All-for-Ireland League
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All-for-Ireland League
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|---|---|
| Founded | 1909 |
| Dissolved | 1918 |
| Ideology |
Nonsectarianism Irish nationalism |
| Colours | Green |
The All-for-Ireland League (AFIL), was an Irish, Munster-based political party (1909–1918). Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland. The AFIL established itself as a separate non-sectarian party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, binding a group of independent nationalists MPs to pursue a broader concept of Irish nationalism, a consensus of political brotherhood and reconciliation among all Irishmen, primarily to win Unionist consent to an All-Ireland parliamentary settlement.
O'Brien's conciliatory initiation of the 1902 Land Conference, achieved with the backing of the United Irish League (UIL) which he had founded, led to agreement on the Wyndham's Land Purchase Act of 1903, which resolved Ireland's century old land question. This was followed by the housing of agricultural labourers, settled under the 1906 Labourers (Ireland) Act. With Irish local government already well established, O'Brien was convinced that to achieve the final hurdle of All-Ireland self-government, the success of the approach he used to win the Land Act, the "doctrine of conciliation" combined with "conference plus business", must also be applied to alleviate the fears and integrate the interests of the Protestant and Unionist community in their resistance to Irish Home Rule since 1886. The issue was a source of contention amongst a significant majority of Unionists (largely but not exclusively based in Ulster), who opposed Home Rule, fearing that a Catholic Nationalist ("Rome Rule") Parliament in Dublin would discriminate or retaliate against them, impose Roman Catholic doctrine, and impose tariffs on industry. While most of Ireland was primarily agricultural, six of the counties in Ulster were the location of heavy industry and would be affected by any tariff barriers imposed.
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