Editing History of the United Kingdom (section)

===Ireland and Home Rule===
{{Main|Irish issue in British politics|Great Famine (Ireland)}}
[[File: Emigrants Leave Ireland by Henry Doyle 1868.jpg|thumb|190px|''Emigrants Leave Ireland'' depicting the emigration to [[United States|America]] following the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]] in Ireland]]

Part of the agreement which led to the [[Acts of Union 1800]] stipulated that the Penal Laws in Ireland were to be repealed and [[Catholic emancipation]] granted. However, King George III blocked emancipation. A campaign under [[Daniel O'Connell]] led to the concession of Catholic Emancipation in 1829, allowing Catholics to sit in Parliament.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hexter |first=Jack H. |date=1936 |title=The Protestant revival and the Catholic question in England, 1778–1829 |journal=Journal of Modern History |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=297–319 |doi=10.1086/468452 |jstor=1881538|s2cid=153924065 }}</ref>

When [[potato blight]] hit Ireland in 1846, much of the rural population was left without food. Relief efforts were inadequate and hundreds of thousands died in the [[Great Hunger]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Woodham-Smith |first=Cecil |title=The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849 |date=1962}}; {{Cite book |last=Crowley |first=John |title=Atlas of the Great Irish Famine |date=2012 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> Millions more migrated to England, or to North America. Ireland became permanently smaller in terms of population.

In the 1870s new moderate nationalist movement was formed. As the [[Irish Parliamentary Party]] it became a major factor in parliament under [[Charles Stewart Parnell]]. Home Rule Bills introduced by Liberal Prime Minister Gladstone failed of passage, and split the Liberals. A significant [[Unionism in Ireland|unionist minority]] (largely based in [[Ulster]]), opposed Home Rule, fearing that a [[Rome Rule|Catholic-Nationalist]] parliament in Dublin would discriminate against them and would also hurt its industry.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jackson |first=Alvin |title=Ireland 1798–1998: politics and war |date=1999 |author-link=Alvin Jackson (historian)}}</ref> Parliament passed laws in 1870, 1881, 1903 and 1909 that enabled most tenant farmers to purchase their lands, and lowered the rents of the others.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Guinnane |first1=Timothy W. |last2=Miller |first2=Ronald I. |date=1997 |title=The Limits to Land Reform: The Land Acts in Ireland, 1870–1909 |url=https://www.princeton.edu/rpds/papers/Guinnane_Miller_Limits_to_Land_Reform_EDCC1997.pdf |journal=Economic Development and Cultural Change |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=591–612 |doi=10.1086/452292 |hdl=10419/160647 |s2cid=17477539 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117223641/https://www.princeton.edu/rpds/papers/Guinnane_Miller_Limits_to_Land_Reform_EDCC1997.pdf |archive-date=17 November 2015}}</ref>