The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the Irish Question and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wider future, discuss and come to an understanding on recommendations as to the best manner and means this goal could be achieved. It was called by the Prime Minister of Britain Lloyd George in June 1917 and was composed of representative Irishmen from different political parties and spheres of interest. The Irish Question is the phrase used for the internal dispute in Britain concerning rational Irish nationalism and calls for independence. ... David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor, OM (January 17, 1863–March 26, 1945) was a British statesman and the last Liberal to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. ...

Multiple backdrops

Self-government for Ireland had been the predominant political issue between Ireland and Britain since the 1880s reflected in three Home Rule bills, the first two rejected, culminating with the passing of the third Irish Home Rule Act 1914 by the British House of Commons. This was however flawed by a partition clause and handicapped by a temporary suspension measure preventing it coming into effect until the end of European hostilities in World War I. Devolution or Home rule is the pooling of powers from central government to government at regional or local level. ... The Government of Ireland Act 1914, more generally known as the Third Home Rule Act (or Bill) or the (Irish) Home Rule Act 1914, was an Act of Parliament passed by the British House of Commons in May 1914 under the official short title Government of Ireland Act 1914, which... The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... The Partition of Ireland took place in May 1921. ... Combatants Allied Powers: Russian Empire France British Empire Italy United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary German Empire Ottoman Empire Bulgaria Commanders Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Ferdinand Foch Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Armando Diaz Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Franz...

The Great War was the single most crucial factor influencing the course of Irish history from the second decade of the 20th century, creating circumstances which led to total and irreversible political polarisation and partition. Initially it split the Irish Volunteers who were raised to resist the secession of Ulster by the Ulster Volunteers from a coercive All-Ireland Home Rule settlement, into two opposing camps, the larger National Volunteers - supporting the war effort and subsequently in combat on the Western Front and in Gallipoli, enabling a minority group of Volunteers who remained in Ireland stage the 1916 Easter Rebellion, proclaiming an Irish Republic, virtually unimaginable without the backdrop of the European conflict. Irish Volunteers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Statistics Area: 24,481 km² Population (2006 estimate) 1,993,918 Ulster (Irish: Cúige Uladh, IPA: ) forms one of the four traditional provinces of Ireland. ... The Ulster Volunteer Force (more commonly referred to as the UVF) are a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. ... The National Volunteers is the name taken by the group of the Irish Volunteers that sided with Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond after the group split in the wake of the question of the Volunteers role in World War I. While Redmond took no role in the creation of... Combatants Belgium, British Empire, France, United States, other Western Allies of WWI Germany Commanders No unified command until 1918, then General Ferdinand Foch Kaiser Wilhelm II Casualties ~4,800,000 Unknown though considerably higher Following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the German army opened the Western... Combatants British Empire Australia India Newfoundland New Zealand United Kingdom France Ottoman Empire German Empire Commanders Sir Ian Hamilton Otto von Sanders Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Strength 5 divisions (initial) 14 divisions (final) 6 divisions Casualties 150,000 250,000 The Battle of Gallipoli took place on the Turkish peninsula... Combatants Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army, Irish Republican Brotherhood British Army Royal Irish Constabulary Commanders Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly General Sir John Maxwell Strength 1250 in Dublin, c. ...

Belated urgency

Their limited and failed insurrection nevertheless strengthened the not directly involved small political separatist movement Sinn Fein , at the cost of loss of popularity for the Home Rule Act won by the Irish Parliamentary Party. Negotiations by Britain in July 1916 to introduce Home Rule immediately collapsed on the issue of partition, by now the alternate vision of total Irish separatism winning the overhand so that the Nationalist leader John Redmond dared not go ahead with the arrangement he had through necessity agreed to in 1914. Sinn Féin (in the Irish language ourselves or we ourselves; not as sometimes incorrectly translated, ourselves alone) is an Irish political party. ... In 1882 Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, formed the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), replacing the Home Rule League, as a parliamentary party with strict rules. ... John Redmond, MP John Edward Redmond (September 1, 1856 – March 6, 1918) was the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918. ...

Lloyd George again offered Redmond in a letter the enactment of Home Rule for the twenty-six southern counties on 16 May 1917. Three electoral by-election wins by Sinn Fein startled both the Irish Party and the British government, so that four days after the death of Redmond’s brother Major Willie Redmond on the war front, Lloyd George proposed on 11 June 1917 to call a Convention of all Irish parties and interests which Redmond agreed to, hoping it might yet produce a deal which would secure the future of constitutional nationalism, Lloyd George for his part trying to appease both American opinion and gain her and future Irish support in the war. Major William Hoey Kearney Redmond (1861–9 June 1917) (commonly known as Willie Redmond) was an Irish Parliamentary Party and First World War fatality. ...

