Talk:Government of Ireland Act 1914

Home Rule Act or Government of Ireland Act?
There is no doubt that this Act is most commonly known as the Home Rule Act 1914, but is that also its official short title, or is it in fact the Government of Ireland Act 1914? There is some discussion and references at User talk:ALoan and User talk:OwenBlacker. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:18, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm moving that discussion here, for mutual ease and clarity. I'll post a brief "I've replied" note on your Talk: page, if I reply; please do the same? &mdash; OwenBlacker 12:48, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Moved discussion
I'm quite certain it was the Home Rule Act 1914, not the Government of Ireland Act, which was the 1920 act. I'm reading Robert Kee's excellent The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism (Penguin, ISBN 0140291652) at the moment; its entry in the index is the third in the second column of page 857, if that helps any. See also:, , , ,, , , , , , ,

I'm about to restore my edit, but thought it'd be rude not to let you know first. &mdash; OwenBlacker 00:47, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)


 * There are a number of official, semi-official and other sources pointing to Government of Ireland Act 1914 - not least Parliament's Standard Note on the Parliament Acts, but also the Irish courts, Parliamentary papers, David Boothroyd's page on the Northern Ireland Parliament, The Guardian,  the First Report of the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform, and  Dicey... -- ALoan (Talk) 11:08, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Most of those sources look like they're directly taken from the Parliamentary Library's note that you cited first, but I'd be very surprised if Dicey were to have got it wrong. I've asked a friend of mine who works in Parliament to pick me up a printed copy of the Act from the Parliamentary Library, so I'll scan the short title clause (I'm hoping there is one) and post it online, so we both know for certain. I'll leave articles as they are right now (though I won't object to you re-reverting Parliament Acts and Home Rule Act 1914 to how they were before my edits started this discussion), if you're happy to do as well. We can change everything to be consistent once we've got the short title from the Act itself. (I'm happy to do that work myself; I did something similar to all four Irish Home Rule Bills last night.)


 * Seem fair? :o) &mdash; OwenBlacker 12:48, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, eminently fair ;) but I'll just leave things as they stand now until there is a definitive answer. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:35, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I take it all back. I now have the texts in front of me and it was indeed the Government of Ireland Act 1914 (though the House of Lords' Record Office haven't sent me the suspensory act as well, which is a little disappointing). And the earlier acts were named similarly (Irish Government Bill 1886 and Irish Government Bill 1893). I'll do a load of renames and link disambiguation this evening, unless you beat me to it. :o) &mdash; OwenBlacker 12:52, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The only reason it won't move automatically is because I prevented a double-redirect on a previous move. Having discussed it on the Talk: page and bought a copy of the actual Act from the House of Lords Record Office, the correct name of the Act is definitely Government of Ireland Act 1914, not Home Rule Act 1914, so this is moving to the correct article name according to the WP:MOS &mdash; OwenBlacker 21:56, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
 * ''Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~


 * Support &mdash; OwenBlacker 21:56, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose &mdash; Fear  ÉIREANN  23:04, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Support &mdash; James F. (talk) 00:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose -- Common usage -- Philip Baird Shearer 11:09, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I've never heard this called anything but the "[Third] Home Rule Act," official title notwithstanding.  Less confusion will arise from its current title.  A.D.H. (t&m) 07:56, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * Support -- and propose one page with one title, merging (eliminating) Stub- Third Home Rule Act   with expanded Home Rule Act 1914 under  Third Home Rule Act 1914 . It is pointless and misleading having two different pages on one and the same subject. Osioni 11:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. violet/riga (t) 08:42, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Discussion
[My opposition is f]or two reasons.


