181-494: The Land War ( Irish : Cogadh na Talún ) was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland (then wholly part of the United Kingdom ) that began in 1879. It may refer specifically to the first and most intense period of agitation between 1879 and 1882, or include later outbreaks of agitation that periodically reignited until 1923, especially the 1886–1891 Plan of Campaign and the 1906–1909 Ranch War . The agitation
362-547: A unique dialect of Irish developed before falling out of use in the early 20th century. With a writing system , Ogham , dating back to at least the 4th century AD, which was gradually replaced by Latin script since the 5th century AD, Irish has one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Western Europe . On the island, the language has three major dialects: Connacht , Munster and Ulster Irish . All three have distinctions in their speech and orthography . There
543-557: A "defence fund" for legal representation in eviction cases and support for evicted families. Rent strikes could also be effected in a Slowdown way, with paying a fraction now and promising more next week while making oneself unavailable, it could include obstacles for rent collectors, re-occupation of farms rented by evicted defaulters, etc. The Meaghers of Kilbury are credited as the inventors of this kind of tactics when they practiced it in January 1880. Contemporary opponents argued that
724-530: A "shadow legal system" by British academic Frank Ledwidge. According to historian Charles Townshend , the formation of courts was the "most unacceptable of all acts of defiance" committed by the Land League. In 1881, Chief Secretary for Ireland William Edward Forster grumbled that Land League law was ascendant: ... all law rests on the power to punish its infraction. There being no such power in Ireland at
905-489: A Liberal base were deeply split. Ensor notes that, "London society, following the known views of the Queen, practically ostracized home rulers." The new Liberal leader was the ineffectual Lord Rosebery . He led the party to a heavy defeat in the 1895 general election . The Liberal Party lacked a unified ideological base in 1906. It contained numerous contradictory and hostile factions, such as imperialists and supporters of
1086-717: A bargaining chip during government formation in Northern Ireland, prompting protests from organisations and groups such as An Dream Dearg . Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs with Irish fluency can now speak the language in the European Parliament and at committees, although in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter in order to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages. While an official language of
1267-575: A better future for Ireland and all her citizens." The Strategy was produced on 21 December 2010 and will stay in action until 2030; it aims to target language vitality and revitalization of the Irish language. The 30-page document published by the Government of Ireland details the objectives it plans to work towards in an attempt to preserve and promote both the Irish language and the Gaeltacht. It
1448-751: A century, free trade remained the one cause which could unite all Liberals. In 1841, the Liberals lost office to the Conservatives under Sir Robert Peel , but their period in opposition was short because the Conservatives split over the repeal of the Corn Laws , a free trade issue; and a faction known as the Peelites (but not Peel himself, who died soon after) aligned to the Liberal side on
1629-516: A coalition that replaced him in late 1916. However, Asquith remained as Liberal Party leader. The split between Lloyd George's breakaway faction and Asquith's official Liberal faction badly weakened the party. The coalition government of Lloyd George was increasingly dominated by the Conservative Party, which finally ousted him as prime minister in 1922. The subsequent Liberal collapse was quick and catastrophic. With 400 MPs elected in
1810-478: A cultural and social force. Irish speakers often insisted on using the language in law courts (even when they knew English), and Irish was also common in commercial transactions. The language was heavily implicated in the "devotional revolution" which marked the standardisation of Catholic religious practice and was also widely used in a political context. Down to the time of the Great Famine and even afterwards,
1991-528: A dangerous rival, and rejoiced at the chance to destroy her. They meant to fight a hard-headed war by ruthless methods; they condemned Liberal 'softness' before the war and now. The Liberals insisted on remaining high-minded. Many of them had come to support the war only when the Germans invaded Belgium. [...] Entering the war for idealistic motives, the Liberals wished to fight it by noble means and found it harder to abandon their principles than to endure defeat in
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#17327653522872172-702: A defeat for the small farmers; besides "a legacy of bitterness and cynicism in Connaught", the main effect of their campaign was to show how Irish nationalism had become a bourgeois movement, including many large graziers. By the Irish War of Independence (1918–1922) about half a million people were occupying uneconomic smallholdings, mostly in the west of Ireland. In addition, veterans of the Irish Volunteers and first Irish Republican Army had been promised land in exchange for their service. In 1919–1920,
2353-553: A degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE / GCSE examinations. Exemptions are made from this requirement for students who were born or completed primary education outside of Ireland, and students diagnosed with dyslexia . NUI Galway is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they are also competent in all other aspects of
2534-531: A developing capitalist society, but they could not respond effectively as economic and social conditions changed. Called the "Grand Old Man" later in life, Gladstone was always a dynamic popular orator who appealed strongly to the working class and to the lower middle class. Deeply religious, Gladstone brought a new moral tone to politics, with his evangelical sensibility and his opposition to aristocracy. His moralism often angered his upper-class opponents (including Queen Victoria ), and his heavy-handed control split
2715-596: A dominion beyond. Gladstone finally retired in 1894. Gladstone's support for Home Rule deeply divided the party, and it lost its upper and upper-middle-class base, while keeping support among Protestant nonconformists and the Celtic fringe. Historian R. C. K. Ensor reports that after 1886, the main Liberal Party was deserted by practically the entire whig peerage and the great majority of the upper-class and upper-middle-class members. High prestige London clubs that had
2896-460: A fully recognised EU language for the first time in the state's history. Before Irish became an official language it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU were made available in Irish. The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diaspora , chiefly to Great Britain and North America, but also to Australia , New Zealand and Argentina . The first large movements began in
3077-592: A government. Historian Robert Blake explains the dilemma: [T]he Liberals were traditionally the party of freedom of speech, conscience and trade. They were against jingoism, heavy armaments and compulsion. [...] Liberals were neither wholehearted nor unanimous about conscription, censorship, the Defence of the Realm Act , severity toward aliens and pacifists, direction of labour and industry. The Conservatives [...] had no such misgivings. Blake further notes that it
3258-526: A leading role in the 1902 Land Conference to pave the way for the most advanced social legislation in Ireland since the Union , the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903 . This Act set the conditions for the break-up of large estates by government-sponsored purchase. Alongside the political and legal changes, the " Long Depression " affected rent yields and landlord-tenant relations across all of Europe from
3439-618: A lesser role in party affairs after 1900. The party, furthermore, also included Irish Catholics, and secularists from the labour movement. Many Conservatives (including Winston Churchill ) had recently protested against high tariff moves by the Conservatives by switching to the anti-tariff Liberal camp, but it was unclear how many old Conservative traits they brought along, especially on military and naval issues. The middle-class business, professional and intellectual communities were generally strongholds, although some old aristocratic families played important roles as well. The working-class element
3620-472: A mass meeting in Irishtown, County Mayo organised by local and Dublin-based activists, led by Davitt and James Daly . The activists tried to mobilize an alliance of tenant farmers, shopkeepers and clergy in favour of land reform. Although the clergy refused to participate, some 7,000 to 13,000 people attended the meeting, having come from all parts of Mayo and counties Roscommon and Galway . The main issue
3801-713: A massive victory: Labour increased their position slightly, but the Asquithian Liberals were decimated. Those remaining Liberal MPs who were opposed to the Coalition Government went into opposition under the parliamentary leadership of Sir Donald MacLean who also became Leader of the Opposition . Asquith, who had appointed MacLean, remained as overall Leader of the Liberal Party even though he lost his seat in 1918. Asquith returned to Parliament in 1920 and resumed leadership. Between 1919 and 1923,
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#17327653522873982-546: A new non-violent moral tactic against those taking over the land of evicted tenants. Parnell gave a speech in Ennis in 1889, proposing that when dealing with such tenants, rather than resorting to violence, everyone in the locality should instead shun them. This tactic was then widened to landowners. The term "boycott" was coined later that year following the successful campaign against County Mayo land agent Charles Boycott . The concerted action taken against him meant that Boycott
