Exhibitions mark centenary of Third Home Rule Bill

TWO IMPORTANT exhibitions to mark the 100th anniversary of the Third Home Rule Bill are taking place in Dublin this month.

An exhibition produced by the Northern Ireland Office, which has already been displayed at Westminster and Leinster House, was transferred to the National Library of Ireland in Dublin yesterday, while an exhibition featuring paintings of key figures in politics of a century ago will open next week in the Hugh Lane Gallery.

The exhibition in the National Library will continue until the end of this month when it will be moved to Northern Ireland.

Speaking at the opening of the exhibition yesterday, Minister for Arts and Heritage Jimmy Deenihan said it provided a very good historical overview of the entire period leading up to the Home Rule Bill.

“This was a seminal event in Irish history and it is important that we commemorate it here and in the UK as well. I hope as many people as possible will come to see it,” said the Minister.

The newly-appointed British ambassador to Ireland, Dominick Chilcott, expressed his admiration for the way in which the Government had set about organising the decade of commemoration.

“This was a very important moment not only in Ireland but in British political life. The Irish question had dominated British politics for decades and the Home Rule Bill was designed to bring it to a conclusion.”

The ambassador said the exhibition would help people to better understand the past and bring people from all traditions together.

The exhibition features more than 60 photographs, including images of all the leading Irish and British political figures of the period.

Another exhibition to mark the centenary of the Home Rule Bill will open next week in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin and will continue until October.

The exhibition, titled Revolutionary States: Home Rule and Modern Ireland, is designed to explore the political and cultural context surrounding the Home Rule Bill and the reaction to it.

The exhibition will present portraits from the gallery’s collection, which includes many of the key personalities who worked both in support of and in opposition to Home Rule.

Sir John Lavery’s paintings of the nationalist MP John Redmond and the unionist MP Edward Carson are central to the exhibition. Lavery painted them having agreed with the sitters that their portraits would hang side-by-side in a Dublin gallery.

The exhibition will also feature portraits by Sir William Orpen of political figures such as Sir Horace Plunkett, pioneer of agricultural co-operation, Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League, Lord MacDonnell, under-secretary for Ireland 1902-8, and Augustine Birrell, chief secretary for Ireland 1907-16.

The Hugh Lane Gallery was central to discussions about Irish cultural identity a century ago and people from different religious and political backgrounds were united in support of the gallery.

Debates over a permanent site (and the nationality of the building’s architect) and the removal of Lane’s 39 “Continental Pictures” to London further embedded the gallery in the story of the emerging Irish nation.