2. Isaac Butt. Chapter one. The Tragedy of Home Rule.Isaac Butt and Home RuleIsaac Butt was born in September 1813 in County Donegal. He trained as a barrister and became a member of both the Irish and English Bar Associations. He was a well-known conservative lawyer but after the famine of 1840 he became increasingly liberal. Defended participants in the Young Ireland Uprising (1848). He entered parliament as a Liberal Conservative in 1852 and managed to fall deeply into debt. He defended the Fenians after the 1867 uprising and led the Amnesty Association which campaigned for their release. In 1869 he founded the Tenant League to renew the demand for tenants' rights. Federalism was Butt's favored political policy as a solution to Ireland's political and economic problems. Butt proposed the creation of a separate Irish parliament in Dublin to control internal affairs. There was no question of Ireland leaving the British Empire and Irish MPs would continue to sit in Westminster. In May 1870 a meeting was called to organize a new body which would seek to gain support for the idea of ​​an Irish parliament. Accordingly, the Home Government Association was formed as a constitutional movement to advance this cause. It attracted a wide range of opinions (including Protestants, Catholics, landowners, tenants and Fenians) who contrasted with each other. This movement would dominate Irish politics for most of the next fifty years. The early years, 1870-1873, saw only limited growth for the movement. This is because Butt's original intention was for the association to be a pressure group rather than a political party. Butt also made no attempt to link Home Rule with other issues such as land reform and the Catholic Church was suspicious of the movement... half-paper... to stay in power. How does Home Rule fit into the wider British context? Home Rule was an extremely important concept in the British Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. To fully appreciate its significance, it must be seen in an imperial rather than a purely Irish concept. Before the outbreak of the First World War, the nature of government in the British Empire was changing. Greater independence and forms of internal government were granted to Canada, Australia and South Africa in 1867, 1900 and 1909 respectively. Thus, Britain can be seen to have gradually liberalized its system of imperial government, at least for the components "civilized" nations of the empire. This contrasts sharply with the messy and chaotic nature of decolonization experienced by Britain, France and other European powers after the Second World War..