4163-448: A new system of protectionist tariffs. Campbell-Bannerman was able to rally the party around the traditional liberal platform of free trade and land reform and led them to the greatest election victory in their history. This would prove the last time the Liberals won a majority in their own right. Although he presided over a large majority, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was overshadowed by his ministers, most notably H. H. Asquith at
4344-585: A paper suggested that within a generation, non-Gaeltacht habitual users of Irish might typically be members of an urban, middle class, and highly educated minority. Parliamentary legislation is supposed to be available in both Irish and English but is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in
4525-575: A pass in Leaving Certificate Irish or English, and receive lessons in Irish during their two years of training. Official documents of the Irish government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced by An Coimisinéir Teanga , the Irish language ombudsman). The National University of Ireland requires all students wishing to embark on
4706-523: A provisional government and armed resistance in Ulster . The Ulster Protestants had the full support of the Conservatives, whose leader, Bonar Law , was of Ulster-Scots descent. Government plans to deploy troops into Ulster had to be cancelled after the threat of mass resignation of their commissions by army officers in March 1914 ( see Curragh Incident ). Ireland seemed to be on the brink of civil war when
4887-465: A rather desperate manner to hold on to power. The result was a catastrophic split in the Liberal Party, and heavy defeat in the 1886 election at the hands of Lord Salisbury , who was supported by the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party . There was a final weak Gladstone ministry in 1892, but it also was dependent on Irish support and failed to get Irish Home Rule through the House of Lords. Historically,
5068-625: A religious context. An Irish translation of the Old Testament by Leinsterman Muircheartach Ó Cíonga , commissioned by Bishop Bedell , was published after 1685 along with a translation of the New Testament. Otherwise, Anglicisation was seen as synonymous with 'civilising' the native Irish. Currently, modern day Irish speakers in the church are pushing for language revival. It has been estimated that there were around 800,000 monoglot Irish speakers in 1800, which dropped to 320,000 by
5249-672: A reported 20,000–30,000 turnout, in protest of the Church's position. Another meeting was held in Westport, County Mayo on 8 June, in protest against the Marquess of Sligo , the largest landowner in Mayo; Davitt persuaded Parnell to speak and 8,000 people turned out. Parnell went on with the engagement even after John MacHale , Archbishop of Tuam , denounced the meeting in a 7 June letter to The Freeman's Journal . Parnell also wanted to prevent
5430-492: A result of linguistic imperialism . Today, Irish is still commonly spoken as a first language in Ireland's Gaeltacht regions, in which 2% of Ireland's population lived in 2022. The total number of people (aged 3 and over) in Ireland who declared they could speak Irish in April 2022 was 1,873,997, representing 40% of respondents, but of these, 472,887 said they never spoke it and a further 551,993 said they only spoke it within
5611-475: A strong appeal to the nonconformist middle-class Liberal element, which felt liberated by the departure of the aristocracy. A major long-term consequence of the Third Reform Act was the rise of Lib-Lab candidates. The Act split all county constituencies (which were represented by multiple MPs) into single-member constituencies , roughly corresponding to population patterns. With the foundation of
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5792-564: A strong, welfare-oriented, and interventionist state. After the historic 1906 victory, the Liberal Party introduced multiple reforms on a range of issues, including health insurance , unemployment insurance , and pensions for elderly workers, thereby laying the groundwork for the future British welfare state . Some proposals failed, such as licensing fewer pubs, or rolling back Conservative educational policies. The People's Budget of 1909, championed by David Lloyd George and fellow Liberal Winston Churchill , introduced unprecedented taxes on
5973-531: A three-way split in 1931. Many prominent intellectuals were active in the party, including philosopher John Stuart Mill , economist John Maynard Keynes , and social planner William Beveridge . Winston Churchill during his years as a Liberal (1904–1924) authored Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909). The Liberal Party grew out of the Whigs , who had their origins in an aristocratic faction in
6154-670: A wave of land seizures took place in western Ireland, and in 1920 agrarian crimes were recorded at their highest level since 1882. When their hopes for acquiring more land were dashed by the fact that the Anglo-Irish Treaty made no mention of the land issue, many joined the Anti-Treaty side in the following Irish Civil War . In the Irish Free State , their grievances fueled the Fianna Fáil party and led to
6335-545: A wider meaning, including the Gaelic of Scotland and the Isle of Man , as well as of Ireland. When required by the context, these are distinguished as Gaeilge na hAlban , Gaeilge Mhanann and Gaeilge na hÉireann respectively. In English (including Hiberno-English ), the language is usually referred to as Irish , as well as Gaelic and Irish Gaelic . The term Irish Gaelic may be seen when English speakers discuss
6516-603: Is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family . It is a member of the Goidelic language group of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous to the island of Ireland . It was the majority of the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century, in what is sometimes characterised as
6697-452: Is also An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , a standardised written form devised by a parliamentary commission in the 1950s. The traditional Irish alphabet , a variant of the Latin alphabet with 18 letters , has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet (albeit with 7–8 letters used primarily in loanwords ). Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of
6878-511: Is divided into four separate phases with the intention of improving 9 main areas of action including: The general goal for this strategy was to increase the number of daily speakers from 83,000 to 250,000 by the end of its run. By 2022, the number of such speakers had fallen to 71,968. Before the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had devolved government. During those years
7059-587: Is only in Gaeltacht areas that Irish continues to be spoken as a community vernacular to some extent. According to data compiled by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht , Sport and Media , only 1/4 of households in Gaeltacht areas are fluent in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology , described
7240-412: Is still spoken daily to some extent as a first language . These regions are known individually and collectively as the Gaeltacht (plural Gaeltachtaí ). While the fluent Irish speakers of these areas, whose numbers have been estimated at 20–30,000, are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it
7421-623: Is that the British people were so deeply divided over numerous issues, but on all sides, there was growing distrust of the Asquith government. There was no agreement whatsoever on wartime issues. The leaders of the two parties realized that embittered debates in Parliament would further undermine popular morale and so the House of Commons did not once discuss the war before May 1915. Taylor argues: The Unionists, by and large, regarded Germany as
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7602-666: The Fíor-Ghaeltacht (true Gaeltacht ), a term originally officially applied to areas where over 50% of the population spoke Irish. There are Gaeltacht regions in the following counties: Gweedore ( Gaoth Dobhair ), County Donegal, is the largest Gaeltacht parish in Ireland. Irish language summer colleges in the Gaeltacht are attended by tens of thousands of teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to céilithe and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged. The Act
7783-623: The 1918 general election , Lloyd George, hailed as "the Man Who Won the War", led his coalition into a khaki election . Lloyd George and the Conservative leader Bonar Law wrote a joint letter of support to candidates to indicate they were considered the official Coalition candidates—this " coupon ", as it became known, was issued against many sitting Liberal MPs, often to devastating effect, though not against Asquith himself. The coalition won
7964-683: The First World War broke out in August 1914. Asquith had offered the Six Counties (later to become Northern Ireland ) an opt out from Home Rule for six years (i.e., until after two more general elections were likely to have taken place) but the Nationalists refused to agree to permanent Partition of Ireland . Historian George Dangerfield has argued that the multiplicity of crises in 1910 to 1914, political and industrial, so weakened
8145-789: The Irish Coercion Act . While in jail, they issued the No Rent Manifesto , calling for a national tenant farmer rent strike until their release. Finally, on 20 October the Government moved to suppress the Land League. A genuine No Rent campaign was virtually impossible to organise, and many tenants were more interested in "putting the Land Act to the test". It further seemed that the Coercion Act, instead of banishing agrarian crime, had only intensified it. Although
