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The First Home Rule Bill (official name: Irish Government Bill, 1886) was the first major attempt made by a British parliament to enact a law creating home rule for part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was introduced on 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. It was introduced alongside the Land Purchase Bill 1886 to reform tenant rights. (The latter was abandoned.) The key aspects of the 1886 Bill were:
Legislative Executive Reserve Powers Reaction When the bill was introduced Charles Stewart Parnell had mixed reactions, he said that it had great faults but was prepared to vote for it. In his famous Irish Home Rule speech, Gladstone beseeched parliament to pass the Bill and grant Home Rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to one day in humiliation. The vote took place after two months of debating and, on 8 June 1886, 341 voted against it (including 93 Liberals) while 311 voted for it. Parliament was dissolved on 26 June and the UK general election, 1886 was called. Historians have suggested that the Bill was fatally flawed by the secretive manner of its drafting, with Gladstone alienating Liberal figures like Joseph Chamberlain who along with a colleague resigned in protest from the ministry, while producing a Bill that privately by the Irish as badly drafted and deeply flawed. Footnotes See also Further reading (2000 edition, first published 1972), ISBN 0-14-029165-2. ISBN 0-7538-1767-5. ISBN 0-415-17420-1. | ||||||||
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