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6 - Churchill, the ‘Irish Question’ and the Irish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2023

Allen Packwood
Affiliation:
Churchill College, Cambridge
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Summary

Churchill is often ranked as one of the most hated figures in Irish history but he was also one of the most influential politicians in shaping relations both within and between Britain and Ireland. Churchill played a formative role in the ‘Irish Question’. At the beginning of his career he was a Unionist, inheriting his father’s sympathy for Ulster, but converted to Home Rule. The chapter contrasts the impact of social reforms in helping Irish pensioners with the role of Irish suffragettes in defeating Churchill at Manchester in 1908. It looks at how he tried to navigate between the Unionists and nationalists in the Edwardian era, before showing how the war (including Irish losses at Gallipoli) led to rebellion. Thereafter, Churchill pursued a dual strategy of repression and negotiation and played a key role in the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the subsequent events surrounding partition. His belligerence has tended to overshadow the multi-faceted ways he dealt with and thought about the Irish.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Further Reading

Addison, P., The Search for Peace in Ireland. In Muller, James W. (ed.), Churchill as Peacemaker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 186209.Google Scholar
Addison, P., Churchill on the Home Front, 3rd ed. (London: Faber & Faber, 2013)Google Scholar
Bew, P., Churchill and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)Google Scholar
Fanning, R., Fatal Path: British Government and Irish Revolution, 1910–1922 (London: Faber and Faber, 2013)Google Scholar
Gallagher, N., Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political History (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)Google Scholar
Jackson, A., Home Rule: An Irish History, 1800–2000 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003)Google Scholar
Jackson, A., Ireland 1798–1998: War, Peace and Beyond, 2nd ed. (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)Google Scholar
Pašeta, S., Irish Nationalist Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)Google Scholar
Stewart, A. T. Q., The Ulster Crisis (London: Faber, 1967)Google Scholar
Walsh, M., Bitter Freedom: Ireland in a Revolutionary World, 1918–1923 (London: Faber and Faber, 2015)Google Scholar

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