8326-617: The Irish National Land League based in Dublin, with Parnell made its president. As the land agitation progressed, it was taken over by larger farmers and the centre of gravity shifted away from the distressed western districts. In Mayo, the autumn potato harvest was only 1.4 tons per acre, less than half of the previous year. At the Land League conference in April 1880, Parnell's program of conciliation with landlords
8507-531: The Irish National League . Preceded by economic difficulties due to droughts in 1884 and 1887 as well as industrial depression in England causing shrinking markets, the 1886–1891 Plan of Campaign was a more focused version of agitation and rent strikes. Tenants on an estate would meet and decide on what was a fair rent to pay their landlord, even though rents had already been judicially fixed by
8688-661: The Irish Nationalists . Although the Lords now passed the budget, the government wished to curtail their power to block legislation. Asquith was required by King George V to fight a second general election in December 1910 (whose result was little changed from that in January) before he agreed, if necessary, to create hundreds of Liberals peers. Faced with that threat, the Lords voted to give up their veto power and allowed
8869-517: The Labour Party not to come till 1906, many trade unions allied themselves with the Liberals. In areas with working class majorities, in particular coal-mining areas, Lib-Lab candidates were popular, and they received sponsorship and endorsement from trade unions . In the first election after the Act was passed (1885), thirteen were elected, up from two in 1874. The Third Reform Act also facilitated
9050-521: The Land Commission in 1881 with quasi-judicial powers that eventually enabled most tenant farmers to buy freehold interests in their land. After the general election of April 1880 with the Land War still raging, Parnell believed then that supporting land agitation was a means to achieving his objective of self-government. Prime Minister Gladstone attempted to resolve the land question with
9231-630: The Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881 . The Act gave greater rights to tenant farmers, so-called dual ownership , but failed to eliminate tenant evictions. Parnell and his party lieutenants, William O'Brien, John Dillon and Willie Redmond went into a bitter verbal offensive against the Act and were imprisoned in October 1881 in Kilmainham Jail , together with other prominent members of the League, under
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#17327653522879412-409: The League could not possibly exist". The land question in Ireland was ultimately defused by a series of Irish Land Acts , beginning in 1870 with rent reform, establishing the Land Commission in 1881, and providing for judicial reviews to certify fair rents. The Ashbourne Act of 1885 started a limited process of allowing tenant farmers to buy their freeholds , which was greatly extended following
9593-441: The Liberal Party in 1989. The Liberals were a coalition with diverse positions on major issues and no unified national policy. This made them repeatedly liable to deep splits, such as that of the Liberal Unionists in 1886 (they eventually joined the Conservative Party); the faction of labour union members that joined the new Labour Party ; the split between factions led by Asquith and that led by Lloyd George in 1918–1922 ; and
9774-512: The Republic of Ireland , and is also an official language of Northern Ireland and among the official languages of the European Union . The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island. Irish has no regulatory body but An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , the standard written form, is guided by a parliamentary service and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("The Official [Written] Standard ")
9955-447: The Sacred Congregation for Propaganda . In 1887 the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act 1887 was passed to deal with the offenses surrounding the Campaign. After the 1881 and 1885 Land Reform Acts (see below), many Tory press commentators described the Plan of Campaign as an opportunistic and cynical method of revenge following the division of the Liberal Party and the rejection of the first Irish Home Rule Bill in June 1886. It
10136-400: The 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland , which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies . Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine . This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English
10317-399: The 1870s to the 1890s. The population of Ireland was overwhelmingly rural; in 1841, four-fifths of the population lived in hamlets smaller than 20 houses. This ratio declined over the century, but only due to emigration from rural areas and not from growth of the towns and cities. Land in Ireland was concentrated into relatively few hands, many of them absentee landlords . In 1870, 50% of
10498-423: The 1885 Ashbourne Act . Other forbidden actions included "participating in evictions, fraternizing with, or entering into, commerce with anyone who did; or working for, hiring, letting land from, or socializing with, boycotted person". Tribunals were typically led by the leaders of local chapters, holding open proceedings with a common law procedure. This was intended to uphold the League's image of being in favour of
10679-415: The 1885 act. They would offer to pay the lower rent, and if it was refused, would instead pay it to the Plan of Campaign fund. These rent strikes targeted the most heavily indebted and financially insecure landlords, who faced a choice between immediate bankruptcy and accepting a lower income. Lord Clanricarde had evicted many tenants and became the main target. Given the extended franchise allowed in 1884 ,
10860-459: The 1890s "became Conservative in all but name." The government could force the unwilling king to create new Liberal peers, and that threat did prove decisive in the battle for dominance of Commons over Lords in 1911. The late nineteenth century saw the emergence of New Liberalism within the Liberal Party, which advocated state intervention as a means of guaranteeing freedom and removing obstacles to it such as poverty and unemployment. The policies of
11041-420: The 1902 Land Conference , by the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903 . Augustine Birrel 's Act of 1909 allowed for compulsory purchase , and also allowed the purchase and division of untenanted land that was being directly farmed by the owners. These Acts allowed tenants first to attain extensive property rights on their leaseholdings and then to purchase their land off their landlords via UK government loans and
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#173276535228711222-427: The 1906 election; they had only 40 in 1924. Their share of the popular vote plunged from 49% to 18%. The Labour Party absorbed most of the ex-Liberal voters and then became the Conservatives' main rival. By the 1950s, the party had won as few as six seats at general elections. Apart from a few notable by-election victories, its fortunes did not improve significantly until it formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance with
11403-604: The 1998 Good Friday Agreement , the language gradually received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and then, in 2003, by the British government's ratification in respect of the language of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . In the 2006 St Andrews Agreement the British government promised to enact legislation to promote the language and in 2022 it approved legislation to recognise Irish as an official language alongside English. The bill received royal assent on 6 December 2022. The Irish language has often been used as
11584-403: The 6th century, used the Latin alphabet and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. During this time, the Irish language absorbed some Latin words, some via Old Welsh , including ecclesiastical terms : examples are easpag (bishop) from episcopus , and Domhnach (Sunday, from dominica ). By the 10th century, Old Irish had evolved into Middle Irish , which
11765-466: The Act all detailing different aspects of the use of Irish in official documentation and communication. Included in these sections are subjects such as Irish language use in official courts, official publications, and placenames. The Act was recently amended in December 2019 in order to strengthen the already preexisting legislation. All changes made took into account data collected from online surveys and written submissions. The Official Languages Scheme
11946-449: The Boers; near-socialists and laissez-faire classical liberals ; suffragettes and opponents of women's suffrage ; antiwar elements and supporters of the military alliance with France . Nonconformists – Protestants outside the Anglican fold – were a powerful element, dedicated to opposing the established church in terms of education and taxation. However, the non-conformists were losing support amid society at large and played
12127-408: The Conservatives. The 1906 general election also represented a shift to the left by the Liberal Party. According to Rosemary Rees, almost half of the Liberal MPs elected in 1906 were supportive of the 'New Liberalism' (which advocated government action to improve people's lives), ) while claims were made that "five-sixths of the Liberal party are left wing." Other historians, however, have questioned
12308-404: The European Union , only co-decision regulations were available until 2022, due to a five-year derogation, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. The Irish government had committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs. This derogation ultimately came to an end on 1 January 2022, making Irish
12489-414: The Exchequer, Edward Grey at the Foreign Office, Richard Burdon Haldane at the War Office and David Lloyd George at the Board of Trade. Campbell-Bannerman retired in 1908 and died soon after. He was succeeded by Asquith, who stepped up the government's radicalism. Lloyd George succeeded Asquith at the Exchequer and was in turn succeeded at the Board of Trade by Winston Churchill , a recent defector from
