61-591: The Nationalist Party was a term commonly used to describe a number of parliamentary political parties and constituency organisations supportive of Home Rule for Ireland from 1874 to 1922. It was also the name of the main Irish nationalist Nationalist Party in Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1978. The Home Government Association was founded in 1870 by Isaac Butt , this was superseded in November 1873 by
122-515: A broader British context. Butt was representative of a constructive national unionism. As an economist, he made significant contributions regarding the potential resource mobilisation and distribution aspects of protection, and analysed deficiencies in the Irish economy such as sparse employment, low productivity, and misallocation of land. He dissented from the established Ricardian theories and favoured some welfare state concepts. As editor he made
183-671: A collection of elected members with their own local machines. Many calls were made for the party to develop an overall organisation but it fell apart in the late 1960s. The party was eventually subsumed into the Irish Independence Party in October 1977. In addition to the organisations in Ireland outlined above, the term Nationalist Party was also used to describe the party run in Liverpool by T. P. O'Connor , MP for
244-565: A corner of the Church of Ireland cemetery beneath a tree by which he used to sit and dream as a boy. Despite his chaotic lifestyle and political limitations, Butt was capable of inspiring deep personal loyalty. Some of his friends, such as John Butler Yeats (father of the poet W. B. Yeats ) and the future Catholic Bishop of Limerick , Edward Thomas O'Dwyer , retained a lasting hostility towards Parnell for his role in Butt's downfall. In May 2010
305-665: A greater degree of self-rule. This led to his involvement in Irish nationalist politics and the foundation of the Home Rule League . Butt was instrumental in fostering links between constitutional and revolutionary nationalism through his representation of members of the Fenians Society in court. He began his career as a Tory politician on Dublin Corporation . He was Member of Parliament for Youghal from 1852 to 1865, and for Limerick from 1871 to 1879 (at
366-576: A major political force. The IPP came to dominate Irish politics, to the exclusion of the previous Liberal, Conservative, and Unionist parties that had existed there. In the 1885 general election , the IPP won 85 out of the 103 Irish seats; another Home Rule MP was elected for Liverpool Scotland . Two attempts were made by Liberals under British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone to enact home rule bills. Gladstone, impressed by Parnell, had become personally committed to granting Irish home rule in 1885. With
427-623: A religious minority. In England the Liberal Party under William Ewart Gladstone was fully committed to introducing Home Rule whereas the Conservatives tried to alleviate any need for it through "constructive unionism". This was chiefly embodied by the passing acts of parliament and enacting ministerial decisions viewed as addressing Ireland's problems and political demands during Conservative periods of government such as Balfour 's decision as Chief Secretary for Ireland to create
488-535: A threat to their cultural and industrial identity. Edward Carson and James Craig , leaders of the unionists, were instrumental in organising the Ulster Covenant against the "coercion of Ulster", at which time Carson reviewed Orange and Unionist volunteers in various parts of Ulster. These were united into a single body known as the Ulster Volunteers at the start of 1912. This was followed in
549-576: A three-hour Irish Home Rule speech Gladstone beseeched parliament to pass the Government of Ireland Bill 1886 , and grant home rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to do so one day in humiliation. The bill was defeated in the Commons by 30 votes. The Bill led to serious riots in Belfast during the summer and autumn of 1886 in which many were killed, and was the cause of a split in
610-402: A while they were prepared to co-operate with Home Rulers under the "New Departure" . In 1875 John O'Connor Power told a New York audience that "[Ireland] has elected a body of representatives whose mission is simply – I almost said solely – but certainly whose mission is particularly to offer unrelenting hostility to every British Ministry while one link of the imperial chain remains to fetter
671-571: The Dublin University Magazine and edited it for four years. For much of his life he was a member of the Irish Conservative Party , and he founded the conservative Ulster Times newspaper. He became Whately Professor of Political Economy at Trinity in 1836 and held that position until 1841. After being called to the bar in 1838, Butt quickly established a name for himself as a brilliant barrister . He
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#1732772915390732-625: The Liverpool Scotland division from 1885. It contested Liverpool City Council elections . After O'Connor's death in 1929, no candidate stood in the ensuing by-election to succeed him in the Irish Nationalist interest. Irish Home Rule Bill The 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
793-676: The 10th (Irish) Division or the 16th (Irish) Division of Kitchener's New Service Army . The men of the Ulster Volunteers joined the 36th (Ulster) Division . Between 1914 and 1918 Irish regiments suffered severe losses. A core element of the remaining Irish Volunteers who opposed the nationalist constitutional movement towards independence and the Irish support for the war effort, staged the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin. Initially widely condemned in both Britain and Ireland,
