‘Home rule’, complained Augustine Birrell, ‘is the most unlucky cause mortal man was ever associated with. Its path is strewn with ghosts and skeletons — wine, women and money. Now it is money. … Sentiment is easily kept alive, from one generation to another; it costs nothing but a harp and a song. But cash — where is that to come from?’ The problem of finance proved to be an insurmountable obstacle to any compromise over Irish home rule at the abortive Irish Convention of 1917–18. By contrast, the struggle over the third home-rule bill from 1912 to 1914 was dominated by the question of Ulster and not finance. The bill was ultimately wrecked by the opposition of the Ulster protestants to any home-rule bill for a united Ireland. Home-rule finance has been overlooked by most historians because it seemed less important and no doubt also because it was immensely complicated. But the problem of finance was a very real difficulty which still confronted politicians even if the objections of the Ulster protestants could be overcome. More important, the complex relationship between Ireland and Britain cannot be fully understood unless the financial dimension is taken into account.
The family's role was central to bereavement in nineteenth century England and has continued to be influential in certain regions and classes up to the 1940s. But cultural norms in bereavement shifted powerfully in the twentieth century because of demographic and medical change and the two world wars, especially the Second World War. A pervasive model of suppressed and privatized grieving became entrenched in the English psyche for the next 30 years and inevitably reduced the involvement of the family.
Augustine Birrell performed the thankless task of chief secretary for Ireland for a longer period than any of his forty-nine predecessors. His nine years of office from 1907 to 1916 included some of the most critical years of Anglo-Irish history, and ended tragically when he accepted blame for the 1916 Easter rebellion, which has haunted his political reputation ever since. Birrell has been generally condemned by the English and consigned to oblivion by the Irish. This article will reassess Birrell's work as Irish secretary by relating his actual achievements and failures to the complex problems which constituted the Liberal dilemma in Ireland. Emphasis is placed on the earlier and more successful period of Birrell's administration, which has been almost entirely neglected by English historians.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.