The Buckingham Palace Conference, sometimes referred to as the Buckingham Palace Conference on Ireland, was a conference called in Buckingham Palace in 1914 by King George V to which the leaders of Irish Nationalism, John Redmond and Irish Unionism Edward Carson, were invited to discuss plans to introduce Irish Home Rule and avert a feared civil war on the issue. The King's initiative brought the leaders of Nationalism and Unionism together for the first time in a conference.
Since the 1870s, a concerted campaign had been made by Irish nationalist leaders at Westminster, in particular by Charles Stewart Parnell, to have Home Rule (regional self-government) introduced into Ireland. This demand, however, was opposed by the leaders of Irish Unionism, who feared being placed under a Catholic-Nationalist dominated Irish parliament in Dublin. For Unionists, the ultimate safeguard to prevent Home Rule had been the existence of the power of the House of Lords to veto legislation. The Lords, with an inbuilt pro-Unionist Conservative Party majority, exercised its veto, in 1893, to block the Second Home Rule Bill.
As a result of a reduction of its powers under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords' ability to veto Bills was greatly restricted. In 1912 the government of H. H. Asquith introduced the Third Home Rule Bill. Under the Parliament Act, the Lords could block a Bill for only three sessions. As a result, the Bill finally completed its passage and received the Royal Assent in mid-1914.
The threat that the Bill would this time become law led to protests among Unionists. The leaders of the opposition Conservative Party opted to play the "Orange Card": in 1886, Lord Randolph Churchill had used the phrase: "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right". In 1912, leader Bonar Law threatened to give support for whatever actions Unionists took, whether legal or illegal, to prevent home rule.
Illegal gun-running occurred among both unionists (at Larne) and nationalists (at Howth), and both sides openly organised mass militia movements (the Ulster Volunteers and the Irish Volunteers respectively). Faced with what seemed to be imminent civil war, King George – a strong Hibernophile since his days as a naval officer based in Cork – intervened to stop what be believed was the slide to civil war, and took the unprecedented step of inviting the leaders of both communities, along with the British government, to the Palace for a conference.
The conference met in Buckingham Palace between 21 and 24 July 1914. Though the issue of home rule had been on the political agenda since the 1870s, the 1914 conference was the first formal peace conference involving both Nationalists and Unionists. Those who attended were the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, Lloyd George, the Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond, his deputy, John Dillon, across the table the leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance, Edward Carson together with Bonar Law, James Craig and Lord Lansdowne. The Speaker of the House of Commons presided. [1]
By the second day Asquith saw that no agreement as to which counties were to be temporarily excluded was going to emerge. He wrote to an associate:
"I have rarely felt more helpless in any particular affair, an impasse with unspeakable consequences, upon a matter which to English eyes seems inconceivably small and to Irish eyes immeasurably big. Isn't it a real tragedy?" [2]
The conference broke up after three days without agreement. The issue was whether Fermanagh and Tyrone would be part of a proposed north-eastern state. All sides, however, stated that it had been a useful engagement, with Unionists and Nationalists for the first time having meaningful discussions on how to allay their fears about the other. A limited understanding emerged between Carson and the Nationalists that if Ulster were to be excluded, in its entirety, the province should come in or out as a whole. [3] The conference was overtaken by developments in Europe. Eleven days after the conference ended, the King declared war on Germany and Britain entered World War I. Parliament voted for the Home Rule Act and for its suspension for the war's duration. [4]
A further attempt to reach an understanding with Ulster was to prove equally unsuccessful during the 1917–18 Irish Convention. This conference was seen to be a 'waste of time,' as it produced no agreement or resolutions; people saw it as a time for each party to slander the other.
In retrospect, the conference was the first occasion where the Partition of Ireland was discussed as a concrete political option. At the time it was envisioned as involving continued British rule over the whole island, with one part included in the autonomous "Home Rule" and another part excluded from it, while partition as finally realized in 1922 involved creating an international border between the Irish Free State (later Irish Republic) and the British ruled Northern Ireland. Still, the basic reason for the actual 1922 partition was the same as for the one discussed at Buckingham Palace eight years before - i.e. the total refusal of the Ulster Unionists to become part of a predominantly Irish Catholic entity, whether or not under an overall British rule.