12670-415: The Government has not dared to challenge the nation to rise above itself, is one among many signs. [...] The war is, in fact, not being taken seriously. [...] How can any slacker be blamed when the Government itself is slack. Asquith's Liberal government was brought down in May 1915 , due in particular to a crisis in inadequate artillery shell production and the protest resignation of Admiral Fisher over
12851-494: The Great Famine evictions. For radicals such as Michael Davitt, it meant land nationalization. The fusion between land agitation and nationalist politics was based on the idea that the land of Ireland rightfully belonged to the Irish people but had been stolen by English invaders who had foisted a foreign system of land tenure upon it. Nominally, the Land League condemned large-scale grazing as improper use of land that rightfully belonged to tillage farmers. As investment in grazing land
13032-591: The IPP had to gain credibility with the larger number of new voters, choosing the most numerous Irish group: the low-to-middle-income rural electorate. Most IPP members were Catholic, and appealed to Rome for moral support. So did the government, and the Vatican issued a Papal Rescript followed by an encyclical " Saepe Nos " in 1888, condemning the activities of the Land League, particularly boycotting. Saepe Nos also claimed to extend and clarify an earlier similar ruling by
13213-549: The Irish language policy followed by Irish governments as a "complete and absolute disaster". The Irish Times , referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper Foinse , quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but
13394-473: The Land Acts of 1923 and 1933, which caused the "dramatic redistribution" of large farms and estates to smallholders and the landless. Some of the Land League's local branches established arbitration courts in 1880 and 1881, which were explicitly modelled on British courts. Typically, the cases were heard by the executive committee, which would summon both parties, call witnesses, examine evidence presented by
13575-633: The Land Acts were not the only factor causing this redistribution; the Great War and conflict during the Irish revolutionary period also facilitated the selling of land. Land agitators came to see the reforms they sought as a panacea for rural Ireland's ills. In fact, emigration and economic disadvantage continued apace, while the greatest beneficiaries of land reform were the middle class of medium farmers. Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish : Gaeilge ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY -lik ),
13756-569: The Land Commission. The 1903 Act gave Irish tenant farmers a government-sponsored right to buy, which is still not available in Great Britain today. The success of the Land Acts in reducing the concentration of land ownership is indicated by the fact that in 1870, only 3% of Irish farmers owned their own land while 97% were tenants. By 1929, this ratio had been reversed with 97.4% of farmers holding their farms in freehold. However,
13937-467: The Land War amounted to an "organised campaign of terrorism". In his biography of Michael Davitt, T. W. Moody acknowledged that the crime resulted from the Land League's militancy, but argued that statistics disprove the idea that the Land League maintained a "reign of terror". The most common type of agrarian offence was the sending of threatening letters. Davitt and other Land League leaders denounced agrarian crime in strong language, and local chapters of
14118-399: The League discouraged violence, agrarian crimes increased widely. For the ten months before the Land Act was passed (March–December 1880), the number of "outrages" were 2,379, but in the corresponding period of 1881 with the Act in full operation the numbers were 3,821. The figures to March 1882, with Parnell in jail, showed a continued increase. In April 1882 Parnell moved to make a deal with
14299-406: The Liberal Party. In foreign policy, Gladstone was in general against foreign entanglements, but he did not resist the realities of imperialism. For example, he ordered the occupation of Egypt by British forces in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War . His goal was to create a European order based on co-operation rather than conflict and on mutual trust instead of rivalry and suspicion; the rule of law
14480-647: The Liberal coalition before the war broke out that it marked the Strange Death of Liberal England . However, most historians date the collapse to the crisis of the First World War. The Liberal Party might have survived a short war, but the totality of the Great War called for measures that the Party had long rejected. The result was the permanent destruction of the ability of the Liberal Party to lead
14661-513: The National League passed many resolutions against it. However, the organisations were not in control of their rank-and-file. Between 1879 and in 1881, crimes related to the Land War rose from 25% to 58% of all crime in Ireland, without the leaders calling for an end to the agitation. Only 16 percent of agrarian crimes led to arrests, much less than the 50% rate for non-agrarian offences. Gladstone believed that escalating crimes were proof of
14842-569: The New Liberalism are now known as social liberalism . The New Liberals included intellectuals like L. T. Hobhouse , and John A. Hobson . They saw individual liberty as something achievable only under favourable social and economic circumstances. In their view, the poverty, squalor, and ignorance in which many people lived made it impossible for freedom and individuality to flourish. New Liberals believed that these conditions could be ameliorated only through collective action coordinated by
15023-556: The Party and into a third party called Liberal Unionism on the Irish issue. It collaborated with and eventually merged into the Conservative party. The Gladstonian liberals in 1891 adopted The Newcastle Programme that included home rule for Ireland, disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales , tighter controls on the sale of liquor , major extension of factory regulation and various democratic political reforms. The Programme had
15204-620: The Republic of Ireland ), new appointees to the Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland , including postal workers , tax collectors , agricultural inspectors, Garda Síochána (police), etc., were required to have some proficiency in Irish. By law, a Garda who was addressed in Irish had to respond in Irish as well. In 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like the Language Freedom Movement ,
15385-604: The Whigs returned to power under Grey in 1830 and carried the First Reform Act in 1832. The Reform Act was the climax of Whiggism, but it also brought about the Whigs' demise. The admission of the middle classes to the franchise and to the House of Commons led eventually to the development of a systematic middle-class liberalism and the end of Whiggery, although for many years reforming aristocrats held senior positions in
15566-402: The anti-Lloyd George Liberals were called Asquithian Liberals, Wee Free Liberals or Independent Liberals . Lloyd George was increasingly under the influence of the rejuvenated Conservative party who numerically dominated the coalition. In 1922, the Conservative backbenchers rebelled against the continuation of the coalition, citing, in particular, Lloyd George's plan for war with Turkey in
15747-670: The areas which would be heavily affected by Land League agitation were completely calm, without any hint of what was to come. In 1878, the Irish-American Clan na Gael leader John Devoy offered Charles Stewart Parnell , then a rising star in the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), a deal which became known as the New Departure . As a result of this agreement, the physical-force and parliamentary wings of Irish nationalism agreed to work together on
15928-498: The aristocracy was divided between Conservatives and Liberals. However, when Gladstone committed to home rule for Ireland, Britain's upper classes largely abandoned the Liberal party, giving the Conservatives a large permanent majority in the House of Lords. Following the Queen, High Society in London largely ostracized home rulers and Liberal clubs were badly split. Joseph Chamberlain took a major element of upper-class supporters out of
16109-693: The beginning of the following academic year. For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in English-medium schools to achieve competence in Irish, even after fourteen years of teaching as one of the three main subjects. The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern. In 2007, filmmaker Manchán Magan found few Irish speakers in Dublin , and faced incredulity when trying to get by speaking only Irish in Dublin. He
16290-416: The bill also. Among the Liberal rank and file, several Gladstonian candidates disowned the bill, reflecting fears at the constituency level that the interests of the working people were being sacrificed to finance a costly rescue operation for the landed élite. Further, Home Rule had not been promised in the Liberals' election manifesto, and so the impression was given that Gladstone was buying Irish support in
16471-728: The campaign were abandoned on the run-up to the debates on the Second Irish Home Rule Bill in 1893. The IPP was by then divided into the Irish National Federation and the Irish National League over Parnell's divorce crisis. Between 1906 and 1909, smallholders seeking more land launched the Ranch War , demanding the sale of untenanted land owned by landlords and the breakup of large grazing farms. Opponents of ranching highlighted
16652-470: The capitalist market, this legislation nevertheless, marked a significant shift in Liberal approaches to the state and social reform, approaches that later governments would slowly expand and that would grow into the welfare state after the Second World War. What was new in these reforms was the underlying assumption that the state could be a positive force, that the measure of individual freedom...
