Everything about Government Of Ireland Act 1920 totally explained
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. 5 c. 67.) was the second act passed by the
Parliament of the
United Kingdom to provide for
Home Rule in
Ireland. It is the Act that
partitioned Ireland into
Northern Ireland and
Southern Ireland. The 1920 Act is also known as the
Fourth Home Rule Bill.
Background
Various attempts had been made to give Ireland limited regional self-government, known as
Home Rule, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The
First Home Rule Bill of 1886 was defeated in the
British House of Commons following intense
Unionist and
Orange Order opposition which caused a split in the
Liberal Party, while the
Second Home Rule Bill of 1893, having been passed by the Commons was
vetoed by the
House of Lords. The
Third Home Rule Bill introduced in 1912 by the
Irish Parliamentary Party could no longer be vetoed after the passing of the
Parliament Act 1911 which removed the power of the Lords to veto bills. They could merely be delayed for two years.
Because of the continuing threat of civil war in Ireland, King
George V called the
Buckingham Palace Conference where Nationalist and Unionist leaders were invited to seek agreement. The conference eventually failed. Due to controversy over the rival demands of Irish Nationalists, backed up by the Liberals (for all-Ireland home rule), and Irish Unionists, backed up by the Conservatives, for the exclusion of most or all of the province of
Ulster. After an amending bill which allowed for Ulster to be temporarily excluded from the working of the Act, it was passed to the statute books and received
Royal Assent immediately after the outbreak of the
First World War. The Act's implementation was suspended until after what was expected to be a short European war.
Long's committee
Two attempts were made by the Prime Minister
H. H. Asquith during the
First World War to implement the Third Home Rule Act, first in May 1916 which failed on reaching agreement with Unionist Ulster, then again in 1917 with the calling of the
Irish Convention chaired by
John Redmond. It consisted of Nationalist and Unionist respreentatives who by April 1918 only succeeded in agreeing a report with reommendations for an understanding on the conflicting issues. Based on these findings, with the Government now led by
David Lloyd George committed under all circumstances to implementing Home Rule, the British cabinet's Committee for Ireland, under the chairmanship of former
Ulster Unionist Party leader
Walter Long pushed for a radical new idea. Long proposed creating two Irish home rule entities,
Northern Ireland and
Southern Ireland with
unicameral parliaments. The House of Lords amended the old Bill accordingly to create a new Bill with two
bicameral parliaments, "consisting of His Majesty, the Senate of (Northern or Southern) Ireland, and the House of Commons of (Northern or Southern) Ireland".
Developments in Ireland
During the Great War Irish politics moved decisively in a different direction. Several events - including the
Easter Rising of 1916, and the
conscription crisis of 1918 - and the subsequent reaction of the British Government, had utterly altered the state of Irish Politics, and made
Sinn Féin the dominant voice of Irish Nationalism. Sinn Féin, standing for 'an independent sovereign Ireland', had won seventy-three of the one hundred and five parliamentary seats on the island in the election in the
1918 General Election and established its own
unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) state, the
Irish Republic with its own extra-legal parliament,
Dáil Éireann. Thus, when the Act was passed on
23 December 1920 it was already out of touch with realities in Ireland. The long-standing demand for home rule had been replaced among Nationalists by a demand for complete independence. The Republic's
army was waging the
Irish War of Independence against British rule, which had reached a
nadir in late 1920.
Two home rule Irelands
The Act divided Ireland into two territories,
Southern Ireland and
Northern Ireland, each intended to be self-governing except in areas specifically reserved to the
Parliament of the United Kingdom: chief amongst these were matters relating to the Crown, to defence, foreign affairs, international trade, and currency.
"Southern Ireland" was to be all of Ireland except for "the parliamentary counties of
Antrim,
Armagh,
Down,
Fermanagh,
Londonderry and
Tyrone, and the parliamentary boroughs of
Belfast and
Londonderry" which were to constitute "
Northern Ireland". Northern Ireland as defined by the Act, amounting to six of the nine counties of
Ulster, was seen as the maximum area within which
Unionists could be expected to have a safe majority. This was in spite of the fact that counties
Fermanagh and
Tyrone had Catholic Nationalist majorities.
