Home Rule: The Second Home Rule Bill

In 1893 the Liberals passed the Second Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons, providing a bicameral legislature for purely local matters and Irish representation at Westminster to vote on Irish taxation. While unsatisfactory to Home Rule advocates, the bill was, nevertheless, defeated in the House of Lords. Advocates of constitutional means to Home Rule began to lose ground to republicans and revolutionaries. The ideals of an increasingly self-conscious Irish people, expressed by the Gaelic League and Irish Ireland culminated in the founding (c.1900) of Sinn Féin. The Irish Council Bill of 1907, which was to establish a purely Irish body to direct the spending of Irish tax proceeds, failed to pass because of Irish dissatisfaction with the plan.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Home Rule in Contemporary Northern Ireland
• The Irish Free State and the Fourth Home Rule Bill
• The Third Home Rule Bill
• The Second Home Rule Bill
• The First Home Rule Bill
• Origins of the Home Rule Movement
• Bibliography

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