John Redmond - Party's Demise

Party's Demise

Redmond was succeeded in the party leadership by John Dillon and spared the experience of further political setbacks when after the German Spring Offensive of April 1918, Britain, caught in a desperate life or death struggle with Imperial Germany, attempted to introduce conscription in Ireland linked with implementation of Home Rule. The Irish Nationalists led by Dillon walked out of the House of Commons and returned to Ireland to join in the widespread resistance and protests during the resulting conscription crisis.

The crisis boosted Sinn Féin so that in the December general election it won the vast majority of seats, leaving the Nationalist Party with only six seats for the 220,837 votes cast (21.7%) (down from 84 seats out of 105 in 1910). The Party simply did not win a fair share of seats because the election was not run under a 'proportional representation' system, but on the 'first past the post' British electoral system. Unionists, on the other hand, won 26 seats for 287,618 (28.3%) of votes, whereas Sinn Féin votes were 476,087 (or 46.9%) for 48 seats, plus 25 uncontested, totalling an impressive 73 seats. In January 1919 a Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the provisional Sinn Féin First Dáil proclaimed an Irish Republic, later abolished in 1921 after the Anglo-Irish War under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty which agreed on the Partition of Ireland and established the Irish Free State with its parliament the Dáil Éireann (in the Irish Language), the 'Assembly of Ireland'. The Irish Civil War followed.

Home Rule was finally implemented in 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (Fourth Home Rule Bill) which foresaw two Home Rule Irelands, although only adopted by the six counties forming Northern Ireland.