The Third Home Rule Act, more correctly known as the Home Rule Act, 1914 was an Act of the parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which allowed for the creation of a separate home rule parliament in Ireland. It was the first Home Rule Bill to have been enacted, its enactment having been made possible by the curtailment of the powers of the House of Lords, which had blocked the two previous Home Rule Bills.
It received the Royal Assent in July 1914. However its implementation was suspended for the duration of the First World War.
It contained legislative provision for the temporary exclusion of six of the nine counties of Ulster from the workings of the Act.
The Act never was implemented. The Easter Rising of 1916 and the British general election of 1918 changed the politics in Ireland, resulting in the rise of Sinn Fein and its eclipse of the more moderate, pro-home rule Irish Parliamentary Party.
A fourth Home Rule Act, known as the Government of Ireland Act, was subsequently enacted and created two Irish states, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. The latter state never existed in reality, but its territory later came to be governed as an independent dominion called the Irish Free State.
