Home rule and the general election of 1874 in Ireland

Abstract

Although the liberal government returned in 1868 took serious steps to reconcile dissatisfied Irish opinion by disestablishing the Irish church, passing a land act, and introducing an Irish university bill, Ireland, at the beginning of 1874; was far from being contented. The land act had made it more difficult and expensive to evict a tenant, and recognised the principle of compensation for improvements, but was considered by the tenant righters as only an instalment of their claims for ‘ fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale ‘ By disestablishing the Protestant episcopalian church, Gladstone pleased the Catholic clergy and those Catholics who considered the existence of the established church a galling insult, but it antagonized a good portion of Protestant opinion. The Catholic bishops were dissatisfied with the university bill and severely criticised its provisions; this influenced the majority of the Irish liberal M.P.s, who voted against the second reading. These votes helped to defeat the bill, a defeat that heralded the downfall of the liberal government.