This research paper examines the nature and origin of the Irish question, the political antagonism between England and Ireland, and the reasons why the movement for home rule for Ireland failed. By the second half of the 19th century an accumulation of deep grievances had impeded progress toward a more normal or healthy relationship between England and Ireland which dated back many centuries and had deep historical roots. Despite some reforms, the Union of England and Ireland in 1800 had been opposed by significant elements of the Irish middle and upper classes which became focused upon a demand for home rule, self-government within an imperial framework. In the middle 1880s home rule was supported by Prime Minister William Gladstone's Liberal Party and government. It failed to pass Parliament in 1886 and 1894 and was never implemented after it was passed in 1914. It failed to pass in the late 19th century because of a lack of English domestic political support. It never went into effect in the 20th century, primarily because of Protestant opposition and growing republican sentiment in Catholic Ireland.
First invaded by the Norman forces of King Henry II in 1169, Ireland, says Woodham-Smith, "had been neither assimilated nor subdued" (15). According to Manchester, "for nearly eight centuries, they [the Irish] had been governed like serfs by English viceroys entrenched in Dublin Castle" (452). Largely left alone until late Tudor times, successive kings expanded the Pale or areas of English control over the countryside. Predominantly Roman Catholic, Ireland emerged in the 18th century on the losing side of the great religious struggles which began in the mid-16th century. It was regarded as the site of papist and French plots against the English crown. From the time of Oliver Cromwell, the irish were subjected to political, economic and religious discrimination by absentee Anglo-Irish landlords and the Protestant Ascendancy which ru...