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IRELAND & THE WAR: DOWNLOAD TEXT - HOME RULE

Home Rule: The Third Home Rule Bill received its final reading in the House of Parliament on the 25th of May 1914. For it to become law, all it required was the royal assent which it did get on the 18th of September 1914. It was accompanied by an Act simultaneously suspending it for twelve months or until the end of the Great War, whichever was the longer period. The net effect of the passing of the Home Rule Act was simply to shelve the problems of Ulster to be argued about again when presumably peace returned. After returning from the House of Lords to hear the Clerk of the Crown proclaim the royal assent, one Nationalist member produced a miniature green flag with a golden harp at the centre and carried it aloft into the Chamber. Cheers were followed by the singing of ‘God Save the King’ in which people in the gallery joined. At the end of the anthem, a Labour Party member cried out: ‘God save Ireland!’ to which the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party in Westminster, John Redmond, replied: ‘God save England too!’ However, by this time there were two opposing armies ready to take the battle over Home Rule from the benches of the House of Parliament to the streets and towns of Ireland.