Asquith v Law rivalry to blame for outbreak of Irish Revolution?

recedite wrote: »

And how would they do that?

They should have given Home Rule to a 26 county Southern Ireland and a 6 county Northern Ireland by telling Carson and Redmond they had to compromise. Carson and Redmond were both opposed to a partitioned Ireland and neither wanted to severe Westminster's apron strings. With a bit of foresight the hot air could have been taken out of Irish politics without both sides arming and violence and bloodshed.
Britain itself and not just Ireland was on the verge of civil war over Home Rule before World War I helped both sides - Tories and Liberals to co-operate in the war effort.
Bizarrely the Unionists who were opposed to Home Rule and partition got Home Rule in the six counties in 1920.
When Bonar Law inherited Lloyd George's Irish policy when he succeeded him as Prime Minister he did nothing to dismantle the Irish settlement that had been engineered.

recedite wrote: »

That was on the cards, but postponed until the end of the war. In 1916 the future outcome of WW1 was very uncertain. As with WW2 the German side looked like they were winning during "the first half". If the UK had been seen to be "breaking apart" at that point, it potentially could have had disastrous consequences for them.

Arguably, Pearse and the extremists within the minority IRB faction who had joined the Irish Volunteers guessed that such a settlement was very likely to be implemented at the end of the war.
Therefore they had to engineer a situation which would prevent that from happening. They knew that the leader of the Irish Volunteers would not agree to their plan, so they planned the insurrection behind his back.

The talks failed prior to WW1 because Redmond and Carson were unable to compromise.

Pearse and the men you erronously refer to as extremists knew that Home Rule would simply create a puppet parliament in Dublin. It fell far short of even the Free State that the treacherous Griffith and Collins later agreed to over the heads of President De Valera and the Irish canbinet.

The 1916 Rising was necessary to assert Irish sovereignty in arms prior to the end of the war when Home Rule was going to be fudged by the Liberals or completely shelved by the Tories and Unionists.

feargale wrote: »

Who are extremists if not a minority of a minority who resort to violence without a popular mandate?

Because of an imperialist war there had not been a democratic election since 1910. The rebellion Carson was given a post in the war cabinet while Redmond refused a position and probably would have been excluded in any case.

Redmond forfeited his leadership of Irish nationalism by sacrificing thousands of Irishmen to the meatgrinder of the trenches in return for a bluff created by the Liberals in their parliamentary games with the Tories. Asquith had no intention of implementing Home Rule, standing up to mutinous British Army mutineers or fighting the Ulster loyalists.

The Irish Parliamentary Party was moribund even before the Easter Rebellion. The surge of support for Sinn Féin who campaigned on an openly Republican platform vindicates the Rising. As soon as the common man and woman had the vote in 1918 for the first time they voted for a Republic.

The Treaty was ratified by a majority in Dail Eireann and its opponents failed to get a majority in a subsequent election.

The Treaty was ratified under the threat of coercion.

The Unionist and Tory conspiracy that began with Ulster Covenant, the creation and arming of the UVF culminated in the creation of the Stormont Parliament weeks before the July 1921 truce which brought the Irish War of Independence to an end. The Irish delegation only signed when they were threatened with immediate and terrible war. A frightened Irish electorate who had already experienced the terror of the Black and Tans and were terrified of a British re-invasion and voted for Pro-Treaty parties.

Collins was led to believe or allowed himself to believe the Boundary Commission would lead to majority Catholic counties of Northern Ireland joining the South. When the Boundary Commission was finally set up after the civil war six county border was made permanent.

The British government threatened to re-invade if Collins did not order the bombardment of the Republican positions in Dublin and once the turncoat betrayed his comrades in arms the British armed the Free Staters with armoured cars, artillery, rifles, machine guns and ammunition.

The British policy always favored the Unionists.
When they could not keep southern Ireland under their thumb thanks to the heroism of Irish republican revolutionaries they resorted to shoring up their power in the six counties. The result was the creation of the sectarian Unionist gerrymandered statelet that remained in existence until 1972.

The Cosgrave government ruled as an authoritarian government until Fianna Fáil swept them away and De Valera's slow destruction of legacy British rule culminating the 1937 constitution was the real democratic will of the people.

feargale wrote: »

Ah no. I'm talking about 1916. Tell us about the surge up to 1916.

I was talking about the surge in 1918 in my post. When did I say anything about a surge in support in 1916??