854-527: The 1852 general election he had also been elected for the English constituency of Harwich , but chose to sit for Youghal). The failed Fenian Rising in 1867 strengthened Butt's belief that a federal system was the only way to break the dreary cycle of inefficient administration punctuated by incompetent uprisings. Having defended the leaders of the Fenian revolt, Butt then from June 1869 became president of
915-520: The 1906 general election the Liberals were returned with an overall majority, but Irish Home Rule was not on their agenda until after the second 1910 general election when the nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party under its leader John Redmond held the balance of power in the House of Commons. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith came to an understanding with Redmond, that if he supported his move to break
976-713: The Acts of Union 1800 . Of the two that passed the Parliament of the United Kingdom the Third Bill, enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1914 and then suspended, while the Fourth Bill, enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1920 established two separate Home Rule territories in Ireland, of which the one was implemented by the Parliament of Northern Ireland , but the second Parliament of Southern Ireland
1037-624: The British government 's mishandling of the aftermath of the Rising, including the rushed executions of its leaders by General Maxwell , led to a rise in popularity for an Irish republican movement named Sinn Féin , a small separatist party taken over by the survivors of the Easter Rising. Britain made two futile attempts to implement Home Rule, both of which failed because of Ulster unionists' protesting against its proposed implementation for
1098-686: The Congested Districts Board , his earlier push for the 1885 Purchase of Land Act and the 1887 Land Law (Ireland) Act which expanded the Liberal's 1881 loan programme for small farmers to purchase lands (the programme overall was in response to the Plan of Campaign by Irish MPs), or the later Conservative government's implementation of the Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898 . Former Conservative barrister Isaac Butt
1159-828: The Dublin University Magazine a leading Irish journal of politics and literature. Butt was born in 1813 in Glenfin, a district bordering the Finn Valley in County Donegal in Ulster , the northern province in Ireland . Glenfin is a short distance west of Ballybofey , a town in East Donegal. He was born into an Ulster Protestant family, being the son of a Church of Ireland rector , and
1220-592: The Government of Ireland Act 1920 , aimed at creating separate parliaments for Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland . The former was established in 1921, and the territory continues to this day as part of the United Kingdom, but the latter never functioned. Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the Anglo-Irish War , twenty-six of Ireland's thirty-two counties became, in December 1922,
1281-540: The Home Rule League and the Home Rule Confederation its British sister organisation. It was founded under Isaac Butt in November 1873 as the Home Rule League . After the death of Butt the party soon divided into radicals led by Charles Stewart Parnell and Whiggish members under William Shaw . Shaw became leader for a year 1879–1880, but was defeated by Parnell the next year. The Whiggish members all lost their seats in 1885. The Home Rule Party
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#17327729153901342-652: The Irish Free State , a dominion within the British Empire which later evolved into the present Republic of Ireland . Under the Act of Union 1800 , the separate Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain were merged on 1 January 1801 to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . Throughout the 19th century, Irish opposition to the Union was strong, occasionally erupting in violent insurrection. In
1403-839: The Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone introduced the First Home Rule Bill in 1886, but the bill was defeated in the House of Commons after a split in the Liberal Party. After Parnell's death, Gladstone introduced the Second Home Rule Bill in 1893; it passed the Commons but was defeated in the House of Lords . After the removal of the Lords' veto in 1911 , the Third Home Rule Bill
1464-507: The 1830s and 1840s, attempts had been made under the leadership of Daniel O'Connell and his Repeal Association to repeal the Act of Union and restore the Kingdom of Ireland , without breaking the monarchical connection with Great Britain (i.e., personal union ). The movement collapsed when O'Connell called off a meeting at Clontarf, Dublin , which had been banned by the authorities. Until
1525-821: The 1860s, meant an Irish legislature with responsibility for domestic affairs. It was variously interpreted, from the 1870s was seen to be part of a federal system for the United Kingdom: a domestic Parliament for Ireland while the Imperial Parliament at Westminster would continue to have responsibility for Imperial affairs. The Republican concept as represented by the Fenians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood , strove to achieve total separation from Great Britain, if necessary by physical force, and complete autonomy for Ireland. For
