Irish Home Rule Bill
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There were four Irish Home Rule Bills in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to reverse parts of the Act of Union 1800. Only two were passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and one of these was never implemented. The bill of 1914 was opposed by Edward Carson who had helped to raise the Ulster Volunteer Force to prevent it, and was instrumental in organising of the Ulster Covenant. Irish Unionist opposition to the bills were epitomised by the poem Ulster 1912 by Rudyard Kipling. In Unionist circles, "Home Rule was Rome Rule".
They were:
- 1886: First Irish Home Rule Bill defeated in the British House of Commons and never introduced in the House of Lords.
- 1894: Second Irish Home Rule Bill passed the House of Commons, but defeated in the House of Lords.
- 1914: Third Irish Home Rule Act passed but never came into force, due to the intervention of World War I (1914–18) and of the Easter Rising in Dublin (1916).
- 1920: Fourth Irish Home Rule Act (Government of Ireland Act 1920)
