Unionists (Ireland)

In the context of Irish politics, Unionists are people in Northern Ireland, who wish to see the continuation of the 1801 Act of Union, as amended by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, under which Northern Ireland, created in that latter Act, remains part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Unionists are mostly, but not exclusively, from Protestant backgrounds in terms of religion. In the context of Irish history, the term refers to those who opposed home rule for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Irish Home Rule

Prior to 1912, Unionists wished to see the Act of Union (which in 1801 had merged the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) remain in place. They opposed Irish Home Rule, which mainstream Irish nationalists had sought since the 1860s. The Unionists of this period (especially outside Ulster) were almost entirely made up of the governing and landowning classes and the minor gentry. Home Rule would have involved Ireland having its own regional parliament while still remaining in the United Kingdom. This demand, the policy of nationalist leaders such as Isaac Butt. William Shaw, Charles Stewart Parnell, John Redmond and John Dillon, became the aim of the Nationalist Party, also known as the Home Rule League and later the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Home Rule League/Irish Parliamentary Party won the majority of Irish parliamentary seats in the Westminster parliaments from the 1870s to 1914.

Related Topics:
1912 - Great Britain - Ireland - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - Home Rule - Nationalist - 1860s - Ulster - Isaac Butt - William Shaw - Charles Stewart Parnell - John Redmond - John Dillon - Nationalist Party - Home Rule League - Irish Parliamentary Party - 1870s - 1914

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Various British governments introduced four successive Bills to set up an Irish Home Rule parliament in Dublin. The Irish Home Rule Bill 1886 never made it through the House of Commons but managed to destroy the Liberal Party government, with Whig and Radical elements leaving to form the Liberal Unionist Party in alliance with the Conservative Party. Eventually the two parties merged, calling themselves the Conservative and Unionist Party.

Related Topics:
Irish Home Rule Bill 1886 - House of Commons - Liberal Party - Liberal Unionist Party - Conservative Party - Conservative and Unionist Party

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The Irish Home Rule Bill 1893 passed in the Commons but succumbed to the veto of the House of Lords.The House of Lords had far more Conservatives than the House of Commons. The Home Rule Act 1914 passed (or at least passed all stages under the Parliament Act, 1911, which curbed the veto power of the Lords) but never came into force, due to the onset of World War I (1914–18). The fourth Bill, known as the Government of Ireland Act 1920, envisaged two Irish home rule states: Southern Ireland which would have had a nationalist majority, and Northern Ireland which would have a much smaller unionist majority. Only the latter became a reality, while the former became the Irish Free State.

Related Topics:
Irish Home Rule Bill 1893 - House of Lords - Home Rule Act 1914 - Parliament Act - World War I - 1914 - 18 - Government of Ireland Act 1920 - Southern Ireland - Northern Ireland - Irish Free State

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Irish unionists opposed Home Rule for many reasons. Much of their support in southern and western Ireland (the provinces of Munster, Leinster and Connacht) came from landed gentry who feared that a nationalist assembly would introduce property and taxation laws more suitable to a small island than the laws imposed from Westminster, which were designed for a much larger area, the entire United Kingdom. Some also feared that they would experience a similar sort of discrimination that the Protestant Parliament of Ireland up to 1800 had practised on Catholics, namely the notorious Penal Laws, or the more subtle discrimination that followed, although this is hard to credit as Ireland would have remained part of the UK. Others identified strongly with the Crown and British rule, and wished to see both continue unchanged in Ireland. However one should not presume that Irish unionist support came entirely from the landed gentry, or that all Protestants supported Unionism. Many working class and middle class Unionists and some gentrified Catholics supported the maintenance of the union, while many Protestants (most notably Charles Stewart Parnell) supported home rule.

Related Topics:
Munster - Leinster - Connacht - Gentry - Protestant - Parliament of Ireland - 1800 - Catholic - Penal Laws - Working class - Middle class - Charles Stewart Parnell

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Other Unionists, particularly in Ulster, had economic fears, suspecting that a nationalist parliament in Dublin, on a predominantly agricultural island, would impose economic tariffs against industry. Parts of Ulster were then the most industrialised parts of Ireland and would have suffered.

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For much of the period up until 1920, though the Unionist support base predominated in four of the nine counties of Ulster (where Presbyterians and Anglicans outnumbered Roman Catholics), the Irish Unionist Party's leadership came from the rest of Ireland. Its most prominent leader, the Dublin-born barrister and politician Sir Edward Carson, opposed not merely Home Rule but any attempt to divide Ireland into two. Other southern Unionist leaders included the Earl of Middleton and the Earl of Dunraven.

Related Topics:
1920 - Presbyterian - Anglican - Dublin - Edward Carson - Divide

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When, following the curbs placed on the power of the House of Lords in 1911 it became clear that home rule would come, Unionists, particularly in parts of Ulster, mounted a campaign that threatened to establish a Provisional Government of Ulster through the use of violence if Home Rule were to come about. They set up the Ulster Volunteer Force, the first modern Irish paramilitary organisation, and imported 25,000 rifles from Imperial Germany, to fight the British government. 90,000 men had joined by the middle of 1914. Irish Unionism received the support in the period from the 1880s to 1914 from leading English Conservative politicians, notably Lord Randolph Churchill and future British prime minister Andrew Bonar Law. Slogans such as Ulster Will Fight and Ulster Will Be Right expressed the determination of unionists to oppose Irish Home Rule by whatever means it deemed necessary.

Related Topics:
House of Lords - 1911 - Ulster Volunteer Force - Imperial Germany - British government - 1880s - English - Conservative - Lord Randolph Churchill - Andrew Bonar Law

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