16833-479: The citizenship of their native land. The new Liberalism, while pursuing this great political ideal with unflinching energy, devotes a part of its endeavour also to the removing of the immediate causes of discontent. It is true that man cannot live by bread alone. It is equally true that a man cannot live without bread. The Liberals languished in opposition for a decade while the coalition of Salisbury and Chamberlain held power. The 1890s were marred by infighting between
17014-495: The consequences of the Third Reform Act (1884) was the giving of the vote to many Irish Catholics . In the 1885 general election the Irish Parliamentary Party held the balance of power in the House of Commons and demanded Irish Home Rule as the price of support for a continued Gladstone ministry. Gladstone personally supported Home Rule, but a strong Liberal Unionist faction led by Joseph Chamberlain , along with
17195-776: The demand for free sale, fixity of tenure, and fair rent . Although it never caught on with the poor smallholders in Connacht which it was intended to help, the League spurred the creation of the Independent Irish Party . In 1870, the Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone pushed through the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 . The act actually increased agrarian tensions, as landlords attempted to evade provisions intended to protect departing tenants, while
17376-468: The demise of the Whig old guard; in two-member constituencies, it was common to pair a Whig and a radical under the Liberal banner. After the Third Reform Act, fewer former Whigs were selected as candidates. A broad range of interventionist reforms were introduced by the 1892–1895 Liberal government. Amongst other measures, standards of accommodation and of teaching in schools were improved, factory inspection
17557-498: The disastrous Gallipoli Campaign against Turkey. Reluctant to face doom in an election, Asquith formed a new coalition government on 25 May, with the majority of the new cabinet coming from his own Liberal party and the Unionist (Conservative) party , along with a token Labour representation. The new government lasted a year and a half and was the last time Liberals controlled the government. The analysis of historian A. J. P. Taylor
17738-409: The economic situation deteriorated. Involvement of the clergy made it much more difficult for the British government to take action against the movement, which instilled "almost perfect unity" among Irish tenant farmers. In several constituencies, Land League-backed candidates failed in the 1880 general election due to clerical opposition. On 21 October 1879, the land League of Mayo was superseded by
17919-718: The education system. Linguistic analyses of Irish speakers are therefore based primarily on the number of daily users in Ireland outside the education system, which in 2022 was 20,261 in the Gaeltacht and 51,707 outside it, totalling 71,968. In response to the 2021 census of Northern Ireland , 43,557 individuals stated they spoke Irish on a daily basis, 26,286 spoke it on a weekly basis, 47,153 spoke it less often than weekly, and 9,758 said they could speak Irish, but never spoke it. From 2006 to 2008, over 22,000 Irish Americans reported speaking Irish as their first language at home, with several times that number claiming "some knowledge" of
18100-474: The end of the famine, and under 17,000 by 1911. Irish is recognised by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of Republic of Ireland (English being the other official language). Despite this, almost all government business and legislative debate is conducted in English. In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde , was inaugurated as
18281-431: The extent to which the Liberal Party experienced a leftward shift; according to Robert C. Self however, only between 50 and 60 Liberal MPs out of the 400 in the parliamentary party after 1906 were Social Radicals, with a core of 20 to 30. Nevertheless, important junior offices were held in the cabinet by what Duncan Tanner has termed "genuine New Liberals, Centrist reformers, and Fabian collectivists," and much legislation
18462-664: The fact that many ranches had been created after the famine from land formerly tilled by evicted smallholders. Organised by the United Irish League and Laurence Ginnell , the Ranch War involved cattle drives, public rallies, boycotting, and intimidation. Between August and December 1907 alone, 292 cattle drives were reported to the authorities. It was most intense in areas of Connacht, North and East Leinster and North Munster where large grazing farms and uneconomic smallholdings existed side by side. The campaign resulted in
18643-405: The failure both of his government's policy of coercion and the Land League's No Rent strategy. Agrarian outrages decreased significantly after the founding of the Irish National League in 1882, due to the latter's system of dispute resolution for agrarian issues which imposed boycotting as its most severe punishment. British officials often claimed that the National League's effectiveness was due to
18824-522: The fear of violence from lawless elements if the litigant did not comply. Sociologist Samuel Clark argued that the threat of violence helped the Land League enforce its rulings and silence its enemies. In 1889, the Special Commission on Parnellism and Crime found no links between the IPP and agrarian crime. One British official explained that, while he was certain that the League did not plan or commit crimes, "without outrage and intimidation
19005-493: The field. The 1915 coalition fell apart at the end of 1916, when the Conservatives withdrew their support from Asquith and gave it instead to Lloyd George, who became prime minister at the head of a new coalition largely made up of Conservatives. Asquith and his followers moved to the opposition benches in Parliament and the Liberal Party was deeply split once again. Lloyd George remained a Liberal all his life, but he abandoned many standard Liberal principles in his crusade to win
19186-494: The first President of Ireland . The record of his delivering his inaugural Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish is one of only a few recordings of that dialect. In the 2016 census, 10.5% of respondents stated that they spoke Irish, either daily or weekly, while over 70,000 people (4.2%) speak it as a habitual daily means of communication. From the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (see History of
19367-511: The first year. Since the Liberals ran the war without consulting the Conservatives, there were heavy partisan attacks. However, even Liberal commentators were dismayed by the lack of energy at the top. At the time, public opinion was intensely hostile, both in the media and in the street, against any young man in civilian garb and labeled as a slacker. The leading Liberal newspaper, the Manchester Guardian complained: The fact that
19548-492: The foundation of the National Liberal Federation in 1877. The philosopher John Stuart Mill was also a Liberal MP from 1865 to 1868. For the next 30 years, Gladstone and Liberalism were synonymous. William Gladstone served as prime minister four times (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886, and 1892–94). His financial policies, based on the notion of balanced budgets , low taxes and laissez-faire , were suited to
19729-573: The future of the party, says historian Trevor Wilson, was its repudiation by ideological Liberals, who decided sadly that it no longer represented their principles. Finally, the presence of the vigorous new Labour Party on the left gave a new home to voters disenchanted with the Liberal performance. The last majority Liberal Government in Britain was elected in 1906. The years preceding the First World War were marked by worker strikes and civil unrest and saw many violent confrontations between civilians and
19910-547: The government. The settlement, known as the Kilmainham Treaty , involved withdrawing the manifesto and undertaking to move against agrarian crime. By 2 May all internees were released from jail, Davitt on 6 May, the day of the Phoenix Park Murders . With the Land League still suppressed, Parnell resurrected it with much ceremony together with Davitt on 17 October, proclaimed as a new organisation called
20091-525: The head of a moderate Liberal rump, but in 1901 he delivered a speech on the government's "methods of barbarism" in South Africa that pulled him further to the left and nearly tore the party in two. The party was saved after Salisbury's retirement in 1902 when his successor, Arthur Balfour , pushed a series of unpopular initiatives such as the Education Act 1902 and Joseph Chamberlain called for
20272-524: The incumbent Conservative government. This meeting was held at the Willis' rooms in London on 6 June 1859. This led to Palmerston's second government. However, the Whig-Radical amalgam could not become a true modern political party while it was dominated by aristocrats and it was not until the departure of the "Two Terrible Old Men", Russell and Palmerston, that Gladstone could become the first leader of
20453-460: The island was owned by 750 families. Between 1850 and 1870, landlords extracted £340 million in rent—far exceeding tax receipts for the same period—of which only 4–5% was reinvested. This led landlords to take on a role of non-productive managers within the island's overall economy. Conflict between landlords and tenants arose from opposing viewpoints on such issues as land consolidation , security of tenure , transition from tillage to grazing , and
