The Ulster Crisis

Programme Outline

The programme opens at the time of the ‘New Departure’ in the late 1870s, when Charles Stewart Parnell was leading a two-pronged campaign to secure new rights for the Irish people. Alongside the direct action of the Land League to achieve land ownership for smaller farmers, Parnell’s chief objective was to build up a formidable Irish Party at Westminster to promote the cause of self-government, or Home Rule, for Ireland. The programme shows that the Land League’s objectives were largely fulfilled by the Land Acts of 1881 and 1903, but that Home Rule proved more difficult to achieve. First, Parnell was brought down by a scandal in 1890; then Gladstone’s second Home Rule Bill was defeated in the House of Lords in 1893. When Home Rule again became a real possibility in 1910 through the support of the Liberal Party, the idea met with organised militant opposition from Ulster Protestants, backed by the Conservative Party. The programme shows how this weakened the resolve of the Liberals and convinced many nationalists that they too should use the threat of force to achieve their objectives. The outbreak of the First World War postponed the crisis: both unionists and constitutional nationalists, by committing themselves to the war effort, hoped to demonstrate the justice of their cause.

Finally, the programme describes how events were transformed by the actions of revolutionary nationalists at Easter 1916 and the British reaction. Out of the division and violence that followed, Ireland was partitioned in 1920–21. This outcome, a quick response to circumstances, did not really satisfy the aspirations of either unionists or nationalists.