Course:HIST317/Empire - Home
Ireland had never been succesfully integrated into Great Britain quite as Wales or Scotland had. In fact, the Act of Union arguably intensified Ireland's subordinate status within the Empire. The predominance of the Catholic Church in Ireland, the strongly percieved racial boundary between the Irish and English, and various cultural aspects, such as the strong rural tradition, separated Ireland form the rest of the Isles. Ireland also maintained a separate legal structure and a centralized police force which further distinguished it from its neighbours. Finally, the Lord Lieutenancy remained a lasting symbol of Ireland's subordinate, internal colonial position.
Yet Ireland itself was hardly a unified distinct body. Northern Ireland, particularly Belfast, had joined in the industrialization which had swept through Britain. Furthermore, the Anglican faith, rather than the Catholic, was the dominant religion.
Our period begins under circumstances which only heightened the division between Ireland and the British Empire. In 1846, a famine resulted in massive emmigration and rising death tolls. By 1851, one million had died and 3 million had emmigrated; many to the United States. When this happened the rural culture which defined Ireland lost much of the population that supported it. Many Irish were left enraged by the failure of British policy to aptly cope with the crisis. Indeed, the entrance to our period was marked by an increase in Irish nationalist fervor.
Ireland's pursuit of independence through legislative means took the form of 4 Home Rule bills. The first bill, introduced in 1886, failed to gain passage through the House of Commons. The 1893 bill succeeded where the first had failed, but was vetoed by the House of Lords. In 1912, the third bill also failed to meet the approval of the House of Lords. However, a major change in parlaimentary procedure prevented the death of the bill. A year earlier, a reform to the British constitution removed the House of Lords' ability to veto legislation. As a result, the third Home Rule Bill recieved royal ascent in 1914, although implementation was delayed because of what was thought to be a short military engagement. That engagement was World War I. As the war drew out, the Home Rule Bill was pushed into the background and a series of events instantly changed the nature of Irish politics.
When discussing issues of class in Victorian society one generally focuses on the class system as it operated in Britain, and in particular, England itself. Class was, however, an important issue abroad as well, across the many territories of the vast British Empire. Much attention is often given to the working classes of England, particularly in relation to their role as factory workers serving as the backbone of the Victorian industrial economy. What is often ignored, however, is the fact that this system of a vast class of production workers began not in England but in the West Indies on the plantations. (See Introduction Tensions of Empire: Colonial Control and Visions of Rule, by Frederick Cooper; Ann L. Stoler American Ethnologist © 1989 American Anthropological Association).
In many ways the local class systems found within any given colony or possession of the Crown modeled that found in Britain itself, with the governor paralleling, in the local context, the monarch, the local elite the English aristocracy, and the indigenous peoples the British working classes. The situation was, in some places, comparable to the local Romanization, that is the adoption of aspects of Roman culture, religion, and practice, that occurred among the elites in various nation incorporated into the Roman Empire. The local elites of Indian society, for example, in many cases assumed traits characteristic of the upper-classes of Britain in such areas as dress and recreation.