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The terms Unionist and Loyalist are often used interchangeably; however, the original meanings of the two terms were quite different, for Loyalist was generally used to describe those who insisted that all of Ireland remain in the United Kingdom while Unionist suggested only support for keeping Northern Ireland British (today virtually no Protestants, even the most extremist, hold out any hope of southern Ireland ever reuniting with Great Britain). In current usage, the Loyalist label is most commonly restricted to those Protestants who advocate the use of paramilitary force and violence to preserve the union, with those who work for continuing the status quo through established political means being referred to as Unionists.
Prior to 1921, Unionists wished to see the Act of Union (which in 1801 had merged the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) remain in place. They opposed Irish Home Rule, which mainstream Irish nationalists had demanded since the 1870s. Home Rule would have involved Ireland, while still remaining in the United Kingdom, having its own native regional parliament and government. This latter demand, the policy of nationalist leaders such as Isaac Butt. William Shaw, Charles Stewart Parnell, John Redmond and John DillonJohn Dillon ( September 4, 1851 August 4, 1927) was an Irish nationalist politician. The son of John Blake Dillon (1816-1866), he was educated at the University of Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine. Dillon entered parliament in 1880 as member for Ti, became the aim of the Home Rule LeagueThe Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) was an political party formed in 1882 under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell and others, replacing the Home Rule League. It was instrumental in laying the groundwork for Irish self-government. Following Parnell (later known as the Irish Parliamentary Party). The Home Rule League/Irish Parliamentary Party caputured the vast majority of Irish parliamentary seats in the Westminster parliament from the 1870s to 1918.
Various British governments introduced four successive Bills to set up an Irish Home Rule parliament in Dublin. The 1886 Bill never made it through the House of CommonsThe House of Commons is a component of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also includes the Sovereign and the House of Lords. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 659 members, who are known as "Members of Parliamen but managed to destroy the Liberal Party government, with Whig and Radical elements leaving to form the Liberal Unionist Party in alliance with the Conservative Party. Eventually the two parties merged calling themselves Conservative and Unionist.
The 1894 Bill passed in the Commons but succumbed to the veto of the House of Lords. The 1914 Bill passed (or at least passed all stages under the Parliament Act, 1911, which curbed the veto power of the Lords) but never came into force, due to the intervening World War One (1914 - 1918) and the Easter Rising in Dublin (1916). The fourth Bill, known as the Government of Ireland Act 1920, envisaged two Irish home rule states: Southern Ireland which would have had a nationalist majority, and Northern Ireland which would have a unionist majority. Only the latter state became a reality, while the former became the Irish Free State.
Irish unionists opposed home rule for reasons as complex as the nature of their support base. Much of their support in southern Ireland (the provinces of Munster, Leinster and Connacht) came from landed gentry who feared that a nationalist state would swamp them, forcing nationalist symbols like the Irish language and Roman Catholicism on them. Some also feared that they would experience the sort of discrimination that the Protestant parliament of Ireland up to 1800 had practised on Irish Catholics and nationalists, namely the notorious Penal Laws. Others identified with the Crown and British rule, and wished to see both continue unchanged in Ireland. However one should not presume that Irish unionist support came entirely from the landed gentry, or that all Protestants supported Unionism. Many working class and middle class Unionists also supported the maintenance of the union, while other Protestants (most notably Parnell) supported home rule.
Other Unionists, particularly in Ulster, had economic fears, suspecting that a nationalist parliament in Dublin, on a predominantly agricultural island, would impose economic tariffs against industry. Parts of Ulster were then the most industrialised parts of all Ireland and so would suffer disproportionately.
For much of the period up until 1920, though the Unionist support base predominated in six of the nine counties of Ulster (where Protestants and Anglicans outnumbered Roman Catholics), the Irish Unionist Party's leadership came from southern Ireland. Its most prominent leader, the Dublin-born barrister and politician Sir Edward Carson, opposed not merely Home Rule but any attempt to divide Ireland into two states. Other southern Unionist leaders included the Earl of Middleton and the Earl of Dunraven.
When, following the curbs placed on the power of the House of Lords in 1911 it became clear that home rule would come, Unionists, particularly in parts of Ulster, mounted a campaign that threatened the use of violence if home rule were to come about. Irish Unionism received the support in the period from the 1880s to 1914 from leading British Conservative Party politicians, notably Lord Randolph Churchill and future British prime minister Andrew Bonar Law. Slogans such as 'Ulster Will Fight and Ulster Will Be Right' expressed the determination of unionists to oppose Irish home rule by whatever means.