Jim Carroll - 16 May 16 - 09:07 AM

"Britain was and is ruled by Parliament not Proclamation."

We are talking about where the Unionists stood on Independence, not what happened in Parliament.

They reluctantly accepted a compromise which they had no intention of honouring - quite clear from both their proclamation, which was an open statement of defiance and from the proceedings recorded in Hansard ( 18 months before The Easter Rising).

1: Where the Unionists stood on Independence?? I would have thought that that would be obvious - they would be against it - and that is what they stated.

2: So "They reluctantly accepted a compromise which they had no intention of honouring" - I take it here you are referring to the Temporary six years exclusion amendment that was discussed but never was actually written into the Act that obtained Royal Assent in 1914. But if what you said is true, then it shows that the Unionist side was prepared to make a compromise. The Redmond-ite Nationalists were content with first obtaining Home Rule and they were backed by a vast number throughout Ireland.

What they were being offered was Home Rule and Dominion status just like Canada and Australia - both countries are federations of individual States (Australia) and Provinces (Canada) - why couldn't the same thing have applied to Ireland? (Had they done so, the Home Rulers would have had a sovereign independent united Ireland by 1931 under the Statute of Westminster). The exclusion from rule from Dublin proposed was temporary and it should have been in the gift of all minds assembled to demonstrate a way that a United Ireland could be made to work during the course of those six years. Unfortunately for all parties the Great War delayed everything.

The other fly in the ointment were the Irish Republicans who wanted immediate independence in 1914 they were a small minority. They plotted a rising and colluded with the enemy in order to make it happen. Their rising of 1916 which has demonstrably been proven to have had very little support failed and served only to politically polarise those seeking independence and those wishing to remain in the Union with Great Britain - after the '16 rebellion the War of Independence and the ensuing Civil War that immediately followed it, there was no way on God's earth that the Unionists could be tempted into a United Ireland, and that is where things stand today.