1586-681: The 1870s, most Irish voters elected members of the main British political parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives , as their Members of Parliament (MPs). The Conservatives, for example, won a majority in the 1859 general election in Ireland . Conservatives and (after 1886) Liberal Unionists fiercely resisted any dilution of the Act of Union, and in 1891 formed the Irish Unionist Alliance to oppose home rule. The term "Home Rule" ( Irish : Rialtas Dúchais ), first used in
1647-421: The 1890s. The Liberals lost the 1895 general election and their Conservative opponents remained in power until 1905. The four Irish Home Rule bills introduced in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were intended to grant self-government and national autonomy to the whole of Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and reverse parts of
1708-647: The Amnesty Association formed to secure the release of imprisoned Fenians, supported actively amongst others by P. F. Johnson . In 1870 Butt then founded the Irish Home Government Association . This was in no sense a revolutionary organisation. It was designed to mobilise public opinion behind the demand for an Irish parliament, with, as he put it, "full control over our domestic affairs". He believed that Home Rule would promote friendship between Ireland and her neighbour to
1769-470: The Church of Ireland (Anglican) parishes of Stranorlar, Meenglass and Kilteevogue instigated an annual memorial Service and Lecture in Butt's honour, inviting members of the professions of law, politics and journalism to reflect aspects of his life. Speakers have included Dr. Joe Mulholland, Senator David Norris, Dr. Chris McGimpsey and Prof. Brian Walker. His grave has been restored and the memorial now includes
1830-992: The Fenian prisoners in 1867 still stood in his favour. However, soon a Belfast Home Ruler, Joseph Gillis Biggar (then a senior member of the IRB ), began making extensive use of the ungentlemanly tactic of "obstructionism" to prevent bills being passed by the house. When Parnell entered Parliament he took his cue from John O'Connor Power and Joseph Biggar and allied himself with those Irish members who would support him in his obstructionist campaign. MPs at that time could stand up and talk for as long as they wished on any subject. This caused havoc in Parliament. In one case they talked for 45 hours non-stop, stopping any important bills from being passed. Butt, ageing, and in failing health, could not keep up with this tactic and considered it counter-productive. In July 1877 Butt threatened to resign from
1891-599: The Irish Parliamentary Party suffered a crushing defeat with only a handful of MPs surviving, effectively dealing a death blow to the Home Rule movement. The elected Sinn Féin MPs were not content merely with home rule within the framework of the United Kingdom; they instead set up a revolutionary legislature, Dáil Éireann , and declared Ireland an independent republic. Britain passed a Fourth Home Rule Bill,
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1952-744: The League, with more radical ideas than most of the incumbent Home Rulers, and was elected to Parliament in a by-election in County Meath in 1875. Butt had failed to win substantial concessions at Westminster on the things that mattered to most Irish people: an amnesty for the Fenians of 1867, fixity of tenure for tenant-farmers and Home Rule. Although they worked to get Home Rulers elected, many Fenians along with tenant farmers were dissatisfied with Butt's gentlemanly approach to have bills enacted, although they did not openly attack him, as his defence of
2013-409: The Liberal Party. The Liberal Unionists allied with Lord Salisbury 's Conservatives on the issue of Home Rule until formally merging in 1912. The defeat of the bill caused Gladstone to lose office. After returning to government after the 1892 general election Gladstone, made a second attempt to introduce Irish Home Rule following Parnell's death with the Government of Ireland Bill 1893 . This bill
2074-554: The United Kingdom. In the 1874 general election , League-affiliated candidates won 53 seats in Parliament. Butt died in 1879. In 1880, a radical young Protestant landowner, Charles Stewart Parnell became chairman, and in the 1880 general election , the League won 63 seats. In 1882, Parnell turned the Home Rule League into the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), a formally organized party which became
2135-560: The constitutional freedom of the Irish nation." Charles Stewart Parnell sought through the "constitutional movement", as an interim measure a parliament in Dublin with limited legislative powers. For Unionists , Home Rule meant a Dublin parliament dominated by the Catholic Church to the detriment of Ireland's economic progress, a threat to their cultural identity as both British and Irish and possible discrimination against them as
2196-606: The duration of World War I which had broken out in August. The widely held assumption at the time was that the war would be short lived. With the participation of Ireland in the First World War , the southern Irish Volunteers split into the larger National Volunteers and followed Redmond's call to support the Allied war effort to ensure the future implementation of Home Rule by voluntarily enlisting in Irish regiments of