 * (1) Of all the names used to describe this Act, the GofI Act is the least well known. It is most commonly known as the Third Home Rule Act, then Home Rule Act, 1914 then far far behind (probably recognised by 0.001% of people study history) as the Government of Ireland Act. I feel passionately for accuracy, but in this case strict accuracy could become a barrier and source of confusion. I doubt if even the leading people of the 1912-1914 debate on it called it the GofI Act. Only one of the four home rule acts was clearly identified with the name GofI Act.  And that leads to point (2)
 * (2). If GofI Act is used, 99.9% of people acquainted with history will think you mean the 1920 Act of that name. There is every likelihood of confusion between the two (there already has been. Some of the features of the 1920 Act were wrongly attributed to the 1914 Act. I was puzzled as to why. Obviously the reason is that someone invertently got their Government of Ireland Acts mixed up.) All it will take is for someone to leave off the date in a link and you'll have people confused over which links to where, or which they should link to where, etc. And strictly speaking, if the 1914 Act is referred to as the Government of Ireland Act, 1914, then the 1920 Act should be in as the Better Government of Ireland Act, 1920 its technically more correct name. In this case, everyone uses one of two names for the 1914 Act and similarly everyone uses one name for the 1920 Act. There is no point in adding confusion.

For example, we call British monarchs after 1707 and before 1801 Of Great Britain even though most would say England. That is because the strictly accurate version, albeit the less well known, has no other rival with the same name. If somewhere else also used Great Britain then there would have been an argument for using the clear (albeit inaccurate) England. But there wasn't, so Great Britain had a clear run at the name. This is not the case with the Government of Ireland Act, 1914. There is a far far far more widely known Government of Ireland Act from 1920. So in this case, my vote goes to 'leave as it is.' We can give the exact accuracy in the opening of the article. We don't need it in the title in this case. Fear ÉIREANN  23:04, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I have to say that I agree with Owen that we should follow policy and locate at correct name, regardless of useage; this is somewhere where we should diverge from "most common name", too, because it is a "strictly accurate version". James F. (talk) 00:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Minor point, btw, but the short title of the 1920 act is also Government of Ireland Act 1920, not the Better GoIA 1920. I recently bought copies of all Four Irish Home Rule Bills from the HLRO. You're right that it might cause a little confusion, but I think that's something best handled by redirects and disambiguation headers.
 * People might also be interested in the similar debate at Talk:Irish Home Rule Bill, which covers the Bills, rather than the acts (where Fear  ÉIREANN  and I are making essentially the same points, but in a slightly different context). &mdash; OwenBlacker 07:55, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

The primary problem is that we have TWO pages dealing with one and the same subject, they are a Stub Third Home Rule Act and an expanded Home Rule Act 1914. This is misleading and confusing. My proposal is to eliminate the former, and move the latter to Third Home Rule Act 1914, which should cover all divergencies. Osioni 11:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Tory Traitors
Could a section on the amazingly anti-democratic anti- rule of law antics of the Conservative and Unionist party be added. Their statements after the passing of this act support violent action against the will of the British Parliment. Pretty 'understandable' from the Irish Republicans (note I'm English, but fairly neutral) but amazing from the Conservatives who were a main stream party.

I'm still also hugely confused by the logic that Unionists could somehow violently stop British Rule leaving Ireland. ( In this case Overtly, many would argue they've done in more indirect ways with huge success ). How could Loyalists claim to be so if they offered violence to Britain? How can you physcially stop someone from not ruling you? yet the North somehow achieved this?

I've heard many interesting and many stupid conspiracy theories about British/Ire but non relating to how a minority managed to pull off such an amazing feat without at least being alluded to in gossip. To this day many Loyalists seem to presume (i.e. without even giving it thought) that the Britsh people should have no say in Northern Ireland leaving the UK?


 * It wasn't so much that Unionists refused to leave the UK as much as they refused to be part of Ireland. The Tories were sympathetic (Randolph Churchill: Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right) because they saw Home Rule as the slippery slope to collapse of the Empire (they were right!).  The British Army (historically at times, seemingly the military wing of the Conservative Party) was in near mutiny at the idea that they should be used to impose the proposed law (see the Curragh incident and later, UDI in Rhodesia).  So actually for Unionists to retain the status quo suited their desires and British pride.  But no, I don't think that it would be appropriate to put that polemic in the main article: apart from being very POV, the key points are in various articles and it would really clutter this one.  I suppose you could add something to the history of the Tory Pary. --Red King 4 July 2005 23:57 (UTC)