Broad deliberations

The Irish Convention brought together an excessive number of ninety-five representatives from different political fields and other interests. Two of the invited parties were prominent by their absence, Sinn Fein boycotting on the grounds that the terms of reference of the Convention decreed that Ireland must be “within the Empire”, which entailed maintaining the supremacy of the English Parliament., the Sinn Fein absence in the long term disastrous. The All-for-Ireland Party of William O'Brien who earlier championed “conference plus business” rightly stating that the attendance size was doomed to failure, calling for a compact panel of a dozen prominentaries, to include leading southern unionists and clerics, outlining essential conditions for success, O’Brien’s proposals ignored by Redmond, but Lloyd George appealing to O’Brien to attend. The All-for-Ireland League (A.I.L.), was an Irish, Munster based non-sectarian political party (1909-1918). ... William OBrien (2 October 1852–25 February 1928) was an Irish journalist, writer and politician, particularly associated with campaigns for land reform in Ireland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ...

The first conference meeting was held on 25 July at Regent House, Trinity College Dublin, the chairmanship sought and won by Sir Horace Plunkett. Nine-tenths of the representatives were Irish Party and Ulster Party members all of whom had previously supported the Home Rule Partition Act. The Convention laboured under long orations and the Ulster delegates being at the mercy of an Ulster Orange Council veto. The conference eventually agreed to submit further negotiations to sub-committees (close to O’Brien’s original proposal), and indeed by late 1917 the possibility of an All-Ireland parliament came within the concept of thought where clashes between Ulster Unionists and nationalists were no longer over partition but rather over taxing powers and defending a customs union. Trinity College, Dublin, corporately designated as the Provost, Fellows and Scholars of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, and is the only constituent college of the University of Dublin, Irelands oldest university. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53. ... Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett (1854-1932), Irish politician, third son of Edward Plunkett, 16th Baron of Dunsany, was born on the 24th of October 1854, and was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford, of which college he became honorary fellow in 1909. ... The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP, sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or OUP) is a political party in Northern Ireland representing the unionist community, and was the party of government in Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. ... Orangemen in traditional dress preparing to march The Orange Institution, more commonly known as the Orange Order, is a Protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland with lodges throughout the Commonwealth and in the United States. ...

Carson, the Ulster leader, even seems to have regarded a unitary settlement with a degree of sympathy at this time, provided essentials for Ulster Unionists were guaranteed:- the need to secure the position for which they stood, no coercion, ample safeguards for the Unionist minority under an Irish Parliament, allow all Unionists possess a dual Irish-British identity and no Dominion status for Ireland outside the United Kingdom . Edward Henry Carson, Baron Carson (February 9, 1854 - October 22, 1935) was a leader of the Irish Unionists, a Barrister and a Judge. ...

Rapproachment

The Irish Convention finally turned out to be more than an elitist talking-shop, although an understanding took a long time in coming it was apparent that a fleeting consensus had been attained, that the Ulster Unionists influenced by their southern counterparts wavered towards a settlement, the Southern Unionists striving to prevent partition proposing that a self-governing Ireland occupy the same position as other parts of the United Kingdom in a greater scheme of Imperial Federation, towards which they believed the Empire was moving. Deliberations during the period November into January 1918 appeared as if a deal was in the offing, both the Unionist alliance and the nationalist strategists prepared to make sufficient concessions that a deal could be struck. Everything hinged upon timing, a speedy settlement was essential. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP, sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or OUP) is a political party in Northern Ireland representing the unionist community, and was the party of government in Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. ...

At this point the chairman Horace Plunkett, the country’s most distinguished centrist politician, an advocate of a federal solution for Ireland and the future of the United Kingdom, intervened. Rather than clearing the timetable to rush through an agreement, he diverted by initiating a lengthy debate on land purchase. The various sides gained time to reconsider and recoup, with the earlier momentum lost committees came under the influence of outside institutions and hard-liners. Fiscal autonomy and the partition of all of the province of Ulster again loomed their heads to reinforce stern traditional demands, and by February had ruined a deal that was close to being won. At the core, political federalism is a political philosophy in which a group or body of members are bound together (Latin: foedus, covenant) with a governing representative head. ...

