Home Rule
William Ewart Gladstone became British prime minister
in 1868. "My mission is to pacify Ireland", he immediately affirmed. Among his
first measures was the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, a recognition
that it was inappropriate to have a formal link between the state and a
denomination supported only by a small minority of the Irish people. His Land
Act of 1870 gave greater security to some tenants, and those who left their
holdings could claim compensation for improvements they had made. However, the
act proved unsatisfactory in practice, and agitation for land reform steadily
increased. Equally important was the demand for home rule.
In 1870 Isaac Butt, a Protestant lawyer who had
represented Fenian prisoners and campaigned for an amnesty, founded the Home
Government Association. He initially envisaged a Dublin parliament responsible
for domestic affairs, with Irish MPs continuing to sit at Westminster. The
association was replaced in 1873 by a more aggressive Home Rule League, and
after the following year's general election (the first with a secret ballot)
fifty-nine MPs were committed to home rule. Butt died in 1879, and after a
further general election in 1880, the Irish parliamentary party (now sixty-one
in number) elected Charles Stewart Parnell as its leader. During the next
decade he dominated Irish affairs as Daniel O'Connell had once done.
Parnell, a wealthy Protestant land-owner from County
Wicklow, might have seemed an unlikely advocate of home rule. However, his
American mother had always been hostile to England, and he himself was
horrified by the execution of the Manchester martyrs. Soon after entering
parliament, he shocked the House of Commons by saying, "I never shall believe
any murder was committed at Manchester." He quickly adopted the obstructionist
tactics initiated by his fellow MP, the Fenian Joseph Biggar, exploiting
parliament's rules of procedure to delay business and force the government to
attend to Irish grievances.
Parnell's militancy found favour among such Fenian
leaders as Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League, and John Devoy, who was
active in America. The Fenians were still committed to the use of physical
force, and there were many agrarian outrages during the "land war". However,
Parnell's support for land reform was valuable, and the three men formed a
loose alliance known as the "New Departure". Parnell became president of the
Land League, but he was dissatisfied with Gladstone's Land Act of 1881 and his
provocative language resulted in imprisonment in Dublin and suppression of the
league. Seven months later, secret negotiations led to his release, and to new
legislation which helped tenants with arrears of rent.
A new organisation, the Irish National League,
switched the emphasis to home rule. After the 1885 election the eighty-six
members of Parnell's party held the balance of power at Westminster, and
Gladstone introduced his first Home Rule Bill. Ninety-three of Gladstone's own
Liberal MPs voted against the bill, and it was defeated. In 1889 Parnell was
cited as co-respondent in a divorce case, and the scandal cost him the
leadership of his party. Two years later he was dead.