I disagree. Tory intransigence, their support for hardline Unionists and the UVF, and events like the Curragh mutiny confirmed to many previously moderate Irish nationalists that they would never get a fair crack of the whip in a United Kingdom. This is what led to Irish independence, which Home Rule never would have. Before these antics, no substantial or influential group in Ireland was advocating outright independence. Home Rule and Home Rule only had been the sole goal of all Irish nationalists but an unrepresentative few until then. The Tories ensured that militant Irish separatism would prosper. There's nothing POV about that, its exactly what occurred. Without the Tories and the British army, Irish independence would have been a pipe dream.

Lapsed Pacifist 5 July 2005 01:28 (UTC)

Thanks for the info -Currargh mutiny etc- I accept that the title Tory Traitors is very bias sounding at first. But it remains true that the 'law and order' party went against the Will of the UK parliment and their stupid beloved monarch (which ever imbred was stamping Acts at that time). I don't accept that Home Rule III would never lead to a de facto Indepenence as it did elsewhere. I think it could have taken ages but surely it could have been better than the f*ck up that was R Ire till well pass WW2 and N Ire remains. (It's great having a monarch still, anytime I feel overly nationalistic a dose of 'God Save the Queen' sorts me out)

Also I half agree with Lapsed Pacifist but without the Tories (modern)and the British Army there would probably have been no British Ireland to become independant.

Tory Traitors as a term breaches NPOV rules in conveying an implicit judgment. Whether it is accurate or not is irrelevant. It would have to be phrased in a less POV manner. Fear ÉIREANN (talk) 5 July 2005 22:41 (UTC)

OK thanks for the info again it's something thats bugged me for years. Do you think there's any room for at least an honourable mention of Randolph Churchill little gem, I believe its relevant to the failure of Home Rule III and would help clear up obvious confusion as to why a British Act of partliment was effectively ignored. <---moved this text. It was not my comment but added in by someone else. Fear ÉIREANN (talk) 6 July 2005 20:11 (UTC)


 * Well, it was 28 years earlier and in a private letter, so probably not admissable evidence! --Red King 6 July 2005 14:05 (UTC)


 * One man's traitor is another man's patriot. A lot of Tories at the time regarded the Liberal Government of the day as virtual traitors - this was in an era when Asquith was howled down in the House of Commons at least once, and Ronald Waterhouse MP flung a book at Churchill's head, drawing blood. Opposition to Irish Home Rule did not look quite so silly in the late nineteenth century in an era when the USA and Germany were unified by force, very much against the wishes of the southerners in the first case.


 * Quite apart from the moral issue (as they saw it) of handing over loyal British subjects who had no wish to be ruled from Dublin, they also believed the Liberal Government was acting unconstitutionally in railroading through major constitutional change without a UK-wide electoral mandate. No Liberal Government ever won a majority on a Home Rule platform - the issue was deliberately kicked into touch in 1906 as it was such an electoral albatross for the Liberals. The Liberals had removed the Lords' veto (supposedly, the Lords were "the watchdog of the constitution" who would act in the long-term national interest, but would ultimately back down if a Government was seen to have a clear electoral mandate, as over Irish Disestablishment in 1869 or the Budget in 1910) but had not replaced the Lords with an elected house as promised (as of 2013, this STILL hasn't happened...), leaving the constitution "in abeyance" as was said at the time. The hope was that the Government could at least be forced to put matters to a General Election. Although there had been talk of not renewing the Mutiny Act (the annual legal permission needed by the Crown since 1688 to keep an Army) or reviving the Royal Veto, in the end it was the Curragh Incident (probably more cockup than conspiracy) which made Partition a virtual inevitability.


