Home Rule

“The sea forbids Union, and the Channel forbids Separation.” Harold Spender opens his case for Home Rule with a paradox measured in just sixty-five miles of water.

In 1912, after two earlier Home Rule Bills had stirred fierce battles in Parliament, the question of an Irish legislature is before Britain once more. Spender argues that the channel makes direct rule an enduring problem: Ireland has its own laws and administration, yet its government lacks an effective parliamentary check. He weighs the forces that divide the two islands—and the hope that self-government might ease Irish disaffection and strengthen their union. Can a new settlement bridge a divide that history, geography and old injuries have kept open?

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