by members of the British ruling classes from the
early 19th century until the 1920s. It was used to describe Irish nationalism and the calls for Irish independence.
The phrase came to prominence as a result of the 1800 Act of Union which forced the parliament of Ireland into a single governing body with the parliament of Great Britain, based in Westminster, which partitioned the Island into two territories, a state now called Ireland, and Northern Ireland which still remains part of the United Kingdom.
In 1844, a future British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, defined the Irish Question:
“A dense population, in extreme distress, inhabit an island where there is an Established Church, which is not their Church, and a territorial aristocracy the richest of whom live in foreign capitals. Thus you have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church; and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question.”
Irish question