The Church of Ireland and the Third Home Rule Bill (New Directions in Irish History)

"The Third Home Rule crisis dominated Irish politics between 1910 and 1918. General elections bookend a period coloured by hugely dramatic and controversial events that still resonate today, such as Ulster Day, the Lame Gun-running, the Easter Rising, the Somme offensive and the Conscription Crisis. The Church of Ireland, as the largest Protestant church in Ireland, played a key role in many of these events. Andrew Scholes provides the first comprehensive study of the Church in this period. He explores in detail the complex relationship between the Church of Ireland and Irish Unionism at an official and popular level, the Church's leading role in Ulster resistance to Home Rule, her reaction to the outbreak of the Great War and the Easter Rising, and the difficulties posed to the Church by the possibility of partition. Scholes also demonstrates that the Church of Ireland played a more prominent role in Ulster resistance than previous historians have allowed. He suggests that the Church of Ireland's political influence was tied to the unity of Irish Unionism, and was weakened when the dispute over partition within Irish Unionism was replicated within the Church. Previously neglected