The Tragedy Of Home Rule: Isaac Butt And Home Rule

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2. Isaac Butt. Chapter one. The tragedy of Home Rule.

Isaac Butt and Home Rule

Isaac Butt was born in September 1813 in Co. Donegal. He trained as a barrister and became a member of both the Irish and English bar. He was a noted conservative lawyer but after the famine of the 1840’s he became increasingly liberal. He defended participants in the young Ireland revolt (1848). He entered parliament as a liberal conservative in 1852 and managed to become deeply in debt. He defended Fenians after the revolt of 1867 and led the Amnesty Association that campaigned for their release. In 1869 he founded the Tenant League to renew the demand for tenant right.
Federalism was the political policy favoured by Butt as the solution to Irish political and economical problems. Butt proposed that a separate Irish parliament be set up in Dublin to control domestic affairs. There was no question of Ireland leaving the British Empire and Irish MPs would continue to sit at Westminster. In May 1870 a meeting was called to organise a new body that would try to win support for the idea of an Irish parliament. As a result the Home Government Association was formed as a constitutional movement to campaign for this cause. It attracted a wide range of views (including Protestants, Catholics, landlords, tenants and Fenians) that contrasted with each other. This movement would dominate Irish politics for most of the next fifty years.
The early years, 1870-1873, saw only limited growth for the movement. This was because Butt’s original intention was that the association would be a pressure group rather than a political party. Also Butt did not attempt to link Home Rule with other issues such as land reform and the Catholic Church was suspicious of the movement...

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...to stay in power.

How does Home Rule fit into the wider British context?
Home Rule was an extremely important concept in the British Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To fully appreciate its significance, it must be viewed in an imperial rather than a purely Irish concept. Before the outbreak of the First World War, the nature of government in the British Empire was changing. Greater independence and forms of domestic governance were granted to Canada, Australia, and South Africa in 1867, 1900, and 1909 respectively. Thus, Britain can be seen to have been gradually liberalising its system of imperial governance, at least for ‘civilised’ components of the empire. This contrasts starkly with the disorderly and chaotic nature of de-colonisation that was experienced by Britain, France, and other European powers following the Second World War.

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