First Home Rule Bill
 |
|
| Name and origin | |
|---|---|
| Official name of legislation | Government of Ireland Bill 1886 |
| Location | Ireland |
| Year | 1886 |
| Government introduced | Gladstone (Liberal) |
| Parliamentary passage | |
| House of Commons passed? | No |
| House of Lords Passed? | Not applicable |
| Royal Assent? | Not Applicable |
| Defeated | |
| Which House | House of Commons |
| Which stage | 2nd stage |
| Final vote | Aye: 311; No 341 |
| Date | 8 June 1886 |
| Details of legislation | |
| Legislature type | unicameral |
| Unicameral subdivision | 2 Orders |
| Name(s) | not given |
| Size(s) | 1st Order – 100 (25 peers, 75 elected) 2nd Order 204–206 members |
| MPs in Westminster | none |
| Executive head | Lord Lieutenant |
| Executive body | none |
| Prime Minister in text | none |
| Responsible executive | no |
| Enactment | |
| Act implemented | not applicable |
| Succeeded by | Irish Government Bill 1893 |
The Government of Ireland Bill 1886, commonly known as the First Home Rule Bill, was the first major attempt made by a British government to enact a law creating home rule for part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was introduced in 8 April 1886 by Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone to create a devolved assembly for Ireland which would govern Ireland in specified areas. The Irish Parliamentary Party under Charles Stewart Parnell had been campaigning for home rule for Ireland since the 1870s.
The Bill, like his Irish Land Act 1870, was very much the work of Gladstone, who excluded both the Irish MPs and his own ministers from participation in the drafting. Following the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act 1885 it was to be introduced alongside a new Land Purchase Bill to reform tenant rights, but the latter was abandoned.
The key aspects of the 1886 Bill were:
When the bill was introduced, Charles Stewart Parnell had a mixed reaction. He said that it had great faults but was prepared to vote for it. In his famous , Gladstone beseeched Parliament to pass it and grant Home Rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to one day in humiliation. Unionists and the Orange Order were fierce in their resistance; for them, any measure of Home Rule was denounced as nothing other than Rome Rule. In the staunchly loyalist town of Portadown, the so-called 'Orange Citadel' where the Orange Order was founded in 1795, Orangemen and their supporters celebrated the Bill's defeat by 'Storming the Tunnel'. This was the headline in the local paper where it was reported that a mob attacked the small Catholic/Nationalist ghetto of Obins Street.
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