Ulster counties to vote on exclusion from Home Rule

Amending Bill for Home Rule introduced in House of Lords

In an attempt to resolve the impasse over Home Rule, the government introduced its Amending Bill into the House of Lords today.

The first reading of the bill was moved by Lord Crewe who said he had been struck in recent weeks by the profundity of the religious difference as the basis of other differences in Ireland.

In noting the existence of religious animosity, he continued: ‘We on this side of the House should be sorry to see either priest or presbyter in control of public life in Ireland.’

Lord Lansdowne led opposition to the bill. He described it as 'a noose... which can be tightened at any moment it suits your convenience.'(Image: © National Portrait Gallery, London)

Lord Crewe said he looked forward to the day when the laity of a united Ireland will be able to work out its own destiny, each man respecting the faith of the other, while every man remains loyal to his own.

Allowing for that, he said that religious fears seemed to now make it imperative to impose some form of exclusion for that part of Ireland where fears where at their greatest.

Lord Crewe continued: ‘We have placed in the bill a proposition that within three months of the passing of the Act any county in Ulster should be entitled to take a poll, and if there is a majority in favour of exclusion, then the Government of Ireland Act shall in no way apply.’

It is further proposed that any county that opts out of Home Rule can do so for a period of six years after the first meeting of the Irish Parliament. At that point, Parliament would reconsider whether the excluded areas should remain as they are, or whether they should now be included.

A meeting of a branch of the Irish Volunteers in Tyrone passed a resolution opposing the exclusion of Ulster in the Home Rule Bill. (Image: National Archives of Ireland CSO RP 1914, 13109)

Opposition to the government’s proposals was led by Lord Lansdowne who expressed his profound disappointment.

Lord Lansdowne said that these were the same proposals that the Prime Minister had made last March and that they had then been rejected: ‘They were demolished in arguments. They were refused by the spokesman of the Irish Unionists in the House of Commons and by the leader of the Opposition.’

He then asked: ‘Why wish Ulster to remain with a noose around her neck, which can be tightened at any moment it suits your convenience.’

Lord Lansdowne concluded by noting that the government was only introducing the Amending Bill because they understood that their original proposal meant inevitable civil war in Ireland.

Addressing Lord Crewe, he said: ‘I say frankly to the noble Marquis that I believe he and his colleagues know perfectly well that the bill they have now introduced will not be sufficient to avert civil war.’