thumb|This map, named "Modern St. George and The Dragon", satirises the Irish Home Rule crisis of 1886 and appeared two years later in the Conservative St Stephen's Review. Lord Salisbury as St George spears the dragon Gladstone.

The Government of Ireland Bill 1886, commonly known as the First Home Rule Bill, was the first major attempt made by a British government to enact a law creating home rule for part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was introduced on 8 April 1886 by Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone to create a devolved assembly for Ireland which would govern Ireland in specified areas. The Irish Parliamentary Party had been campaigning for home rule for Ireland since the 1860s.

The bill, like his Irish Land Act 1870, was very much the work of Gladstone, who excluded both the Irish MPs and his own ministers from participation in the drafting. Following the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act 1885 it was to be introduced alongside a new Land Purchase Bill to reform tenant rights, but the latter was abandoned.

Key aspects

The key aspects of the 1886 bill were:

Legislative

  • A unicameral assembly (deliberately not called a parliament to avoid links with the former Irish parliament abolished in 1800 under the Act of Union) consisting of two Orders which could meet either together or separately.
  • The first Order was to consist of the 28 Irish representative peers (the Irish peers traditionally elected by all Irish peers to sit in the House of Lords at Westminster) plus 75 members elected through a highly restricted franchise. It could delay the passage of legislation for 3 years.
  • The second Order was to consist of either 204 or 206 members. This was the headline in the local paper where it was reported that a mob attacked the small Catholic/Nationalist ghetto of Obins Street.

The vote on the Bill took place after two months of debate and, on 8 June 1886, 341 voted against it (including 93 Liberals) while 311 voted for it. Parliament was dissolved on 26 June and the 1886 United Kingdom general election was called. The Liberal Unionist Party was formed to contest the election and won 77 seats. They formed a coalition government with the Conservatives and continued allying with them in subsequent elections until the parties merged in 1912.

Historians have suggested that the 1886 Home Rule Bill was fatally flawed by the secretive manner of its drafting, with Gladstone alienating Liberal figures like Joseph Chamberlain who, along with a colleague, resigned in protest from the ministry, while producing a Bill viewed privately by the Irish as badly drafted and deeply flawed.

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See also

  • 1886 Belfast riots
  • Government of Ireland Bill 1893 (Second Irish Home Rule Bill)
  • Government of Ireland Act 1914 (Third Irish Home Rule Bill)
  • Government of Ireland Act 1920 (Fourth Irish Home Rule Bill)
  • History of Ireland (1801–1923)

References

Further reading

  • University College Cork, History Faculty: Home Rule, The Elections of 1885, 1886
  • MacDonagh, Michael: The Home Rule Movement, Talbot Press, Dublin (1920)
  • Kee, Robert: The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism (2000 edition, first published 1972), .
  • Hennessey, Thomas: Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition (1998), .
  • Full text of the Home Rule bill of 1886 Appendix A of What home rule means now. (1893, Dublin), The Liberal Union of Ireland; from the Internet Archive. Full text without schedules.
  • "Government of Ireland Bill" matches from Hansard; matches 1886–92 relate to the 1886 bill.
  • Speech by Charles Stewart Parnell in the House of Commons on the second reading of the bill