Home Rule was the law of a global empire

I am loath to get into historical disagreement with a learned professor like Ronan Fanning, but his description of the Home Rule Act, giving self-rule to the island of Ireland, as merely “a fudged compromise” and an illusion, has to be challenged [Opinion, August 16].

The act, to set up a parliament in Dublin, was passed by the most powerful parliament in the world. It was, as he says himself, “put upon the Statute Book” by being signed by the monarch of a worldwide empire.

That government in London took upon itself the job of keeping law and order for the population of a good part of the globe. That law and order applied to what Fanning calls “seditious Ulster’s unionists”, as it did to everyone else.