Structures of the governmental system
At the apex of the governmental system was to be the
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who would be chief executive of both Irish home rule states. The system was based on colonial constitutional theories.
Executive authority was to be vested in the crown, and in theory not answerable to either parliament. The Lord Lieutenant would appoint a cabinet that didn't need parliamentary support. No provision existed for a prime minister.
Such structures matched the theory in the colonial constitutions in
Canada and
Australia, where in theory powers belonged to the
governor-general and there was no theoretical responsibility to parliament. In reality, governments had long come to be chosen from parliament and to be answerable to it. Prime ministerial offices had come into
de facto existence. Such developments were also expected to happen in Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, but technically were not required under the Act.
Potential for Irish unity
A
Council of Ireland would co-ordinate matters of common concern to the two parliaments, with each parliament possessing the ability, in identical motions, to vote powers to the Council, which it was hoped would evolve into a single Irish parliament. Both parts of Ireland would continue to send a number of
MPs to the
Westminster parliament. Elections for both lower houses took place in May
1921.
Aftermath
Northern Ireland
The
Parliament of Northern Ireland came into being in June 1921. At its inauguration, in
Belfast City Hall,
King George V made a famous appeal for Anglo-Irish and north–south reconciliation. The speech, drafted by the government of
David Lloyd George on recommendations from
Jan Smuts Prime Minister of the
Union of South Africa, with the enthusiastic backing of the King, opened the door for formal contact between the
British Government and the
Republican administration of
Eamon de Valera.
Southern Ireland, The Irish Free State
Southern Ireland never became a reality. All 128 MPs elected to the
House of Commons of Southern Ireland were returned unopposed, and 124 of them, representing
Sinn Féin, declared themselves
TDs (
Irish for Dáil Deputies) and assembled as the
Second Dáil of the
Irish Republic.
With only the four Unionist MPs (all representing graduates of the Irish Universities) and 15 appointed senators turning up for the state opening of the Southern Ireland Parliament in the Royal College of Science in Dublin (now Government Buildings) in June 1921, the new legislature was suspended.
The
House of Commons of Southern Ireland came back into existence again for a short time under the
Anglo–Irish Treaty of
1921, to fulfill two functions. The first was to formally ratify the Treaty, which it did in late January 1922 after the
Second Dáil, which had authority in nationalist eyes for ratifying the Treaty, did so on 7 January 1922. Secondly, it was required to put in place a
Provisional Government, which it did, under General
Michael Collins. Collins was then legally installed in office by the Lord Lieutenant,
Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent.
Consequences
The Treaty provided for the ability of
Northern Ireland's Parliament, by formal address, to opt out of the new
Irish Free State, which was a foregone conclusion. An
Irish Boundary Commission was set up to redraw the border between the new
Irish Free State and
Northern Ireland, but the British and Irish governments agreed to suppress the report. The
Council of Ireland never functioned as hoped, (as an embryonic all-Ireland parliament), as the
Unionists simply refused to meet.
In the aftermath of the creation of the Irish Free State, the
Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act adjusted the Northern Ireland system of government slightly to cover the failure of Southern Ireland to function. The office of Lord Lieutenant was abolished and replaced by the
Governor of Northern Ireland.
In 1977,
John Hume challenged a regulation under the
Special Powers Act which allowed any soldier to disperse an assembly of three or more people.
Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland,
Lord Lowry held that the regulation was
Ultra Vires under Section 4 of the Government of Ireland Act which forbade the
Parliament of Northern Ireland to make laws in respect of the army.
Repeal
The 1920 Act was repealed in its entirety under the terms of the
Northern Ireland Act 1998, after the
Belfast Agreement. In the
republic, the
Statute Law Revision Act 2007 repealed the Act 70 years after the republic's 1937 Constitution.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Government Of Ireland Act 1920'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://government_of_ireland_act_1920.totallyexplained.com">Government of Ireland Act 1920 Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
