Century: Home Rule and Ulster's Resistance

Contrasting lives, new aspirations

Social and economic conditions were improving for large sections of Irish society during the early years of the 20th century and the increasing prosperity fuelled a growing desire for political independence.

‘The Irish Times’ and Home Rule

For a newspaper which largely represented the views of Protestants in southern Ireland, the move to introduce Home Rule was 'a conspiracy to interrupt and destroy the peace and prosperity of Ireland'

The day Ulster first said ‘No’

In 1912, after it was announced that a Home Rule Bill would be introduced for Ireland, there was turmoil in the North. Unionists gathered in Belfast to protest, old hatreds, welled up and the idea of partition loomed

Carson, the uncrowned King of Ulster

The Unionist leader sought to maintain all of Ireland in the UK and saw the severing of the 26 counties in 1921 as British government betrayal

A Liberal ladies’ man of letters

Herbert Asquith, British prime minister from 1908 until 1916, was at the height of his powers when he made a trip to Dublin in 1912 to counter the Conservative opposition's near-treasonous support for Ulster resistance

Constitutionalism - eclipsed and reborn

After Independence, the moderate Home Rule party was effectively airbrushed out of official Irish history, but it left its mark on politics – North and South

Imagination is mother of the nation

The distinctive Irish ideology of “nationalism” evolved as an expression of our desire and increasing capacity to rule ourselves, but, like elsewhere, wrapped in all the supposed trappings of nationhood

Triumph soon turns to failure

By delivering the promise of Home Rule, John Redmond achieved what O'Connell and Parnell had failed to do, but died early disappointed, on the wrong side of history

A shifting political leadership

Ireland before the first World War was a stage set for revolution - nationalism's growing, evolving appeal complemented by the emergence of the labour and women's movements

Throwing a Punch in Ireland’s direction

By 1914, the influential political magazine 'Punch' was running half of its cartoons on Irish political themes - but it had developed a grudging acceptance of the inevitability of Home Rule

Journalist, founder of Sinn Féin

Though his opinions were often controversial, Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin who would head the Treaty negotiations in 1921, was a major figure in the fight for Irish independence

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