United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - Early Irish Opposition To The Union

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.