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Churchill’s own writings which were largely a justification of his own actions. Clement Attlee once observed that ‘it seems to me that somebody would get a curious idea of what had been going on in this country … if they had to get it all from Winston. He leaves out too much of the important stuff’.23 Bromage’s book is very speculative and not much attention is given to the detail of Churchill’s involvements in Irish policy. It is also almost totally uncritical. Her central thesis—that whatever Churchill did was for the good of England and not for the advantage of Ireland—is naive. She claims that ‘his touchstone was, conspicuously, England’s advantage’.24 This states the obvious in that Churchill was interested in protecting Imperial ties all his life.
Andrew R. Muldoon has recently claimed that he offers ‘both an expansion and an addition’ to Bromage’s ‘insight’ that Churchill ‘saw the Irish question not in isolation, but as of a piece with the whole imperial nexus’.25 In Muldoon’s view, Churchill came to see Home Rule as a benefit to the Empire because by 1911 ‘Britain’s international and imperial position was not that of 1901’. Therefore, according to Muldoon, Churchill saw Home Rule as removing ‘a source of tension and hostility within the Empire’ by appeasing ‘the numerous Irish politicians and voters in Australia, Canada, and most importantly the United States’. Muldoon claims that Churchill’s devotion to the Bill ‘grew solely from motives of imperial patriotism, to strengthen Britain and its Empire in the world’. It would also ‘be the first step towards a wider devolution throughout the British Isles’. Muldoon argues that once Churchill had come to this conclusion, he became an enthusiastic supporter of Home Rule and ‘was a most vocal advocate of Home Rule’.26
Significantly, Muldoon discounts a number of important considerations. Firstly, Churchill was born and bred a Unionist. He only began to support Home Rule when it appeared to be a fait accompli, which was long after he joined the Liberal party. Secondly, there is no doubt that Churchill was a vocal campaigner for Home Rule after 1912, but Muldoon’s argument relies too heavily on Churchill’s own publicly stated reasons for supporting Home Rule, not on his real reasons which I will explore. Thirdly, as Robert Rhodes James has noted, ‘Churchill’s