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British Regulars sniping from behind a barricade of empty beer casks near the quays in Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising (Getty Images) View more images
The Irish who lived abroad in the 19th and 20th centuries were almost exclusively, economic migrants and so had left home in the saddest circumstances for which they blamed the English.
They saw the English as asset strippers of what little Ireland had. Many of the Irish abroad spoke, plotted and, when the chance came, fought against the English throughout the colonies and in America. So, the Irish abroad were seen as agitators against the empire.
Because Irish MPs could sit and vote at Westminster this meant a considerable lobby in the Commons committed to Home Rule. Soon, the Irish held the balance of power at Westminster. The opposition to them in Ireland came from the Unionists, the mostly northern Irish MPs and their supporters who didn't want Home Rule.
Gladstone, the Liberal prime minister, failed to get his Home Bill through the Commons because some Liberals joined with the Unionist to vote it down. In 1893 Gladstone tried again and failed on the 'No' vote in the Lords. That was effectively the end of Gladstone's political career.
In 1910 there were two elections. By the Parliament Act (1911) the Lords could only delay bills for two years. In 1912, the Liberals introduced another Home Rule for Ireland Bill.
In December that year, 1912, the Unionists formed the Ulster Volunteer Force. Within eighteen months it had an army of 90,000. One reaction from the Nationalists, from whose number would come the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, was the formation of the Irish Volunteers.
As Padraic Pearse, the leader executed after that rising, observed, "I think the Orangeman with a rifle a much less ridiculous figure than the Nationalist without a rifle".
The Home Rule Bill went through but was suspended for the duration of the war. In the middle of that war came the 1916 Easter Rising when 2,000 nationalists led by Padraic Pearse and James Connolly occupied central Dublin and Pearse proclaimed the Irish Republic.
Within a week it was over and 15 were executed. The rebellion was not a popular rising. Many innocent Irish were killed. It was largely the British harsh reaction that turned public favour towards the rebels.
Padraig was the son of an Englishman monumental mason and an Irishwoman. He became a writer (poetry and plays) and champion of the Gaelic cause editing the journal of the Gaelic League. He taught Irish at University College and was the founding master of St Edna's, a bilingual (Erse & English) school. He then joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood (1915). In the 1916 Rising he was declared President. After the Rising, Pearse was executed and so became a martyr.
Lenin observed the East Rising and wrote: "The misfortune of the Irish is that they rose prematurely when the European revolt of the proletariat had not yet matured鈥aster week was not a proletarian revolution. It was a national rising in which a new factor appeared - the working class was no longer content merely to provide man-power, but participated as a separate force with its own organization, leaders and outlook".
When a Tory Winston Churchill had opposed Home Rule, as a Liberal however he supported it:
"The case for Home Rule rests on three main sets of argument: the Imperial argument, the House of Commons argument, and the Irish argument. A settlement of the long quarrel between the British government and the Irish people would be to the British Empire a boon and a blessing, a treasure ship, a reinforcement precious beyond compare. In their own island, the Irish race have dwindled; while the populations of Europe have overflowed, that of Ireland has ebbed away. But elsewhere, all over the world, they have held their own, and in every country where the English language is spoken the Irish are a power - a power for good, or a power for ill; a power to harm or a power to help us; a power to unite us, or a power to keep us asunder.
The Irish overseas - no doubt with notable exceptions - have been our enemies. They have been filled with feelings of resentment and anger against the British power and name, and they have counter-worked our interests. They have been our adverse [sic] in the colonies. They are now the most serious obstacle to Anglo-American friendship. Must the British empire be made for all time to stand out of all advantages therefrom? Are British governments to be compelled to govern them only by forces as a subjugated race? Are we to be forbidden on both sides to achieve a friendship so full of hope and benefit for all?"
