Editing Republic of Ireland (section)

===Home-rule movement===
{{Main|Irish Home Rule movement}}
[[File:Charles Stewart Parnell at meeting.jpg|thumb|right|[[Charles Stewart Parnell]] (1846–1891) addressing a meeting. The [[Irish Parliamentary Party]] was formed in 1882 by Parnell.]]

From the [[Act of Union 1800|Act of Union]] on 1 January 1801, until 6 December 1922, the island of Ireland was part of the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]]. During the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]], from 1845 to 1849, the island's population of over 8&nbsp;million fell by 30%. One million Irish died of starvation and disease and another 1.5&nbsp;million emigrated, mostly to the United States.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mokyr |first=Joel |author-link=Joel Mokyr |title=New Developments in Irish Population History 1700–1850 |journal=Irish Economic and Social History |volume=XI |pages=101–121 |year=1984 |hdl=10197/1406 |url=http://researchrepository.ucd.ie/bitstream/10197/1406/1/wp83_17.pdf |access-date=19 September 2019 |archive-date=24 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190924160733/https://researchrepository.ucd.ie/bitstream/10197/1406/1/wp83_17.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> This set the pattern of emigration for the century to come, resulting in constant population decline up to the 1960s.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://census.ie/in-history/population-of-ireland-1841-2006/ | publisher = [[Central Statistics Office (Ireland)|CSO]] | title = Population of Ireland 1841–2011 | access-date = 6 September 2018 | archive-date = 6 September 2018 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180906195419/http://census.ie/in-history/population-of-ireland-1841-2006/ | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/famine/demographics_pre.html | publisher = Wesleyjohnston.com | first1 = Wesley | last1 = Johnston | first2 = Patrick | last2 = Abbot | title = Prelude to the Irish Famine – Demographics | access-date = 6 September 2018 | archive-date = 7 July 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190707111107/http://wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/famine/demographics_pre.html | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url = https://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/population/2017/Chapter_1_Population_change_and_historical_perspective.pdf |title = Population Change and Historical Perspective |access-date = 6 September 2018 |publisher = CSO |archive-date = 17 April 2019 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190417022844/https://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/population/2017/Chapter_1_Population_change_and_historical_perspective.pdf |url-status = live }}</ref>

From 1874, and particularly under [[Charles Stewart Parnell]] from 1880, the [[Irish Parliamentary Party]] gained prominence. This was firstly through widespread agrarian agitation via the [[Irish Land League]], which won [[land reforms]] for tenants in the form of the [[Irish Land Acts]], and secondly through its attempts to achieve [[Irish Home Rule Movement|Home Rule]], via two unsuccessful bills which would have granted Ireland limited national autonomy. These led to "grass-roots" control of national affairs, under the [[Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898|Local Government Act 1898]], that had been in the hands of landlord-dominated [[grand juries]] of the [[Protestant Ascendancy]].

Home Rule seemed certain when the [[Parliament Act 1911]] abolished the veto of the [[House of Lords]], and [[John Redmond]] secured the [[Home Rule Act 1914|Third Home Rule Act]] in 1914. However, the [[Unionism in Ireland|Unionist movement]] had been growing since 1886 among Irish Protestants after the introduction of the first home rule bill, fearing discrimination and loss of economic and social privileges if [[Irish Catholics]] achieved real political power. In the late 19th and early 20th-century unionism was particularly strong in parts of [[Ulster]], where industrialisation was more common in contrast to the more agrarian rest of the island, and where the Protestant population was more prominent, with a majority in four counties.<ref>{{Cite book |title=A History of Ulster |last=Bardon |first=Jonathan |author-link=Jonathan Bardon |year=1992 |publisher=Blackstaff Press |isbn=0856404985 |pages=402, 405}}</ref> Under the leadership of the Dublin-born [[Edward Carson|Sir Edward Carson]] of the [[Irish Unionist Party]] and the Ulsterman [[James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon|Sir James Craig]] of the [[Ulster Unionist Party]], unionists became strongly militant, forming [[Ulster Volunteers]] in order to oppose "the Coercion of Ulster".<ref>{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zWgfwHuOCHYC&q=%22the+Coercion+of+Ulster%22+craig&pg=PA128 | title = Ireland in the 20th Century | last = Coogan | first = Tim Pat | date = 2009 | publisher = Random House | pages = 127–128 | isbn = 9781407097213 | access-date = 19 November 2020 | archive-date = 5 July 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210705090337/https://books.google.com/books?id=zWgfwHuOCHYC&q&pg=PA128 | url-status = live }}</ref> After the Home Rule Bill passed parliament in May 1914, to avoid rebellion with Ulster, the British Prime Minister [[H. H. Asquith]] introduced an [[Irish Parliamentary Party#Home Rule succeeds|Amending Bill]] reluctantly conceded to by the Irish Party leadership. This provided for the temporary exclusion of Ulster from the workings of the bill for a trial period of six years, with an as yet undecided new set of measures to be introduced for the area to be temporarily excluded.