A new British history of the home rule crisis : public opinion, representation and organisation
This thesis marries a multi-nation framework with a close reading of sources and quantitative techniques to trace grassroots responses to William Gladstone's proposals for Irish self-government. It offers a holistic, whole-island, low-political history of the crisis, giving equal weighting to England, Wales and Scotland, and covers the period between the first and second Home Rule bills. The thesis demonstrates that extra-parliamentary engagement with Home Rule existed on a scale we previously knew very little of, and establishes the place of the crisis in the history of political culture, language and organisation in late nineteenth-century Britain. The way the crisis unfolded was due in no small part to the fact that there existed not only organisational networks through which opinion could be mobilised and disseminated, but also languages with which such 'opinion' could be dissected, the 'language of the caucus' being especially vital. We cannot fully understand the modernisation of the party system or of electoral politics unless we grasp the impact Home Rule had, both on trends already emergent and as a propellant of new styles and techniques. The crisis not only redefined patterns of political allegiance,
Lloyd-Jones, Naomi
A new British history of the home rule crisis : public opinion, representation and organisation. This thesis marries a multi-nation framework with a close reading of sources and quantitative techniques to trace grassroots responses to William Gladstone's proposals for Irish self-government. It offers a holistic, whole-island, low-political history of the crisis, giving equal weighting to England, Wales and Scotland, and covers the period between the first and second Home Rule bills. The thesis demonstrates that extra-parliamentary engagement with Home Rule existed on a scale we previously knew very little of, and establishes the place of the crisis in the history of political culture, language and organisation in late nineteenth-century Britain. The way the crisis unfolded was due in no small part to the fact that there existed not only organisational networks through which opinion could be mobilised and disseminated, but also languages with which such 'opinion' could be dissected, the 'language of the caucus' being especially vital. We cannot fully understand the modernisation of the party system or of electoral politics unless we grasp the impact Home Rule had, both on trends already emergent and as a propellant of new styles and techniques. The crisis not only redefined patterns of political allegiance,
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