2257-507: The east. In November 1873 Butt replaced the Association with a new body, the Home Rule League , which he regarded as a pressure-group, rather than a political party. In the general election the following year, 60 of its members were elected, forming then in 1874 the Irish Parliamentary Party . However, most of those elected were men of property who were closer to the Liberal cause. In the meantime Charles Stewart Parnell had joined
2318-575: The end of a political era, which resulted in a swing of public opinion towards Sinn Féin and physical force separatism . Interest in Home Rule began to fade as a result. After the end of the war in November 1918 Sinn Féin secured a majority of 73 Irish seats in the general election , with 25 of these seats taken uncontested. The IPP was decimated, falling to only six seats; it disbanded soon afterward. In January 1919 twenty-seven Sinn Féin MPs assembled in Dublin and proclaimed themselves unilaterally as an independent parliament of an Irish Republic . This
2379-411: The interests of the unionist and republican factions through a " power sharing " agreement. Isaac Butt Isaac Butt QC MP (6 September 1813 – 5 May 1879) was an Irish barrister , editor, politician, Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom , economist and the founder and first leader of a number of Irish nationalist parties and organisations. He
2440-490: The majority anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation and the rump Parnellite Irish National League. The Nationalist Party appellation was applied to the reunited Irish Parliamentary Party in 1900. It also covered smaller breakaway factions, such as those led by Tim Healy , D. D. Sheehan and William O'Brien . Some of its members were elected to Dáil Éireann in the early years of the Irish Free State as independents or for William Redmond 's National League Party which
2501-791: The new Free State, which was a foregone conclusion. The Irish Civil War (1922–1923) followed. The Parliament of Northern Ireland continued in operation until 30 March 1972, when it was suspended in favour of direct rule by the Northern Ireland Office during The Troubles . It was subsequently abolished under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 . Various versions of the Northern Ireland Assembly re-established home rule in 1973–74, 1982–86, intermittently from 1998 to 2002, and from 2007 onward. The Assembly attempts to balance
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2562-568: The party if obstruction continued, and a gulf developed between himself and Parnell, who was growing steadily in the estimation of both the Fenians and the Home Rulers. The climax came in December 1878, when Parliament was recalled to discuss the war in Afghanistan . Butt considered this discussion too important to the British Empire to be interrupted by obstructionism and publicly warned the Irish members to refrain from this tactic. He
2623-470: The power of the Lords, Asquith would then in return introduce a new Home Rule Bill. The Parliament Act 1911 forced the Lords to agree to a curtailment of their powers. Now their unlimited veto was replaced with a delaying one lasting only two years. The Third Home Rule Bill introduced in 1912 was as in 1886 and 1893 ferociously opposed by Ulster unionists , for whom Home Rule was synonymous with Rome Rule as well as being indicative of economic decline and
2684-414: The responsibility of the Westminster government. Lord Monteagle's bill was defeated at second reading. Following the 1895 general election, the Conservatives were in power for ten years. The significant Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 (following the English Act of 1888) introduced for the first time the enfranchisement of local electors, bringing about a system of localised home rule in many areas. In
2745-400: The south by the formation of the Irish Volunteers to restrain Ulster. Both Nationalists and Republicans, except for the All-for-Ireland Party , brushed unionist concerns aside with "no concessions for Ulster", treating their threat as a bluff. The Act received Royal Assent and was placed on the statute books on 18 September 1914, but under the Suspensory Act was deferred for no longer than
2806-413: The whole island of Ireland; first after the Rising and then at the end of the Irish Convention of 1917–1918. With the collapse of the allied front during the German spring offensive and Operation Michael , the British Army had a serious manpower shortage, and the Cabinet agreed on 5 April to enact Home Rule immediately, linked in with a "dual policy" of extending conscription to Ireland . This signalled
2867-414: Was a leader in the Irish Metropolitan Conservative Society in 1836, the Home Government Association in 1870, and the Home Rule League in 1873. Colin W. Reid argues that Home Rule was the mechanism Butt proposed to bind Ireland to Great Britain . It would end the ambiguities of the Act of Union of 1800 . He portrayed a federalised United Kingdom , which would have weakened Irish exceptionalism within
2928-432: Was descended from the O'Donnells of Tyrconnell , through the Ramsays. Butt received his secondary school education at The Royal School in Raphoe in the Laggan district of East Donegal , and at Midleton College in County Cork , before going to Trinity College Dublin (TCD), at the age of fifteen, where he was elected a Scholar , and president of the (extern) College Historical Society . Whilst there he co-founded
2989-451: Was drafted in secret and considered flawed. It was steered through the Commons by William O'Brien , with a majority of 30 votes, only to be defeated in the Conservative 's pro- unionist majority controlled House of Lords . In 1894, the new Liberal leader Lord Rosebery adopted the policy of promising Salisbury that the majority vote of English MPs would have a veto on any future Irish Home Rule Bills. The Nationalist movement divided in
