Early Irish Opposition To The Union
In the context of rising national awareness in Ireland, there were several inter-related popular campaigns against British policy in Ireland in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Catholic Emancipation was finally brought about in 1829, following a campaign led by Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell had been elected as Member of Parliament for County Clare, but had been prevented from taking his seat in the House of Commons at Westminster because of the requirement to swear the Oath of Supremacy; the oath had been expressly worded to prevent Roman Catholics from entering parliament.
O'Connell had also campaigned for "Repeal", i.e. for the repeal of the Acts of Union and a return to Ireland's position under the Constitution of 1782. O'Connell was an early leader of Irish nationalism He wrote in 1842, "I am not British", and also declared Ireland a "separate nation".
British thinkers tried to respond to these demands, but philosopher John Stuart Mills struggled to think of the Irish as a separate nation, and feared any such recognition's implications for Britain. Most English elites assumed their ways were superior and the Irish were not their equals but merely as "degraded caste".
The British political elites acted as if the United Kingdom were a mono-national state, despite the fact that Ireland was run by Dublin Castle but Westminster. Ireland was in the Union, but still separate. British ministers of the Crown rarely visited Ireland, and delegated their authority to the Irish secretary, Ireland's sole voice in the cabinet.
More demands from Ireland for the re-establishment of its own parliament in Ireland were to be repeated through the course of the 19th century, building up until the Home Rule movement came to dominate Irish politics from the late 1870s onwards.
Read more about this topic: United Kingdom Of Great Britain And Ireland
Famous quotes containing the words early, irish, opposition and/or union:
“I do not know that I meet, in any of my Walks, Objects which move both my Spleen and Laughter so effectually, as those Young Fellows ... who rise early for no other Purpose but to publish their Laziness.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“The difference of the English and Irish character is nowhere more plainly discerned than in their respective kitchens. With the former, this apartment is probably the cleanest, and certainly the most orderly, in the house.... An Irish kitchen ... is usually a temple dedicated to the goddess of disorder; and, too often, joined with her, is the potent deity of dirt.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and ... powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched.—Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery—in fact, its only enemy.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)