Punch’s portrayal of Redmond, Carson and the Irish question, 1910–18
The Irish question in the form of home rule reasserted itself in British politics during the years 1910-18, first as the central issue in British political debate, then as a secondary, though still significant, concern for Britain during the First World War. One of Britain’s national institutions, Punch, a weekly magazine of political commentary and satire with a circulation of 100,000, reflected the significance of the Irish question by devoting a great deal of attention during these years to the leaders of the two opposing forces in Irish politics, the Irish nationalist leader John Redmond and the Irish unionist leader Sir Edward Carson. Redmond and Carson became regular members of Punch’s leading cast of characters in its political cartoons in the 1910s, a group which included the Liberal premier H. H. Asquith, his leading ministers David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, and the opposition leader Andrew Bonar Law.