I am reading about the Irish War of Independence and the following Irish Civil war and i am wondering about some of the differences between the proposed governments during the process. After the Home Rule acts were Northern and Southern Ireland considered colonies that had limited self government?
More importantly the war of independence civil war broke out because of the Irish Free State's status as a Dominion of the British Commonwealth was contested by the anti-treaty IRA who felt it was too soft of a compromise. Yet Northern ireland even opted out of the Free State. Why did they opt out and when they opted out what did they legally become? I understand the North wants to remain attached to england so isnt a dominion of the British Commonwealth a status that the north wants?
Northern Ireland wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom (England and the UK are not synonymous) whilst the South did not. At partition the North became a largely autonomous part of the UK, with self-rule and a parliament that controlled domestic affairs under the largely uninterested Home Office of the British government. In all other aspects, such as Foreign policy, Northern Ireland followed the UK. The South, however, with the Treaty, became an entirely self-governing, and effectively, entirely independent state. The only thing that the Republicans seriously objected to was that the head of state was no remain, nominally, rather like Canada, the monarch. Neither state were ever considered to be colonies. Under British rule Ireland returned MPs to the British parliament, in the same way that England, Scotland and Wales did, enabling the Irish people to have just as much say in Britain's government as any other subject of the UK. There was a viceroy based in Dublin, in the same way that Australia has a Governor, for example, to represent the Monarch. The protestants of the North consistently resisted Britain's attempts to allow home rule for Ireland during the 19th century, being supported by the Conservative Party in Parliament. These people argued that home rule would mean "Rome rule" arguing that because the population of Ireland was predominantly Catholic, an autonomous Irish government, under the home rule legislation, would discriminate against protestants. This was based on the siege mentality of the Irish protestants based on their perception that they were under constant danger of massacre from the Catholic majority. Hence, when Ireland became effectively independent as the Free State, the North demanded that it remain part of the UK, and proceeded to oppress the Catholic minority in the North, seeing them as disloyal. A good, easy read on this topic is "Ireland in Conflict" by T G Fraser, published in 2000 in the Lancaster Pamphlets series. At 89 pages it explains the situation very well.