She says she's jetlagged, that her head feels as if an arrow is piercing both temples, but Fiona Shaw is the picture of vitality. She strides into the lobby of the Lombardy Hotel in New York City, her long brown coat swinging behind her. The hair that often appears close cropped in publicity photos is
Disillusioned by the defeats of the 1886 and 1893 Home Rule bills, the Liberals ignored the demand for Home Rule when they won an overall majority in the 1906 election. But Ireland came to the top of the political agenda when two elections in 1910, caused by a constitutional crisis regarding the powers of the House of Lords, made the Liberal government of H.H. Asquith dependent on the Home Rule Party for its parliamentary majority. The reduction of the power of the Lords by the Parliament Act of 1911 seemed to promise that the third Home Rule bill, introduced in