20634-549: The issue of free trade. This allowed ministries led by Russell, Palmerston and the Peelite Lord Aberdeen to hold office for most of the 1850s and 1860s. A leading Peelite was William Gladstone, who was a reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer in most of these governments. The formal foundation of the Liberal Party is traditionally traced to 1859 when the remaining Peelites, Radicals and Whigs agreed to vote down
20815-507: The land issue. This collaboration was cemented by a meeting on 1 June 1879 in Dublin between Devoy, Parnell, and Michael Davitt . It is disputed what was actually agreed to. Davitt maintained that there was no formal agreement, while Devoy claimed that the IPP had promised not to act against the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and made other concessions in exchange for Irish-American support. The west of Ireland
20996-494: The landlord, and Irish custom on the other hand in which the tenant enjoyed an "interest" in the property, which he could buy or sell. This "interest" could be as much as 4–6 years rent, which incoming tenants had to pay with capital that they might otherwise have spent on their own improvements. In the decades following the Great Famine , rises in agricultural prices were not matched by rent increases, leading to an increase in
21177-665: The language family, is derived from the Old Irish term. Endonyms of the language in the various modern Irish dialects include: Gaeilge [ˈɡeːlʲɟə] in Galway, Gaeilg / Gaeilic / Gaeilig [ˈɡeːlʲəc] in Mayo and Ulster , Gaelainn / Gaoluinn [ˈɡeːl̪ˠən̠ʲ] in West/Cork, Kerry Munster , as well as Gaedhealaing in mid and East Kerry/Cork and Waterford Munster to reflect local pronunciation. Gaeilge also has
21358-410: The language was in use by all classes, Irish being an urban as well as a rural language. This linguistic dynamism was reflected in the efforts of certain public intellectuals to counter the decline of the language. At the end of the 19th century, they launched the Gaelic revival in an attempt to encourage the learning and use of Irish, although few adult learners mastered the language. The vehicle of
21539-476: The language. For most of recorded Irish history , Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people , who took it with them to other regions , such as Scotland and the Isle of Man , where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx . It was also, for a period, spoken widely across Canada , with an estimated 200,000–250,000 daily Canadian speakers of Irish in 1890. On the island of Newfoundland ,
21720-455: The largest landlords in Connacht also refused to contribute any money to relief funds, despite collecting more than £80,000 annually in rent. According to historians such as William Vaughan and Phillip Bull, the serious agricultural recession combined with a unified nationalist leadership set the stage to produce a powerful and lasting popular movement. The Land War began on 20 April 1879 at
21901-403: The last of the Whigs, Hartington, opposed it. The Irish Home Rule bill proposed to offer all owners of Irish land a chance to sell to the state at a price equal to 20 years' purchase of the rents and allowing tenants to purchase the land. Irish nationalist reaction was mixed, Unionist opinion was hostile, and the election addresses during the 1886 election revealed English radicals to be against
22082-553: The leadership shifted from agitation to organization to harness the new energy for the nationalist cause. On 16 August 1879, the Land League of Mayo was founded in Castlebar , at which point the first overtures were made to the Catholic hierarchy. From September, priests quickly assumed leadership roles in the movement and presided over more than two thirds of the meetings in the rest of 1879. The movement continued to gain strength as
22263-526: The mid-18th century, English was becoming a language of the Catholic middle class, the Catholic Church and public intellectuals, especially in the east of the country. Increasingly, as the value of English became apparent, parents sanctioned the prohibition of Irish in schools. Increasing interest in emigrating to the United States and Canada was also a driver, as fluency in English allowed
22444-471: The modern Liberal Party. This was brought about by Palmerston's death in 1865 and Russell's retirement in 1868. After a brief Conservative government (during which the Second Reform Act was passed by agreement between the parties), Gladstone won a huge victory at the 1868 election and formed the first Liberal government. The establishment of the party as a national membership organisation came with
22625-401: The movement. The league adopted the slogan "the land for the people", which was vague enough to be acceptable to Irish nationalists across the political spectrum. For most of the tenant farmers, the slogan meant owning their own land. For smallholders on uneconomic holdings, especially in the congested western areas, it meant being granted larger holdings that their families had held previous to
22806-804: The name of the language is Gaeilge , from the South Connacht form, spelled Gaedhilge prior the spelling reform of 1948, which was originally the genitive of Gaedhealg , the form used in Classical Gaelic . The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent ⟨dh⟩ in Gaedhilge . Older spellings include Gaoidhealg [ˈɡeːʝəlˠəɡ] in Classical Gaelic and Goídelc [ˈɡoiðʲelɡ] in Old Irish . Goidelic , used to refer to
22987-409: The new immigrants to get jobs in areas other than farming. An estimated one quarter to one third of US immigrants during the Great Famine were Irish speakers. Irish was not marginal to Ireland's modernisation in the 19th century, as is often assumed. In the first half of the century there were still around three million people for whom Irish was the primary language, and their numbers alone made them
23168-426: The new movement's capture by Fenian radicals, as the latter were unacceptable to the Catholic clergy and to larger tenants, on whose support Parnell depended. This meeting, especially Parnell's speech in which he promoted peasant proprietorship, was widely commented in the press as far afield as London. Initially, the movement was non-sectarian in character and Protestant tenants also took part in meetings. The focus of
23349-659: The newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. At the 1983 general election , the Alliance won over a quarter of the vote, but won only 23 of the 650 seats it contested. At the 1987 general election , its share of the vote fell below 23% and the Liberals and the SDP merged in 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD), who the following year were renamed the Liberal Democrats . A splinter group reconstituted
23530-655: The number now is between 20,000 and 30,000." In the 1920s, when the Irish Free State was founded, Irish was still a vernacular in some western coastal areas. In the 1930s, areas where more than 25% of the population spoke Irish were classified as Gaeltacht . Today, the strongest Gaeltacht areas, numerically and socially, are those of South Connemara , the west of the Dingle Peninsula , and northwest Donegal, where many residents still use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as
23711-503: The other official language, if not already passed in both official languages. In November 2016, RTÉ reported that over 2.3 million people worldwide were learning Irish through the Duolingo app. Irish president Michael D. Higgins officially honoured several volunteer translators for developing the Irish edition, and said the push for Irish language rights remains an "unfinished project". There are rural areas of Ireland where Irish
23892-430: The parties, make the judgment and assign a penalty if the code had been broken. Sometimes, juries would be called from the local communities and the plaintiff occasionally acted as prosecutor. Despite the trappings of common-law procedure, American historian Donald Jordan emphasizes that the tribunals essentially were an extension of the local branch judging if its own rules had been violated. These courts were described as
24073-545: The party formed a Pro-Boer faction that denounced the conflict and called for an immediate end to hostilities. Quickly rising to prominence among the Pro-Boers was David Lloyd George, a relatively new MP and a master of rhetoric, who took advantage of having a national stage to speak out on a controversial issue to make his name in the party. Harcourt and Morley also sided with this group, though with slightly different aims. Campbell-Bannerman tried to keep these forces together at
24254-447: The party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election . Under prime ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–1908) and H. H. Asquith (1908–1916), the Liberal Party passed reforms that created a basic welfare state . Although Asquith was the party leader , its dominant figure was David Lloyd George . Asquith was overwhelmed by his wartime role as prime minister and Lloyd George led
24435-408: The party. In the years after Grey's retirement, the party was led first by Lord Melbourne , a fairly traditional Whig, and then by Lord John Russell , the son of a Duke but a crusading radical, and by Lord Palmerston , a renegade Irish Tory and essentially a conservative , although capable of radical gestures. As early as 1839, Russell had adopted the name of "Liberals", but in reality, his party
24616-469: The passage of the Parliament Act 1911 . As the price of Irish support, Asquith was now forced to introduce a third Home Rule bill in 1912. Since the House of Lords no longer had the power to block the bill, but only to delay it for two years, it was due to become law in 1914. The Unionist Ulster Volunteers , led by Sir Edward Carson , launched a campaign of opposition that included the threat of
