The Chamberlains, the Churchills and Ireland, 1874–1922 By Ian C ...

argue that his support for Home Rule went from political realism to political opportunism when he realised the gains to be made by thrusting himself to the forefront of the controversy.

Austen Chamberlain has received very little biographical attention and virtually nothing has been written on his approach to Ireland. Although he sat in the House for forty-five years and became what his father never did—the leader of one of the major parties in the British parliament—he always lived in the shadow of his father and his half-brother Neville. Sir Charles Petrie produced a two-volume biography of Austen Chamberlain which was published soon after Austen’s death.³⁵ While this is an excellent source for letters, it says very little about Chamberlain and Ireland. A later biography by David Dutton suffers from the problem of having to cover Chamberlain’s whole life and as a consequence little space is available for an analysis of his writings and speeches on Ireland. Dutton’s claim that ‘Chamberlain’s views on the Irish question had never been those of an orthodox Unionist’ will be challenged in this book.³⁶ Chamberlain followed his father’s views faithfully and was as unbending a Unionist as any others in the Unionist party at least up to 1921.

An excellent selection of letters by Chamberlain has been provided by Robert C. Self.³⁷ Chamberlain wrote openly to his sisters on many aspects of his dealings with the Irish question after 1916 and these letters are very useful for a study of his approach.

This book analyses the role of the Chamberlain and Churchill fathers and sons in the key Irish events from the 1870s to 1922, when the Irish Free State finally came into being. However, it does not attempt a history of every aspect of the Irish question in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Nor is it concerned with all the details of the careers of these four men other than their involvement with Irish issues. It uses a narrative, chronological approach to explain how Ireland was so important in British politics for more than forty years and how the actions of these two dynasties were so critical to the eventual outcome. It shows how the self-interested machinations of some key British politicians contributed to preventing Ireland from gaining independence until 1922.