When was William O'Brien born?
William O'Brien
With the outbreak of World War I on 4 August 1914, Asquith proposed a Suspensory Bill for the Home Rule Bill. It received Royal Assent simultaneously with its counterpart, the Government of Ireland Act 1914, on the 18 September. Although the two controversial Bills had now finally reached the statute books, the Suspensory Act ensured that Home Rule would be postponed for the duration of the conflict. [37] In the debate on 15 September in the House of Commons concerning the Suspensory Bill, O'Brien made it again clear "that while we are prepared to pay almost any other price for a general national settlement, there is one price which some of us, at all events, will never in any possible circumstances consent to pay, and that is the dismemberment of our ancient Irish nation". He concluded by turning to 'our fellow countrymen in Ulster' in proposing to secure for them a position of undiminished citizenship in this Empire under some projected scheme of federalism. [38]