3050-407: Was fiercely denounced by the young Nationalist John Dillon , who continued his attacks with considerable support from other Home Rulers at a meeting of the Home Rule League in February 1879. Although he defended himself with dignity, Butt, and all and sundry, knew that his role in the party was at an end. Barry O'Brien , in his biography of Parnell, interviews 'X' who relates: 'It was very painful. I
3111-540: Was ignored by Britain. The Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) ensued. Britain went ahead with its commitment to implement Home Rule by passing a new Fourth Home Rule Bill, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 , largely shaped by the Walter Long Committee which followed findings contained in the report of the Irish Convention. Long, a firm unionist, felt free to shape Home Rule in Unionism's favour, and formalised dividing Ireland (and Ulster ) into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland . The latter never functioned, but
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#17327729153903172-446: Was instrumental in fostering links between Constitutional and Revolutionary nationalism through his representation of members of the Fenian Society in court. In May 1870, he established a new moderate nationalist movement, the Irish Home Government Association . In November 1873, under the chairmanship of William Shaw , it reconstituted itself as the Home Rule League . The League's goal was limited self-government for Ireland as part of
3233-405: Was introduced in 1912, leading to the Home Rule Crisis . Shortly after the outbreak of World War I it was enacted, but implementation was suspended until the conclusion of the war. Following the Easter Rising of 1916, particularly the arrests and executions that followed it , public support shifted from the Home Rule movement to the more radical Sinn Féin party. In the 1918 General Election
3294-426: Was known for his opposition to the Irish nationalist leader Daniel O'Connell 's campaign for the repeal of the Act of Union. He also lectured at Trinity College, Dublin, in political economy. His experiences during the Great Famine led him to move from being an Irish unionist and an Orangeman to supporting a federal political system for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that would give Ireland
3355-418: Was not implemented in the rest of Ireland. The bills were: In 1920 the unionist peer Lord Monteagle of Brandon proposed his own Dominion of Ireland Bill in the House of Lords, at the same time as the Government bill was passing through the house. This bill would have given a united Ireland extensive home rule over all domestic matters as a dominion within the empire, with foreign affairs and defence remaining
3416-404: Was occasionally heckled by women with whom he had fathered children. He was also involved in a financial scandal when it was revealed that he had taken money from several Indian princes to represent their interests in parliament. He died on 5 May 1879 in Clonskeagh in Dublin. His remains were brought by train, via Strabane , to Stranorlar in the east of County Donegal , where he is buried in
3477-450: Was replaced under the Anglo-Irish Treaty by the Irish Free State which later became the Republic of Ireland . The Home Rule Parliament of Northern Ireland came into being in June 1921. At its inauguration, in Belfast City Hall , King George V made a famous appeal drafted by Prime Minister Lloyd George for Anglo-Irish and north–south reconciliation. The Anglo-Irish Treaty had provided for Northern Ireland's Parliament to opt out of
3538-415: Was set up by a group of English Home Rule MPs' at a meeting in Dublin on 3 March 1874 to pursue the restoration of an Irish legislature. The party was reformed by Parnell as the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1882, the constituency organisation of which was the Irish National League . Both were commonly referred to as the Nationalist Party, as were the organisations which developed from the Parnellite Split,
3599-436: Was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the end of World War I . Isaac Butt founded the Home Government Association in 1870. This was succeeded in 1873 by the Home Rule League , and in 1882 by the Irish Parliamentary Party . These organisations campaigned for home rule in the British House of Commons . Under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell , the movement came close to success when
3660-431: Was to merge into Cumann na nGaedheal . Bridget Redmond, William's wife, was elected in Waterford for Fine Gael until 1952. After the general election of 1918 , the term Nationalist Party was taken on by the remnants of old Irish Parliamentary Party under Joseph Devlin as the Nationalist Party in the new creation of Northern Ireland . It developed a reputation for being heavily disorganised and being little more than
3721-408: Was very fond of Butt. He was himself the kindest-hearted man in the world, and here was I going to do the unkindest thing to him.' Butt, who had been suffering from bronchitis, had a stroke the following May and died within a week. He was replaced by William Shaw , who in turn was replaced by Charles Stewart Parnell in 1880. Butt amassed debts and pursued romances. It was said that at meetings he
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