The Home Rule Bill, passed by the British parliament in 1912, aimed at giving Ireland some control over her own affairs. However, this was postponed when the First World War broke out, and by the time the war had ended the political landscape in Ireland had changed irrevocably. The respected historians who have contributed to this book examine the reaction to the Home Rule Bill across many shades of political opinion, and give a fascinating analysis of what might have been if external events had not overtaken local ones.

"Alvin Jackson's Home Rule: An Irish History examines the development of Home Rule and devolution in Ireland from the nineteenth century to the present. It traces some of the main themes in Irish peace-making from their late Victorian roots to the beginning of the millennium: it explores the origins of the Good Friday Agreement, and many of the interconnections between Irish political history and contemporary affairs. The work offers an incisive reappraisal of different political leaders through the period. Drawing on new archival evidence, Home Rule illuminates a crucial aspect of British and Irish history over a two-hundred-year span."--BOOK JACKET.

Uncovers the transnational movement by Ireland's unionists as they worked to maintain the Union during the Home Rule era. The book explores the political, social, religious, and Scotch-Irish ethnic connections between Irish unionists and the United States as unionists appealed to Americans for support and reacted to Irish nationalism.