Although the Convention appeared to have failed in its immediate objective, it generated ideas and reactions and revealed standpoints that had an independent and lasting significance. Parallel to the Convention negotiations amongst a circle of influential sympathisers for an alternative federal settlement were at work since the breakdown of the Home Rule negotiations in July 1916. On 14 February Carson wrote to Lloyd George urging a federal settlement, the latter hinting that Home Rule would be merely the first step in a wider federal reform of British government.

Shattered hopes

The political calculations of the government were dealt the final blows by a series of further set-backs to the Convention. Redmond who had been long ill died on 6 March, an eloquent voice for conciliation demised. His follower on 13 March John Dillon was less consensual and more sympathetic to the aspirations of Sinn Fein. John Dillon (September 4, 1851 - August 4, 1927) was an Irish nationalist politician. ...

Then the situation on the Western Front deteriorated dramatically eliminating any hopes of an agreement. The German massive Spring offensive of 21 March swept all before it scattering and over-running the Allied armies and would soon reach the Channel coast. There was a manpower crisis which forced the cabinet on 28 March to extend the spectre of conscription to Ireland. At the same time the final Convention report, previously agreed on 5 March by forty-four votes to twenty-nine, arrived in Downing Street its key recommendation calling for either Home Rule within a federal United Kingdom or Dominion status within the Empire. The Cabinet ministers grasped the opportunity to make a totally illogical decision, drafting and agreeing on 5 April a "dual policy" of conscription and devolution. It signalled the death knell of a political era. With it the strategy of Irish political constitutionalism was killed by being connected to the military draft. The 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during the First World War, which marked the deepest advance by either side since 1914. ... Satellite view of the English Channel The English Channel (French: La Manche (IPA: ), the sleeve) is the part of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the island of Great Britain from northern France and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. ... Downing Street For a wider coverage of London, visit the London Portal. ...

To link conscription with Home Rule signalled its end as a popular cause. On the official announcement of the dual policy of Home Rule and conscription, Dillon and O’Brien led their party members out of the Commons. At the height of the Conscription Crisis they united at the Dublin Mansion House Conference with the separatists and Sinn Fein in the anti-conscription pledge of 21 April 1918, and the great one day strike and demonstration of 23 April. The Conscription Crisis of 1918 (Ireland) stemmed from a move by the Government of the United Kingdom to impose conscription in Ireland, and contributed to pivotal events in early 20th century politics in Ireland, galvanising popular support for parties favouring devolution from the United Kingdom. ... The Mansion House on Dawson Street, Dublin, is the official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin and has been since 1715. ...

The war, its duration, the suspension of the Home Rule Act , particularly the conscription crisis drastically increased support for Sinn Fein, the numbers of people joining its branches rising immeasurably. For Unionist the war confirmed all their pre-war suspicions that Irish Nationalist could no longer be trusted, contrasting the Easter Rising with the Battle of the Somme , the conscription crisis providing a watershed for Ulster Unionists to withdraw securely into their northern citadel. Combatants United Kingdom Australia Canada New Zealand Newfoundland South Africa France German Empire Commanders Douglas Haig Joseph Joffre Max von Gallwitz Fritz von Below Strength 13 British and 11 French divisions (initial) 51 British and 48 French divisions (final) 10½ divisions (initial) 50 divisions (final) Casualties 419,654 British Empire...

Prolonged crisis

On 11 April government ministers formed a cabinet committee to supervise the drafting of Home Rule as recommended by the Convention. The committee was chaired by Walter Long, self-claimed to be the best informed person on Irish affairs, also championing federalism and had all his life intrigued to bring Home Rule to fall, in particular manipulating the negotiated document agreement of July 1916 between Redmond and Carson, which they then had to reject. . This article is about the American actor. ...

On 16 April 1918 the Military Service (Ireland) Bill passed into law. This dualism signalled the end of All-Ireland Home Rule and the end of an optional federal engagement with Ireland, which had it succeeded and if the Convention’s Report had been implemented in full, would have established a revolutionary form of federal government at the heart of Europe. Only America’s late entry into the war in April averted certain Allied defeat which permitted the cabinet on 19 June, postpone the implementation of its dual policy of Home Rule and conscription for All-Ireland.

