PM Asquith's poor handling of the Irish Home Rule Crisis, 1910-1914. - page 3
Keywords: ireland home rule crisis 1910 1914 20th century asquith redmond carson bonar law liberals conservatives ulster unionists unionism irish parliamentary party
By exploiit on 19/06/2010
Level: A Level (Year 13)
Page Number: 3 of 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
that had not rarely been extended to Irish Nationalists” (Smith) and Asquith’s failure to act upon this and punish the leaders for inciting violence perhaps allowed the opposition to develop and definitely proved that he had underestimated the ready threat, although Patrick Buckland may be right to point out that punishing these leaders may have been a poor move as it may have angered their supporters and sparked some form of rebellion.
Also important, and undoubtedly overlooked by the Liberal government, was the state of their Conservative adversaries. Finally ousted from power after almost 20 successive years and divided on a number of issues, Home Rule acted as the unifying policy within the party which would enable them to regain control of the State. By participating in acts of outright treason against their own King’s government and agreeing to support unionist violence if Home Rule became a reality, the Conservatives stood to gain a lot of support not only from Irish opponents of the Bill but also by the British public, who saw the importance of Home Rule as a betrayal of the Liberals who had promised to focus on social reform in their own country. Asquith’s failure to identify these motives was also an indication of immature attitudes towards the strength of opposition.
Despite this, Asquith and his administration did make moves to resolve the conflict, most notably through the Buckingham Palace Conference in July 1914 in which exclusion was discussed, although no agreement was reached. To blame the crisis of 1910-1914 entirely on Asquith’s underestimation of the strength of the bill’s opposition however, would be to ignore the other factors which inevitably effected the situation.
Similarly to the Liberal administration in Britain, the unionist threat was initially dismissed by many Irish Nationalists, although on-going developments in the opposition’s position would change this. The establishment of the UVF in 1913 prompted the formation of the Irish Volunteer Force (IVF) in the South. Alongside the re-emergence of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and the Irish Citizen Army in 1913, this was another highly contentious factor which contributed to the crisis, even threatening civil war within Ireland. On top of this further threat, divisions were also beginning to appear within the Nationalist movement, complicating the Home Rule process even more. The bill’s drawn out passage through parliament and the threat of compromise on exclusion worried the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) as it “gave time
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