The King's idea of hosting all-party talks on Ireland had echoes in later negotiations that produced the power-sharing executive in the Sunningdale Agreement in the 1970s, and in the negotiations that produced the Belfast Agreement in the late 1990s.
King George intervened on a number of subsequent occasions on Ireland. In 1920 he made clear his opposition to the behaviour of the Black and Tans paramilitary force being used by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence and unsuccessfully intervened to try to save the life of hunger striker Terence MacSwiney. [5] After the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was passed, he made a passionate appeal for reconciliation in Ireland at the opening of the Parliament of Northern Ireland in 1921 which contributed to a truce between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, paving the way for the Anglo-Irish Treaty. [6]
In 1932 he defused a row between the President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, Éamon de Valera, and the Governor-General of the Irish Free State, James McNeill, by getting de Valera to withdraw a request for McNeill's dismissal, and then getting McNeill to take early retirement. [5] De Valera later admitted that the Irish government's criticism of McNeill had been unwarranted.[ citation needed ]
Edward Henry Carson, Baron Carson, PC, PC (Ire), from 1900 to 1921 known as Sir Edward Carson, was an Irish unionist politician, barrister and judge, who served as the Attorney General and Solicitor General for England, Wales and Ireland as well as the First Lord of the Admiralty for the British Royal Navy. From 1905 Carson was both the Irish Unionist Alliance MP for the Dublin University constituency and leader of the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast. In 1915, he entered the war cabinet of H. H. Asquith as Attorney-General. Carson was defeated in his ambition to maintain Ireland as a whole in union with Great Britain. His leadership, however, was celebrated by some for securing a continued place in the United Kingdom for the six north-eastern counties, albeit under a devolved Parliament of Northern Ireland that neither he nor his fellow unionists had sought. He is also remembered for his open ended cross examination of Oscar Wilde in a legal action that led to plaintiff Wilde being prosecuted, gaoled and ruined. Carson unsuccessfully attempted to intercede for Wilde after the case.
James Craig, 1st Viscount CraigavonPC PC (NI) DL, was a leading Irish unionist and a key architect of Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom. During the Home Rule Crisis of 1912–14, he defied the British government in preparing an armed resistance in Ulster to an all-Ireland parliament. He accepted partition as a final settlement, securing the opt out of six Ulster counties from the dominion statehood accorded Ireland under the terms of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. From then until his death in 1940, he led the Ulster Unionist Party and served Northern Ireland as its first Prime Minister. He publicly characterised his administration as a "Protestant" counterpart to the "Catholic state" nationalists had established in the south. Craig was created a baronet in 1918 and raised to the Peerage in 1927.
John Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. He was best known as leader of the moderate Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) from 1900 until his death in 1918. He was also the leader of the paramilitary organisation the Irish National Volunteers (INV).
Andrew Bonar Law was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1922 to May 1923.
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament (MPs) elected to the House of Commons at Westminster within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland up until 1918. Its central objectives were legislative independence for Ireland and land reform. Its constitutional movement was instrumental in laying the groundwork for Irish self-government through three Irish Home Rule bills.
The Curragh incident of 20 March 1914, sometimes known as the Curragh mutiny, occurred in the Curragh, County Kildare, Ireland. The Curragh Camp was then the main base for the British Army in Ireland, which at the time still formed part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Ireland was scheduled to receive a measure of devolved government, which included Ulster, later in the year. The incident is important in 20th-century Irish history, and is notable for being one of the few occasions since the English Civil War in which elements of the British military openly intervened in politics. It is widely thought of as a mutiny, though no orders actually given were disobeyed.
The Government of Ireland Act 1914, also known as the Home Rule Act, and before enactment as the Third Home Rule Bill, was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to provide home rule for Ireland. It was the third such bill introduced by a Liberal government during a 28-year period in response to agitation for Irish Home Rule.
Events from the year 1914 in Ireland.
Walter Hume Long, 1st Viscount Long,, was a British Unionist politician. In a political career spanning over 40 years, he held office as President of the Board of Agriculture, President of the Local Government Board, Chief Secretary for Ireland, Secretary of State for the Colonies and First Lord of the Admiralty. He is also remembered for his links with Irish Unionism, and served as Leader of the Irish Unionist Party in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1910.