With the Armistice and the end of the war in November 1918, Sinn Fein winning a majority of seats in the December election, the government faced its obligation under the Home Rule suspensory measure of 1914. Also confronted in 1919 with the separatist Dáil Parliament of the Irish Republic in Dublin and the indiscriminate shooting of unarmed members of the Royal Irish Constabulary by Republican volunteers across Ireland, heralding the begin of the Anglo-Irish war, a cabinet committee was hastily created to advise on Irish affairs, chaired similarly to its predecessor by Walter Long. The Long Committee established by October that there should be two Irish parliaments including an Irish Council with a mechanism for the "encouragement of Irish unity", optionally in a Federation or as a Dominion, beginning with the partition of nine Ulster counties. The committee thereby adopting much of the recommendation contained in the March 1918 Irish Convention Report. Front page of the New York Times on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918 The armistice treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on November 11, 1918, and marked the end of the First World War on the Western Front. ... The Irish general election of 1918 was that part of the 1918 United Kingdom general election that took place in Ireland. ... Dáil Éireann[1] is the lower house of the Oireachtas (parliament) of the Republic of Ireland. ... The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was one of Irelands two police forces in the early twentieth century, alongside the Dublin Metropolitan Police. ... This article is about the historical army of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic (1919–1922) which fought in the Irish War of Independence 1919-21, and the Irish Civil War 1922-23. ... The term War of Independence is generally used to describe a war occurring over a territory that has declared independence. ...

Home Rule after-life

By February 1920 Ulster stated that they would only claim six counties, the basis of the Fourth Home Rule Act 1920 , which came into effect with elections to the two Irish parliaments of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland in May 1921. The latter parliament of the twenty-six counties never functioned. The foregone partition of Ireland under the Act was however the starting point for negotiations which ended in December with the Anglo-Irish Treaty granting the south an Irish Free State with the equivalent of Dominion status. The loss of the republic and the six counties the catalyst for the Irish Civil War. An Act to Provide for the Better Government of Ireland, more usually the Government of Ireland Act, 1920 (this is its official short title; the formal citation is 10 & 11 Geo. ... Motto:  (Latin for Who will separate us?)[1] Anthem: UK: God Save the Queen Regional: (de facto) Londonderry Air Capital Belfast Largest city Belfast Official language(s) English (de facto), Ulster Scots, Irish3, Northern Ireland Sign Language, Irish Sign Language Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister of... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Capital Dublin Head of State King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Head of Government Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Chairman of the Provisional Government from Jan 1922. ... Signature page of the Anglo-Irish Treaty The Anglo-Irish Treaty, officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom and representatives of the extra-judicial Irish Republic which concluded the Irish War of Independence. ... Territory of the Irish Free State Capital Dublin Language(s) Irish, English Government Constitutional monarchy Monarch  - 1922–1936 George V  - 1936–1936 George VI President of the Executive Council  - 1922–1932 W.T. Cosgrave  - 1932–1937 Eamon de Valera Legislature Oireachtas  - Upper house Seanad Éireann  - Lower house Dáil Éireann... The Irish Civil War (June 28, 1922 – May 24, 1923) was a conflict between supporters and or2=Liam Lynch† Frank Aiken |commander1=Michael Collins† Richard Mulcahy |strength2= c. ...

The new Northern Ireland parliament, prodigy of the Irish Convention, opened on 22 June 1921, seen as a loyalist triumph for years of patriotism and sacrifice. The paradox being that Unionists were rewarded for their years of political struggle with the Home Rule they had fought for half a century. Home Rule did not die in 1916, in 1918, or in 1921. It enjoyed a form of after-life in Northern Ireland up until 1972. In the south Home Rulers relocated themselves within the two main parties of the new Free State, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail , where the old Home Rule Party’s constitutional, ideological and structural legacies continued to survive. Fine Gael (IPA: , though often anglicized to (approximate English translation: Family of the Irish) and officially, Fine Gael - The United Ireland Party, is the second largest political party in Ireland, presently forming the largest opposition party in the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament), and claims a membership of over 34,000. ... Fianna Fáil - The Republican Party (Pronounced fee-na fall.) (English: Soldiers of Destiny) is the largest political party in the Republic of Ireland. ...

Reading and sources

• Alvin Jackson Home Rule, An Irish History 1800-2000 (2003), Ch. 9: pp. 203-234; Weidenfeld & Nicholson, ISBN 0-75381-767-5
• Thomas Hennessey Dividing Ireland, World War I and Partition (1998), Ch. 6: pp. 202-239; Routledge, ISBN 0-415-17420-1