24797-636: The police and armed forces. Other issues of the period included women's suffrage and the Irish Home Rule movement. After the carnage of 1914–1918, the democratic reforms of the Representation of the People Act 1918 instantly tripled the number of people entitled to vote in Britain from seven to twenty-one million. The Labour Party benefited most from this huge change in the electorate, forming its first minority government in 1924 . In
24978-557: The political party holding power in the Stormont Parliament , the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), was hostile to the language. The context of this hostility was the use of the language by nationalists. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the previous devolved government. After
25159-401: The population of a county in Ireland carry out this doctrine, that there will be no man ... [who would dare] to transgress your unwritten code of laws. Charles Stewart Parnell , at Ennis meeting, 19 September 1880 One of the Land League's main tactics was the famous boycott , whose target at first was " land grabbers ". Land League speakers including Michael Davitt began to advocate
25340-456: The present time, I am forced to acknowledge that to a great extent, the ordinary law of the country is powerless; but the unwritten law is powerful, because punishment is sure to follow its infraction. From 1882, the Irish National League organised courts to replace those of the earlier organisation. The key provisions forbade paying rent without abatements, taking over land from which a tenant had been evicted, and purchasing their holding under
25521-550: The reign of Charles II and the early 19th century Radicals . The Whigs were in favour of reducing the power of the Crown and increasing the power of Parliament . Although their motives in this were originally to gain more power for themselves, the more idealistic Whigs gradually came to support an expansion of democracy for its own sake. The great figures of reformist Whiggery were Charles James Fox (died 1806) and his disciple and successor Earl Grey . After decades in opposition,
25702-492: The relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx). Gaelic is a collective term for the Goidelic languages, and when the context is clear it may be used without qualification to refer to each language individually. When the context is specific but unclear, the term may be qualified, as Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Manx Gaelic. Historically the name "Erse" ( / ɜːr s / URS )
25883-653: The reorganization of the judiciary in the Judicature Act . Regarding Ireland, the major Liberal achievements were land reform, where he ended centuries of landlord oppression , and the disestablishment of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland through the Irish Church Act 1869 . In the 1874 general election , Gladstone was defeated by the Conservatives under Benjamin Disraeli during a sharp economic recession. He formally resigned as Liberal leader and
26064-432: The requirement for entrance to the public service was changed to proficiency in just one official language. Nevertheless, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools in the Republic of Ireland that receive public money (see Education in the Republic of Ireland ). Teachers in primary schools must also pass a compulsory examination called Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge . As of 2005, Garda Síochána recruits need
26245-420: The rest of the community." Larger farmers and landlords were better able to cope with a boycott, by weathering temporary loss of income, hiring scabs, or ordering supplies by mail. While the effectiveness of boycotting has been disputed the phrase and tactic has passed into the language of non-violent action. Rent strikes were used as a means of pressuring landlords to reduce the rent. Withheld rents often went to
26426-647: The revival was the Gaelic League ( Conradh na Gaeilge ), and particular emphasis was placed on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich. Efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature. Although it has been noted that the Catholic Church played a role in the decline of the Irish language before the Gaelic Revival, the Protestant Church of Ireland also made only minor efforts to encourage use of Irish in
26607-457: The role of the market. The Irish nationalist politician Isaac Butt pointed out the fact that Catholic Irish were tenants was worse than "the heaviest yoke of feudal servitude". The Devon Commission of 1843–44 found that various forms of tenant right were practiced throughout Ireland, not just in Ulster . There was a tension between English law, which protected the absolute property rights of
26788-417: The rule of law, just Irish law instead of English law. When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside when you meet him, you must shun him in the streets of the town, you must shun him at the shop-counter, you must shun him in the fair and at the marketplace, and even in the house of worship... you must shun him your detestation of the crime he has committed... if
26969-522: The tenant's stake in the farm, which may have risen to as much as 10–20 years of rent. The existence of tenant right was accepted by creditors who would extend loans with the tenant right as collateral. During the Great Famine (1845–1849), the poorest cottiers and agricultural labourers died or were forced to emigrate, freeing up land that was purchased by larger farmers. In 1850, the Tenant Right League briefly dominated Irish politics with
27150-465: The tenants retaliated by setting up local Tenants' Defence Associations . One such the Route Tenants' Defence Association , was however hostile towards the League. Agrarian crimes were rising during the late 1870s, from 135 in 1875 to 236 two years later. At the same time emigration (which acted as a pressure valve for political tension) decreased by more than half. Nevertheless, as late as 1877
27331-404: The third quarter of the century drew to a close, the essential bastions of Victorianism still held firm: respectability; a government of aristocrats and gentlemen now influenced not only by middle-class merchants and manufacturers but also by industrious working people; a prosperity that seemed to rest largely on the tenets of laissez-faire economics ; and a Britannia that ruled the waves and many
27512-465: The three principal successors to Gladstone, party leader William Harcourt , former prime minister Lord Rosebery , and Gladstone's personal secretary, John Morley . This intrigue finally led Harcourt and Morley to resign their positions in 1898 as they continued to be at loggerheads with Rosebery over Irish home rule and issues relating to imperialism. Replacing Harcourt as party leader was Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman . Harcourt's resignation briefly muted
27693-536: The turmoil in the party, but the beginning of the Second Boer War soon nearly broke the party apart, with Rosebery and a circle of supporters including important future Liberal figures H. H. Asquith , Edward Grey and Richard Burdon Haldane forming a clique dubbed the Liberal Imperialists that supported the government in the prosecution of the war. On the other side, more radical members of
27874-536: The vacancy to which they are appointed. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). In 2016, the university faced controversy when it announced the planned appointment of a president who did not speak Irish. Misneach staged protests against this decision. The following year the university announced that Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh , a fluent Irish speaker, would be its 13th president. He assumed office in January 2018; in June 2024, he announced he would be stepping down as president at
28055-552: The war at all costs. He insisted on strong government controls over business as opposed to the laissez-faire attitudes of traditional Liberals. in 1915–16 he had insisted on conscription of young men into the Army, a position that deeply troubled his old colleagues. That brought him and a few like-minded Liberals into the new coalition on the ground long occupied by Conservatives. There was no more planning for world peace or liberal treatment of Germany, nor discomfit with aggressive and authoritarian measures of state power. More deadly to
28236-421: The wealthy in Britain and radical social welfare programmes to the country's policies. In the Liberal camp, as noted by one study, "the Budget was on the whole enthusiastically received." It was the first budget with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the public. It imposed increased taxes on luxuries, liquor, tobacco, high incomes, and land – taxation that fell heavily on the rich . The new money
28417-594: The work of such writers as Geoffrey Keating , is said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on. From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind this shift were complex but came down to a number of factors: The change was characterised by diglossia (two languages being used by the same community in different social and economic situations) and transitional bilingualism (monoglot Irish-speaking grandparents with bilingual children and monoglot English-speaking grandchildren). By
28598-487: Was a loose coalition of Whigs in the House of Lords and Radicals in the Commons. The leading Radicals were John Bright and Richard Cobden , who represented the manufacturing towns which had gained representation under the Reform Act. They favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England (many Liberals were Nonconformists ), avoidance of war and foreign alliances (which were bad for business) and above all free trade . For
