Irish Party will not join new coalition government

Westminster, 6 December 1916 - The Irish Parliamentary Party will have no role in the new Government, the party’s leader John Redmond has announced.

Following the resignation as Prime Minister of Herbert Asquith, Andrew Bonar Law has been invited by King George V to form a government.

Mr Redmond stated that his party must view the present crisis from a different position to all the other parties.

Dr Conor Mulvagh on Liberals, Tories and the Irish Question in the years leading up to the First World War.

He said that they must, of necessity, remain excluded from responsibility on the direction of the empire for as long as as self-government is denied to Ireland. According to Mr Redmond, the current difficulties were the result of 'confining the conduct of the war to a Coalition Ministry' that was created in May 1915 'behind the back of the Liberal party and the House of Commons, and the Irish party, who had for a long time, under circumstances of great difficulty, given loyal support to Mr Asquith's Government'.

The Irish Parliamentary Party condemned the coalition because they felt sure it would be disastrous for Ireland and because they knew it would be a ‘weak and ineffective instrument’ for governing during a time of war.

Mr Redmond noted that up to May 1915, recruiting in Ireland was carried on with enthusiasm, but this had now changed:

'The perverse stupidity of the War Office, the formation of the Coalition, the inclusion of Sir E. Carson in the Ministry, and the partial restoration to power of the old ascendancy party in Ireland checked recruitment, and for the first time the Sinn Feiners began to get considerable accessions to their ranks, and the ultimate result was the Irish rebellion and all the disastrous consequences which flowed from it.'

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]