 * Calling the Army the military wing of the Tory Party is a bit unfair. Most officers, then as now (and indeed over then-Rhodesia in the 1960s), were Tory sympathisers, but at the same time they stayed aloof from party politics. Better handled, they did eventually obey orders to move on Ulster once it was clearly for the protection of arms depots - but the government mishandled things, possibly as they were hoping to provoke the UVF into rebelling, as did General Paget.Paulturtle (talk) 13:24, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposed Merge
I notice that a move related to this page was proposed in March 2005, but ended in no consensus. In March 2006, it was proposed that the Home Rule Act 1914 and the Third Home Rule Act pages be merged together. One editor appears to have gotten mixed up over the two issues and added a message of support for the merge to the old move discussion. Currently the merge proposal stands at one support and no objections. Does anyone have any comments? Road Wizard 18:18, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Wonder as well on the confusing "merge" or "move" debate standstill and repropose eliminating Third Home Rule Act STUB, merging/moving all titles and Home Rule Act 1914 to a single page, perhaps  Third Home Rule Act 1914  ?. Osioni 19:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Unless someone comes forward with an objection, I would suggest a simple merge of the two articles into the already existing Home Rule Act 1914. However, I have no strong feelings about the issue, and if you want to move the combined article after it is merged, then that is fine also. According to the merge guidelines, the merge should be carried out 5 days after the proposal is made (in this case I would say 5 days after the discussion starts) unless somebody objects. Road Wizard 21:09, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The merge doesn't need debate - obvious duplicate - so I have done it. The move does, so I have left it at Home Rule Act 1914. I would prefer Government of Ireland Act 1914 or as a second choice Irish Home Rule Act 1914 as it should mention Ireland in the title. --Henrygb 01:02, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

timing of the addition of partition
The intro to this article seems to imply that partition didn't come into any legislation until 1920, but it was in the 1914 Act wasn't it as per the shaping of partition section? The intro should say two parliaments where it now says "which allowed for the creation of a separate self-governing parliament in Ireland"? Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 20:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

If I understand it correctly, this Act did not allow for a parliament in (what would become) Northern Ireland. It simply excluded that area from the provisions of the Act. I've edited the opening paragraph accordingly. Scolaire 17:57, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I've removed the phrasing "(but at the same time 'temporarily' excluded the six northeastern counties)" from the introductory paragraph, as the Act makes no provision for excluding any part of Ireland from home rule. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about this topic to be certain about what the basis for Ulster's oft-stated exclusion might actually have been, although these lecture notes say that it was eventually agreed that an amendment Act would be passed before the GoIA proper went into effect (see the fourth paragraph from the end).  Hopefully someone else can provide authoritative details.  Silverhelm 13:24, 20 November 2006 (UTC).


 * At the time I posted this question on this talk page, I was under the impression that partition was in the 1914 Act. But I don't think so any more . I'm just writing here again to 'retract' my question above. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 14:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