Ireland was part of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1922. For almost all of this period, the island was governed by the UK Parliament in London through its Dublin Castle administration in Ireland. Ireland underwent considerable difficulties in the 19th century, especially the Great Famine of the 1840s which started a population decline that continued for almost a century. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a vigorous campaign for Irish Home Rule. While legislation enabling Irish Home Rule was eventually passed, militant and armed opposition from Irish unionists, particularly in Ulster, opposed it. Proclamation was shelved for the duration following the outbreak of World War I. By 1918, however, moderate Irish nationalism had been eclipsed by militant republican separatism. In 1919, war broke out between republican separatists and British Government forces. Subsequent negotiations between Sinn Féin, the major Irish party, and the UK government led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which resulted in five-sixths of the island seceding from the United Kingdom, becoming the Irish Free State, with only the six northeastern counties remaining within the United Kingdom.
The Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA), also known as the Irish Unionist Party, Irish Unionists or simply the Unionists, was a unionist political party founded in Ireland in 1891 from a merger of the Irish Conservative Party and the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union (ILPU) to oppose plans for home rule for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The party was led for much of its existence by Colonel Edward James Saunderson and later by St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton. In total, eighty-six members of the House of Lords affiliated themselves with the Irish Unionist Alliance, although its broader membership among Irish voters outside Ulster was relatively small.
The partition of Ireland was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK) divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. It was enacted on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Act intended both territories to remain within the United Kingdom and contained provisions for their eventual reunification. The smaller Northern Ireland was duly created with a devolved government and remained part of the UK. The larger Southern Ireland was not recognised by most of its citizens, who instead recognised the self-declared 32-county Irish Republic. On 6 December 1922 Ireland was partitioned. At that time the territory of Southern Ireland left the UK and became the Irish Free State, now known as the Republic of Ireland.
The All-for-Ireland League (AFIL) was an Irish, Munster-based political party (1909–1918). Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland. The AFIL established itself as a separate non-sectarian party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, binding a group of independent nationalists MPs to pursue a broader concept of Irish nationalism, a consensus of political brotherhood and reconciliation among all Irishmen, primarily to win Unionist consent to an All-Ireland parliamentary settlement.
The Ulster Volunteers was an Irish unionist, loyalist paramilitary organisation founded in 1912 to block domestic self-government for Ireland, which was then part of the United Kingdom. The Ulster Volunteers were based in the northern province of Ulster. Many Ulster Protestants and Irish unionists feared being governed by a nationalist Catholic-majority parliament in Dublin and losing their links with Great Britain. In 1913, the militias were organised into the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and vowed to resist any attempts by the British Government to impose Home Rule on Ulster. Later that year, Irish nationalists formed a rival militia, the Irish Volunteers, to safeguard Home Rule. In April 1914, the UVF smuggled 25,000 rifles into Ulster from Imperial Germany. The Home Rule Crisis was interrupted by the First World War. Much of the UVF enlisted with the British Army's 36th (Ulster) Division and went to fight on the Western Front.
The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Dublin, Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the Irish question and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wider future, discuss and come to an understanding on recommendations as to the best manner and means this goal could be achieved. It was a response to the dramatically altered Irish political climate after the 1916 rebellion and was proposed by David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in May 1917 to John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, announcing that "Ireland should try her hand at hammering out an instrument of government for her own people".
The Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the end of World War I.
The British Covenant was a protest organised in 1914 against the Third Home Rule Bill for Ireland. It largely mirrored the Ulster Covenant of 1912.
The 1914 Great Grimsby by-election was a Parliamentary by-election held on 12 May 1914. The constituency returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system. It was one of the last by-election contests to take place before the outbreak of the Great War, and provided a good indicator of how the main parties would have performed at an anticipated general election for 1914 or 1915.
The Home Rule Crisis was a political and military crisis in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that followed the introduction of the Third Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 1912.
The issue of Ireland has been a major one in British politics, intermittently so for centuries. Britain's attempts to control and administer the island, or parts thereof, have had significant consequences for British politics, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries. Although nominally autonomous until the end of the 18th century, Ireland became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.
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