On the centenary of the signing into law of Home Rule for Ireland, two senior Fine Gael Ministers have taken diametrically opposed positions on the contribution of John Redmond and the Parliamentary Party to independence.

Former taoiseach John Bruton yesterday praised Redmond’s achievement and said that the referendum on independence of Scotland showed that Irish freedom could have been achieved without the violence of 1916.

In response, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney tweeted: “For the record: I believe much of John Bruton’s commentary on 1916 is simply wrong and does not represent the views of Fine Gael supporters.”

However, Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan took a very different view in a tweet which said: “100 years ago today. Home Rule Bill thru. A huge step for Constit. Nationalism. We remember John Redmond & the IPP.”

Monumental achievement

Later yesterday, Mr Flanagan elaborated on his position in a speech at Woodenbridge, Co Wicklow, where Redmond made his call to the Irish Volunteers a century ago to support Britain in the war against German aggression in Belgium.

“It is most fitting that today, September 18th, 2014, marks the centenary of the signing into law of the Third Home Rule Bill, a monumental achievement and a testament to the power and the nobility of the democratic parliamentary approach,” said Mr Flanagan.

“To my mind, the passage of the Third Home Rule Bill stands out as one of the most notable achievements of the great Nationalist movement, the origins of which go back to Daniel O’Connell, whose own parliamentary and political skills had delivered Catholic emancipation in 1829.”

Mr Flanagan said that by any measure Home Rule represented an extraordinary shift in the relationship between Ireland and Britain. While it was far from a complete, it was a genuinely unprecedented acknowledgement of the right of self-determination of the Irish people.

He added that Home Rule did not come to pass due to global war, the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War, which shaped a new and different Ireland, one that took some time to adjust to the complexities of historical legacies.