The transfer of devolved powers to the newly created Northern Ireland 100 years ago, on 3 May 1921, represents one of the greatest ironies of modern Irish history. Ulster unionists, initially implacable opponents of home rule for Ireland, became the first political grouping on the island to be granted this form of self-government within the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ireland, Ulster and the United Kingdom were partitioned under legislation passed at Westminster in December 1920 and officially entitled, unduly optimistically as an \u2018Act to Provide for the Better Government of Ireland\u2019. This was the fourth effort by successive British governments to introduce home rule to Ireland. William Gladstone\u2019s first home rule bill was defeated in the House of Commons in 1886 by the first serious manifestation of Irish political unionism, supported by Conservatives and a unionist faction within Gladstone\u2019s own Liberal Party. His second effort passed the first hurdle of the Commons in 1893 to be defeated by what then seemed a permanent and unassailable pro-union majority in the House of Lords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was not until 1912, after the truncation of the Lords\u2019 veto power under the 1910 Parliament Act, enacted in response to the upper house\u2019s attempt to block the socially reforming aspects of David Lloyd George\u2019s 1909 budget, that the question of Irish home rule returned to the political agenda at Westminster. The abolition of the Lords\u2019 permanent veto, and the political arithmetic in the Commons, where HH Asquith\u2019s Liberal government relied on the support of John Redmond\u2019s Irish Parliamentary (i.e. home rule) Party, made the introduction of home rule in Ireland by 1914 a realistic prospect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To continue reading, please click here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Article originally appeared in agendaNI<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The featured image<\/a><\/em> has been used courtesy of a <\/em>Creative Commons license.<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Current debates over the future of the union, which focus on the question of Scottish independence, and what format it might take, display a noticeable ignorance of the history of the last occasion upon which the union was sundered, says Dr Marie Coleman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2443,"featured_media":7504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1013,771],"class_list":["post-7839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-and-democracy","tag-100-year-anniversary","tag-partition"],"mb":[],"acf":{"authors":{"simple_value_formatted":"