Home Rule

Catalogue Reference:(PRO) COPY 1/104 f30

A poster bearing the slogan 'Home Rule for Ireland'. The movement for Ireland to have its own government gathered pace in the years after the 1840s Irish Great Famine when the population dropped by a third through starvation and emigration. Charles Parnell became leader of the Irish Home Rule Party in 1877 but despite support from the British prime minister, William Gladstone, the Irish Home Rule Bill failed to get through Parliament. It was not until 1922 that the Irish Free State was set up, with the exclusion of the six counties of Ulster which now form Northern Ireland.