28779-438: Was also described as cruel, as new rent strikes would inevitably result in more evictions and boycotting as before, with all the associated intimidation and violence. Other reporters saw it as a matter of justice and of continuing concern to genuine liberals. The Campaign led on to events such as the Mitchelstown massacre in 1887 and the imprisonment of IPP MPs such as William O'Brien for their involvement. The violent aspects of
28960-431: Was also sometimes used in Scots and then in English to refer to Irish; as well as Scottish Gaelic. Written Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the 4th century AD, a stage of the language known as Primitive Irish . These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish underwent a change into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from
29141-425: Was enacted 1 July 2019 and is an 18-page document that adheres to the guidelines of the Official Languages Act 2003 . The purpose of the Scheme is to provide services through the mediums of Irish and/or English. According to the Department of the Taoiseach, it is meant to "develop a sustainable economy and a successful society, to pursue Ireland's interests abroad, to implement the Government's Programme and to build
29322-454: Was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them. Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party
29503-515: Was hit by the 1879 famine , a combination of heavy rains, poor yields and low prices that brought widespread hunger and deprivation. Compounded by the reduction in opportunities for outside income, especially seasonal agricultural income in Great Britain, many smallholders were faced with hunger and unable to pay their rent. Some landlords offered rent abatement, while others refused on the grounds that their tenants were participating in anti-landlord agitation. Irish historian Paul Bew notes that five of
29684-411: Was led by the Irish National Land League and its successors, the Irish National League and the United Irish League , and aimed to secure fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure for tenant farmers and ultimately peasant proprietorship of the land they worked. From 1870, various governments introduced a series of Land Acts that granted many of the activists' demands. William O'Brien played
29865-543: Was made more stringent, and ministers used their powers to increase the wages and reduce the working hours of large numbers of male workers employed by the state. Historian Walter L. Arnstein concludes: Notable as the Gladstonian reforms had been, they had almost all remained within the nineteenth-century Liberal tradition of gradually removing the religious, economic, and political barriers that prevented men of varied creeds and classes from exercising their individual talents in order to improve themselves and their society. As
30046-403: Was moving rapidly toward the newly emerging Labour Party. One uniting element was widespread agreement on the use of politics and Parliament as a device to upgrade and improve society and to reform politics. All Liberals were outraged when Conservatives used their majority in the House of Lords to block reform legislation. In the House of Lords, the Liberals had lost most of their members, who in
30227-443: Was not how much the state left people alone, but whether it gave them the capacity to fill themselves as individuals. Contrasting Old Liberalism with New Liberalism, David Lloyd George noted in a 1908 speech the following: [Old Liberals] used the natural discontent of the people with the poverty and precariousness of the means of subsistence as a motive power to win for them a better, more influential, and more honourable status in
30408-406: Was one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party , in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs , free trade –supporting Peelites , and reformist Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century, it had formed four governments under William Gladstone . Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule ,
30589-403: Was passed 14 July 2003 with the main purpose of improving the number and quality of public services delivered in Irish by the government and other public bodies. Compliance with the Act is monitored by the An Coimisinéir Teanga (Irish Language Commissioner) which was established in 2004 and any complaints or concerns pertaining to the Act are brought to them. There are 35 sections included in
30770-405: Was pushed through by the Liberals in government. This included the regulation of working hours, National Insurance and welfare. A political battle erupted over the People's Budget , which was rejected by the House of Lords and for which the government obtained an electoral mandate at the January 1910 election . The election resulted in a hung parliament , with the government left dependent on
30951-444: Was rejected in favour a demand for the abolition of "landlordism", promoted by Davitt and other radicals. On 17 May, Parnell was elected to the presidency of the IPP. Local chapters of the Land League frequently were formed from previous associations such as Tenants' Defence Associations or Farmers' Clubs, which decided to join the Land League because of the greater financial resources offered; this brought larger farmers and graziers into
31132-590: Was rent, which was typically paid in the spring; due to the poor harvest tenants could not afford to pay and many had been threatened with eviction. The crowd was guided and led into position by local Fenians—recruited by Davitt in an earlier trip with help from local IRB leader Pat Nally —even though the IRB council refused to sanction agrarian activism. Speakers included John O'Connor Power MP, Fenian Thomas Brennan , Glasgow-based activist John Ferguson , and Daly. Local Fenians organised meetings, at Claremorris on 25 May with 200 attendees and Knock on 1 June with
31313-527: Was spoken throughout Ireland, Isle of Man and parts of Scotland . It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the Ulster Cycle . From the 12th century, Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and into the Manx language in the Isle of Man . Early Modern Irish , dating from the 13th century, was the basis of the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Modern Irish, sometimes called Late Modern Irish, as attested in
31494-412: Was succeeded by the Marquess of Hartington , but he soon changed his mind and returned to active politics. He strongly disagreed with Disraeli's pro- Ottoman foreign policy and in 1880 he conducted the first outdoor mass-election campaign in Britain, known as the Midlothian campaign . The Liberals won a large majority in the 1880 election . Hartington ceded his place and Gladstone resumed office. Among
31675-400: Was the Elementary Education Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75), which provided England with an adequate system of elementary schools for the first time. He also secured the abolition of the purchase of commissions in the British Army and of religious tests for admission to Oxford and Cambridge ; the introduction of the secret ballot in elections; the legalization of trade unions ; and
31856-429: Was the Liberals, not the Conservatives who needed the moral outrage of Belgium to justify going to war, while the Conservatives called for intervention from the start of the crisis on the grounds of realpolitik and the balance of power. However, Lloyd George and Churchill were zealous supporters of the war, and gradually forced the old peace-orientated Liberals out. Asquith was blamed for the poor British performance in
32037-417: Was the main vehicle of upward mobility for rural Catholics, the new Catholic grazier class was torn between its natural allegiance to Irish nationalism and its economic dependence on landlords to rent land for grazing. Many sided with the Land League, creating a mixed-class body whose actual economic interests conflicted. This further consolidated the nationalist nature of the Land League. The government set up
32218-405: Was to be made available for new welfare programmes as well as new battleships. In 1911 Lloyd George succeeded in putting through Parliament his National Insurance Act , making provision for sickness and invalidism, and this was followed by his Unemployment Insurance Act . Historian Peter Weiler argues: Although still partially informed by older Liberal concerns for character, self-reliance, and
32399-440: Was to supplant the reign of force and self-interest. This Gladstonian concept of a harmonious Concert of Europe was opposed to and ultimately defeated by a Bismarckian system of manipulated alliances and antagonisms. As prime minister from 1868 to 1874, Gladstone headed a Liberal Party which was a coalition of Peelites like himself, Whigs and Radicals. He was now a spokesman for "peace, economy and reform". One major achievement
32580-442: Was unable to accomplish some everyday tasks, as portrayed in his documentary No Béarla . There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in urban areas, particularly in Dublin. Many have been educated in schools in which Irish is the language of instruction. Such schools are known as Gaelscoileanna at primary level. These Irish-medium schools report some better outcomes for students than English-medium schools. In 2009,
32761-405: Was unable to hire anyone to harvest the crops in his charge. Boycott was forced to leave the country; and the tactic spread throughout the country. The use of "intimidation" to enforce a boycott had to be criminalized in the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act 1882 . According to the Inspector General, boycotting "constituted a form of imprisonment for the victim who was isolated and separated from
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