Ulster Protestants organized themselves in implacable opposition to the measure. After the defeat of the first Home Rule Bill in 1886, the essential approach of the Conservative Party during their 20 years of government was a policy of ‘killing Home Rule by kindness’. Parnell’s death in 1891 and the defeat of the second Home Rule Bill marked the end, for the time being, of militant nationalism.

Essays and a document-based case study provide an account of the various self-government plans, place them in context and examine the government’s motives for putting the schemes forward. The Home Rule crisis also helped bring about an intensification of Irish nationalism which identified itself with Catholicism and Gaelic (native Irish) culture. This is further explored in the case study on the Gaelic Athletic Association. A third case study explores the Dublin lockout (1913), the decline of Dublin as the ‘second city’ of the empire and the development of a politically conscious Irish labour movement under figures like James Connolly and James Larkin.