More about the Act, less general history
I think the article is unbalanced. Interesting as the general history of Irish independence is, there are other articles on the subject. This should more information on the Act itself. Anyone have a good source describing how it was proposed to work? MathHisSci (talk) 21:29, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree, this article should be specific to the act rather than a debate about the wider merits of the union, seperation and Irish cultural identity. I've just added some fresh edits, the tone of the article suggested that Irish Unionist's opposition to the bill was wholly economic, that was only one of the factors, they also feared religious discrimination and the destruction of their British identity. I've also qualified the statement about Cork also being a centre of industry so therefore their fears were 'irrational'. Whilst it is true that Cork did rival Belfast in that context the Irish Nationalists of Cork were willing to risk economic decline for their dream of an independent Ireland, the Unionists of Northern Ireland didn't share that dream. The economic decline of Cork and Southern Ireland as a whole as part of the Irish Free State ably shows that these fears were far from 'irrational'. Shamrockawakening (talk) 12:30, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I doubt there'd be any serious objection to the inclusion of more detail on the bill's provisions. However, given that the bill, like all the other Home Rule Bills, was never actually implemented, the political struggles around it are far more important - in this case the way it arose from the struggle over the Parliament Act and then the ongoing argument about what was going to happen to the Six Counties. You can't always guarantee that people will easily be able to find the article they need, or that their knowledge level is such that a bit of general historical narrative won't make a few things clearer. That said, the narrative from about the end of WW1 onwards seems to me to belong in the article about the Fourth Home Rule Bill of 1920.Paulturtle (talk) 13:25, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I think there is a case to be made for splitting this article into "Government of Ireland Act 1914" and "Home rule crisis". The home rule crisis (not sure about capitalisation – it varies) has its own section at History of Ireland (1801–1923), Irish nationalism and Irish War of Independence, but none of them does as good a job of explaining the "crisis" as this one does. The article on the Act doesn't need any more than a brief background section to make clear why the act was drafted, why an amending act bill was proposed, why the act was passed the way it was, and why it was never enacted. All the extraneous detail (to August 1914), if cut and pasted, would make a sizable, standalone, useful article on an interesting peiod of Irish (and British) history, with very little editing needed. All the extraneous detail post-1914 should be merged into relevant articles: History of Ireland (1801–1923), Easter Rising, Irish War of Independence, Government of Ireland Act 1920 etc. Scolaire (talk) 17:20, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I have now done the splitting. Anybody who wants to expand the slimmed-down article, now's your chance. Scolaire (talk) 17:17, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * regarding "All the extraneous details post-1914 should be merged into relevant articles": the attempts to implement the act post 1914 were not in themselves the "crisis", reason I give reference to them under the act again.Osioni (talk) 22:55, 18 May 2013 (UTC)Osioni (talk) 23:10, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That's fine. Inevitably, trying to split an article so large and so entangled, some of the wrong things were going end up in the wrong articles. Thanks for fixing that. Scolaire (talk) 12:30, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Links in first sentence
At the moment the first sentence says that the Act was "intended to provide self-government (Home rule) for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. I feel that the link followed by a bracketed link looks clunky, but more pertinently, the two articles linked to are really on the same topic, so it's pointless to link to both. Given that we are told it is known as the "Home Rule Bill", I think it makes more sense to say "...intended to provide home rule (self-government) for Ireland...", but the question is: which term should be linked, and which article should it be linked to? Scolaire (talk) 12:41, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I have opted to link to Home rule, and I am changing the sentence to read "...to provide home rule (self-government within the United Kingdom) for Ireland", with UK linked to UKGBI. It reads better and will make more sense to the newbie reader. Scolaire (talk) 08:45, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explaning Scolaire, I'm not going to get into a dispute on the decisions, but I suspect it is (often elsewhere), a convenient way (in the name of "tidiness"!!) of avoiding naming the state of affairs at the time by its real name. In fact for a new generation of (younger) readers who have learnt history (if at all) largely airbrushed, I see it as essential to have titles like UKGB&I, clearly linked, certainly on such lead pages as Irish Home Rule movement, or Home Rule crisis etc. Who would want to bother to look at a UK link? (ok, this 1914 Act page might be regarded as a sub-page). Greetings. Osioni (talk) 20:47, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Finances
Might be worth a sentence or two to explain why the Irish Government had gone from running a surplus in 1893 to a deficit by WW1. Was it because of the cost of the buying-out of the landlords (Ashbourne Act 1887, Wyndham Act 1903) and other measures of the turn-of-the-century Unionist Government (light railway-building etc)? Or were there economic reasons, the 1890s being the nadir of a period of deflation (known at the time as the "Great Depression" until that title was appropriated by the 1930s)?Paulturtle (talk) 15:39, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If sources for the claimed deficit can be provided, it might be interesting material for inclusion under the land acts, history of railtransport in Ireland, Irish Parliamentary Party or their talk pages. Osioni (talk) 16:16, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Partition propsal
The section on Partition currently begins, "At the Bill's third reading in the Commons on 21 May 1914 several members asked about a proposal to exclude the whole of Ulster for six years." I think it would be useful to say a little more about this proposal: where did it come from, who came up with it? Does anybody know a good source for this? &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 11:51, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Asquith?
"Asquith made a second attempt to implement Home Rule in 1917, with the calling of the Irish Convention chaired by Horace Plunkett."

Surely he was out of office, replaced by Lloyd George, after December 1916?--Wehwalt (talk) 07:55, 20 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Have fixed.Paulturtle (talk) 05:44, 24 September 2018 (UTC)