The Government of Ireland Act 1914 received Royal Assent on 18 September 1914 but never came into force. The outbreak of the Great War diverted political attention elsewhere, while the legislation itself remained suspended for the duration of the conflict. In the years that followed, events unfolded which few participants in the Home Rule crisis had anticipated. The Easter Rising of 1916, the rise of Sinn Féin, the collapse of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the War of Independence transformed Irish politics. By 1920, the assumptions upon which the earlier Home Rule settlement had been constructed no longer held. The question confronting Westminster was no longer whether Ireland should receive devolved government, but whether a single constitutional arrangement could accommodate fundamentally different political aspirations in Ulster and the rest of Ireland.
Introduced by the coalition government of David Lloyd George, the Act abandoned the assumption that a single Irish parliament could command support throughout the island. Instead, it provided for two devolved administrations: one for six counties of Ulster – ‘Northern Ireland’ – and another for the remaining twenty-six counties – ‘Southern Ireland’. Each was to possess a bicameral parliament with authority over a range of domestic matters, while Westminster retained responsibility for defence, foreign affairs and other reserved functions. The legislation also established a Council of Ireland, intended as a mechanism through which the two jurisdictions might cooperate and, potentially, evolve towards a more unified settlement in the future.
For unionists, the Act represented a substantial achievement. Although many would have preferred direct union with Great Britain to continue unchanged, the legislation secured a devolved parliament within a Northern Ireland where unionists formed a clear majority. The settlement therefore appeared to provide constitutional recognition for the position they had defended throughout.
Nationalists viewed the same measure very differently. The partition of Ireland confirmed fears that had intensified since the Easter Rising and the rise of Sinn Féin. Belfast’s Catholic minority now faced the prospect of living within a political entity they had neither sought nor supported. Many continued to regard the Act as a temporary arrangement lacking democratic legitimacy, particularly when compared with Sinn Féin’s claim to represent the wishes expressed in the general election of 1918.
In practical terms, however, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 reshaped the political environment in which Belfast’s violence unfolded. The constitutional future that had dominated political debate before the war was largely settled. Northern Ireland formally came into existence in May 1921, and its institutions quickly began to function. Yet legislation could not resolve the divisions that had emerged during the preceding decade. As Belfast entered the 1920s, constitutional certainty for some coexisted with profound uncertainty for others. The result was a city in which political settlement and communal conflict advanced side by side.