The issue of Irish home rule was the dominant political question of British and Irish politics at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. From the late 19th century, Irish leaders of the
Home Rule League, the predecessor of the
Irish Parliamentary Party, under
Isaac Butt,
William Shaw, and
Charles Stewart Parnell demanded a form of home rule, with the creation of an Irish parliament within the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. This demand led to the eventual introduction of four Home Rule Bills, of which two were passed, the
Government of Ireland Act 1914 won by
John Redmond and most notably the
Government of Ireland Act 1920 (which created the home rule parliaments of
Northern Ireland and
Southern Ireland – the latter state did not in reality function and was replaced by the
Irish Free State). The home rule demands of the late 19th and early 20th century differed from earlier demands for
Repeal by
Daniel O'Connell in the first half of the 19th century. Whereas home rule meant a constitutional movement towards an Irish parliament under the ultimate sovereignty of
Westminster, in much the same manner as
Canada,
New Zealand, or the much later
Scottish devolution process,
repeal meant the repeal of the
1801 Act of Union (if need be, by physical force) and the creation of an entirely independent Irish state, separated from the United Kingdom, with only a shared monarch joining them; in essence, Home Rule would see Ireland become an
autonomous region within the United Kingdom, while repeal would give the island a status more akin to a
Dominion, an independent nation tied to Britain by a shared monarch. • 1886:
First Irish Home Rule Bill was defeated in the
House of Commons. • 1893:
Second Irish Home Rule Bill passed by the House of Commons, vetoed in the
House of Lords. • 1914:
Third Irish Home Rule Bill passed to the statute books, temporarily suspended by intervention of
World War I (1914–1918), finally following the
Easter Rising in Dublin (1916). • 1920:
Government of Ireland Act 1920 (Government of Ireland Act 1920) fully implemented in
Northern Ireland and partially implemented in
Southern Ireland. Senior Liberals
Lord Hartington and
Joseph Chamberlain led the battle against Home Rule in Parliament. They broke with the Liberal leader
William Ewart Gladstone who insisted on Home Rule, and in 1886 formed a new party, the
Liberal Unionist Party. It helped defeat Home Rule and eventually merged with the Conservative party. Chamberlain used anti-Catholicism to build a base for the new party among "Orange" Nonconformist Protestant elements in Britain and Ireland. Liberal Unionist
John Bright coined the party's slogan, "Home rule means Rome rule." Ultimately, the
Irish Free State was established in 1922 as an independent
Dominion sharing the British monarch as head of state, though
Northern Ireland was separated from the new state and gained its own
Home Rule Parliament which existed until 1972 (The current
Northern Ireland Assembly was created in 1998; between 1972 and 1998, Northern Ireland was under
direct rule from Westminster). == United Kingdom ==