided to support fully the government of the new Free State. Many gained appointment to the Irish Free State Senate, where the Earl of Dunraven became speaker or Cathaoirleach (pronounced 'ka-here-loch'). One Unionist political family, the Dockrells, joined and became TDs (MPs) over a number of generations for Cumann na nGaedhael and its successor party, Fine Gael (the governing party in the 1920s, the main opposition from 1932 onwards). The single Ulster Protestant in the current Dáil is a member of Fine Gael. The Dublin borough of Rathmines had a unionist majority up to the late 1920s, when a local government re-organisation abolished all Dublin borough councils. However, having lost their privileged status, most Irish unionists simply withdrew from public life. The number of Protestants declined in the Irish Free State and in its successor state, the Republic of Ireland. IRA attacks in the 1920s drove away many who assisted the British in the Anglo-Irish War, in the process burning many historic homes as reprisals for the Crown forces' destruction of the homes and property of republicans, suspected or actual. Others had suffered disproportionately in World War I, losing their sons and heirs on the bloodied fields of Flanders and the Somme. Some that remained became victims of the Roman Catholic Church's Ne Temere decree imposed by Pope Pius X, which required Catholics in mixed marriages to ensure that all children of the marriage were brought up to follow the Church of Rome. This decree contributed greatly to the religious divide in Ireland, and is still in force. As a result, many eligible Protestant women, who because of the deaths of Protestant men in World War I were denied the availability of Protestant husbands, either married Catholics or remained unmarried, either way ending the Protestant family line. This reversed an earlier trend of Catholics becoming Protestant to avoid discrimination. A disingenuous tactic used by the British in the Anglo-Irish conflict was to draw attention to the religion of IRA victims if they were Protestant, and to play it down if they were Catholic. This was a crude but effective device, used to great effect in the press in Ireland and Britain, to portray the IRA as sectarian. In reality, the IRA killed anyone they believed was aiding the Crown forces, regardless of religion, and had many Protestant volunteers. In Castlederg in Tyrone, Protestants outnumbered Catholics in the local IRA at the time. Furthermore, land reform from the 1870s to the 1900s broke up many of the large estates. Protestant families, who had owned most of the land, saw it returned to their largely Catholic tenantry. Many chose in the 1920s to use their compensation money to settle in Britain, often in other estates they owned there. In addition, the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland from 1871 by an Act of Parliament led that Church to sell many of its estates and bishops' palaces, in the process laying off many Protestant workers who themselves then moved away. (Previously, the Church had had considerable wealth thanks to tithes (mandatory taxes) which the local Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist communities had to pay to the (Anglican) Church of Ireland. The loss of this money underlined the economic vulnerability of the Church of Ireland.) However, little evidence of widespread discrimination against Protestants in the Irish Free State/Éire exists. The first President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde (1938–45), and the fourth, Erskine Hamilton Childers (1973-74), belonged to the Church of Ireland. Mary Robinson, the seventh had both Catholic and Protestant branches in her family and was married to a Protestant. Leading ex-Unionists like the Earl of Granard and the Provost of Trinity College Dublin gained appointment to the President of Ireland's advisory body, the Council of State. In contrast, anti-Catholic discrimination was widespread and actively encouraged at the highest level of government in Northern Ireland, even though Sir Edward Carson (now raised to the peerage as Lord Carson) had expressly urged the Northern Ireland Unionist prime minister, Sir James Craig to ensure absolute equality in the treatment of Roman Catholics, to ensure the stability of the new entity. (Craig openly encouraged discrimination against Catholics.) Boundaries demarcated electorates in such a way as to produce Protestant majorities in areas that would otherwise, by a fair drawing of boundaries, have produced nationalist councillors. Decades later, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Ulster Unionist Party leader, David Trimble, openly described the Northern Ireland of most of the twentieth century as a 'cold house of Catholics', a process he said the Belfast Agreement must change. Many unionist leaders, particularly in the DUP, continue to deny that discrimination ever took place. By the 1960s, belated attempts by a moderate new Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O'Neill to create equality created a backlash led by fundamentalist Protestant preacher and politician, the Rev. Ian Paisley. Nationalists launched a Civil Rights movement under John Hume, Austin Currie and Ivan Cooper. A collapse in government control, the controversial killing of 13 unarmed civilians by the British army Parachute Regiment in Derry/Londonderry on Bloody Sunday (30 January, 1972) and the emergence of the Provisional IRA, alongside Protestant paramilitary groups like the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force, led to the suspension, then abolition, of the unionist-dominated Stormont parliament and government (1972). After two decades of brutal killing by paramilitary groups on both sides of the political divide in Northern Ireland and the police and British army, a ceasefire and inter-community negotiations produced the Belfast Agreement (also known as the "Good Friday Agreement"), which attempted with mixed success to produce a power-sharing government for Northern Ireland, to which both the unionist and nationalist communities could give allegiance. While some commentators regularly use the religious terms 'Catholic' and 'Protestant' as interchangeable with 'nationalist' and 'unionist' in Northern Ireland, some differences do exist between them. Not all Catholics support nationalist causes, for example. The Ulster Unionist Party has Catholic members; one of its most respected MLAs (Member of the power-sharing Legislative Assembly) is Catholic. Many Catholics served in the former and current Northern Ireland police forces, the Royal Irish Constabulary and in the British army, although at no time did any of these organisations enjoy widespread support among Ulster Catholics. The Catholics who joined were often unionist, as all of these organisations opposed republicanism, sometimes violently. This put these people at odds with sentiment in their communities. One of the strangest events in Northern Ireland is that the anti-Catholic right-wing Protestant leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the Rev. Ian Paisley, attracts some Catholic votes in his constituency in elections to the British and European Parliaments (he serves in both). That may be a personal quirk, due to his reputation as a good constituency MP who will help anyone, irrespective of their religion. In contrast his party, the DUP, has never had any Catholic members. The mildly nationalist SDLP, on the other hand, has often attracted sympathetic Protestants and had them elected. Sinn Féin has also had some Protestant members and elected officials, more often in the Republic. However it highlights the sheer nature of the complexity of Northern Ireland politics, and of the dangers of drawing simplistic 'Catholic = nationalist' 'Protestant = unionist' definitions in trying to understand Northern Irel

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