The 1885 general election
In the election, the Irish Parliamentary Party ended up with 86 seats. The Liberals won 335 seats and the Conservatives 249. Neither the Tories nor the Liberals could govern without his support, which of them he now decided to back would depend on the attitude of Salisbury (Conservative) and Gladstone (Liberals) towards Home Rule.
The First Home Rule Bill 1886
Neither during the election campaign itself not in its immediate aftermath would Gladstone commit himself publicly over Home Rule. Nevertheless, during the summer months of 1885, he appears to have become convinced that Home Rule was the only solution. He became convinced of the reality of Irish nationalism. How on moral grounds could he oppose what a majority of the Irish people wanted? (Election shows that they wanted it). The fact that the Irish Party won every seat in southern Ireland (bar one) clinched his support for Home Rule.
Gladstone’s third ministry
Since it soon became clear that Lord Salisbury did not intend to support Home Rule. Gladstone now became Prime Minister for the third time, at the age of 77, committed to the introduction of Home Rule. Following his accession to power in January 1886, Gladstone, determined ‘to grasp the Irish nettle’, proceeded with a Home Rule Bill swiftly and boldly.
The Home Rule Package
The Home Rule package was presented to the Cabinet in March 1886, consisting of two closely related Bills which aimed to solve the political and the social problems of Ireland together.
The First Bill
The first Bill proposed the establishment of a b-cameral Irish legislature, consisting of two Orders, which would sit and vote together.
- The First Order – a sort of Upper House – was weighted in favour of property and was to contain a number of Irish peers.
- The second Order consisted entirely of MPs elected in the ordinary way.
From the legislature would be drawn the Irish executive, which was to be responsible to it. The Irish legislature would have the right with all Irish affairs, except those defined as belonging to the Imperial government at Westminster – the most important of these were:
- defence
- foreign policy
- international policy
Irish MPs were to be excluded from Westminster. This avoided the complicated problem of deciding what debates they should be allowed to attend of they remained members of the House of Commons.
The second Bill
The second Bill consisted of a land purchase scheme by which the British Treasury would buy out the landlords at a cost of some £50 million. Gladstone believed this was essential in order to prevent the new Irish legislature being burdened at the outset with the problems of the Irish land system.The Prime Minister presented his Home Rule Bill to the House of Commons on 8 April 1886. The Land Purchase Bill was soon abandoned when it became apparent that it was unpopular with all sections of opinion in the House.
The debates which followed centred therefore on the provisions concerning the government of Ireland. Gladstone elaborated in greater detail the main reasons which had led him to adopt Home Rule, and the solutions he proposed.
Reaction to the Bill
The bulk of the members of the Parliamentary Liberal Party supported Gladstone. Parnell had doubts about some of the details, particularly the financial provisions, which he believed were unfair to Ireland; but he supported the Home Rule Bill. ‘I accepted the Bill’, he pronounced and I believe the Irish people will accept it’.
But the Bill was bitterly attacked by the Conservatives, and by many leading Liberals, such as Joseph Chamberlain. Major criticisms were directed against Gladstone’s proposals.
- It was argued that Irish self-government would lead inevitably to complete separation and therefore the break-up of the UK.
- It was argued that Irish nationality and unity could not really be said to exist when all classes in Protestant Ulster were so violently against Home Rule.
Thus, on 8 June 1886, when the vote was finally taken on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill, 93 Liberals were against.
The second general election of 1886
Parliament was then dissolved and the parties squared up for the second general election within a year. The Liberal Party was now split down the middle. The Irish fought as a separate party under Parnell, were tied to the Liberals as the only English party now committed to Home Rule. The outcome of the election in 1886 was a resounding victory for the Unionists. They won 394 seats (316 Conservatives, 78 Liberal Unionists); the Gladstone Liberals were reduced to 191 MPs, backed up by the Irish Party of 85 members. Clearly for the moment Home Rule was a lost cause.
The Fall of Parnell
After the general election of 1886 the Irish Parliamentary Party will dominated the representation of Ireland outside Ulster, and Parnell remained determined to stick to the constitutional path in securing Home Rule.
‘Parnellism and Crime’
However, in 1887 the Times published a vindictive series of articles, ‘Parnellism and Crime’, which accused the Irish leader of the Phoenix Park murders. In 1889, however, a judicial investigation revealed that the articles were based on forged letters. The collapse of the case against Parnell led to a wave of public sympathy. Yet within a year Parnell’s personal reputation and his political career were virtually in ruins.
The O’Shea divorce
This was the result of the notorious divorce case in which he was now involved. Captain O’Shea filed suit for divorce, citing Parnell as co-respondent on the grounds of his adultery with Mrs Katharine O’Shea. The case came to court in November 1890: Parnell offered no defence and O’Shea was granted his divorce. At first, the divorce seemed to have no political repercussions, and the Irish Parliamentary Party stood by its leader. But Gladstone felt he had no alternative but to urge the Irish to repudiate Parnell as their leader of the alliance – and therefore the cause of Home Rule – was to be maintained.
Parnell reacted furiously. He refused to resign the leadership. Irish Nationalist MPs were therefore faced with a dilemma: if they stood by Parnell, they would lose Liberal support and, apparently, any further possibility of Home Rule.
They had to choose, as one contemporary put it, ‘between Parnell and Parnellite principles’. At the historic meeting of the Irish Parliamentary Party at the House of Commons on 1 December 1890, the party split: 45 MPs repudiated Parnell’s leadership, 37 supported him. A few days later the leaders of the Irish Catholic clergy called upon the Irish people to repudiate him.
Parnell reacted with characteristics defiance. In the summer of 1891, he fought one last campaign in Ireland at a series of by-elections. In all these by-elections, however, the anti-Parnellites triumphed. Parnell was now ill and worn-out, and he died on 6 October 1891 at Brighton n the arms of his wife Kitty (as the former Mrs O’Shea had now become).
Parnell’s achievements
Charles Stewart Parnell was a controversial figure in his lifetime, and he has remained so ever since. Yet most historians are now agreed on the nature of his contribution to Anglo-Irish history. For though Parnell was associated with the Land League, he was pre-eminently a practical politician than an agrarian reformer. In the political field his achievement was two-fold. Making Home Rule a realistic aim. He turned the question of Home Rule from a vague ideal into practical politics. By his belief that it must be worked for and could be achieved constitutionally through the British parliament.
Parnell was eventually able to convince the majority of the Irish people that Home Rule was both a just and a feasible solution to the problem of Irish government. Moreover, it was his consistent and convincing support for Home Rule – that helped to clinch Gladstone’s conversion to that cause. Uniting the Irish Parliamentary Party
Parnell’s second great political achievement: his creation of a united, disciplined Irish Parliamentary Party backed up by an efficient electoral machine in Ireland itself. The Irish Party under Parnell’s leadership played a key role in British politics and in the history of the Irish question during the 1880s. After Parnell’s death in 1891 the Irish Parliamentary Party – divided and leaderless – was only a shadow of its former self.