Popular Opposition to Irish Home Rule in Edwardian Britain

Popular Opposition to Irish Home Rule in Edwardian Britain

by Daniel Jackson
Popular Opposition to Irish Home Rule in Edwardian Britain

Popular Opposition to Irish Home Rule in Edwardian Britain

by Daniel Jackson

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Overview

This book is a salutary reminder that the realities of British politics before 1914 were more complex and rather different from the 'whiggish' stereotypes about New Liberalism, and the rise of Labour and class politics which have dominated our understanding of late Edwardian Britain. Jackson's groundbreaking research shows that from the start of the Third Home Rule Bill crisis, there was in Britain considerable popular interest in the Irish issue, and that the Curragh army mutiny of 1914 was not an isolated incident, but part of a wider popular movement. A well-orchestrated campaign of agitation led by Unionist leaders Sir Edward Carson and Andrew Bonar Law had so exploited patriotic and sectarian resentment at the prospect of Irish Home Rule that by 1914 the United Kingdom was on the verge of civil war. Jackson locates this movement at the end of a 'long nineteenth century', where communal and confessional identities were still as powerful as class, and where native hostility to Catholicism and Irish migration still prevailed. This work shows that the rhetoric and street-theatre of Carsonism had as much resonance in Britain as 'Protestant Ulster', where enormous crowds turned out to protest against Home Rule throughout Great Britain (and not just in the sectarian cauldrons of Liverpool and Glasgow). For Jackson, the study of these massive demonstrations becomes a way of capturing the opinions of those rendered voiceless by history, and shows how the Ulster question allowed Conservative politicians to bridge the gap between elites and masses, and elicit a degree of popular enthusiasm unmatched in the years before the Great War.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781846311987
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Publication date: 04/01/2009
Pages: 300
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Daniel Jackson works in policy development in local government. He has contributed articles to a number of journals including Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
A note on terminology
List of abbreviations
Introduction. Ancient prejudice: popular politics, social geography and 'no popery' in Edwardian Britain
1. The lesson of Craigavon. Orange Ulster anticipates Nuremberg
2. 'Liverpool, sister of Belfast'. Protestant Ulster's Lancashire bridgehead
3. Echoes of Midlothian. Sir Edward Carson's first tour of Great Britain
4. 'Stoutly and robustly Protestant'. The religious dimension of Ulster's appeal
5. The transfiguration of Sir Edward Carson. Unionist demonstrations reach their high-water mark
6. Firing the heather. Rousing support for Ulster throughout Great Britain
Conclusion. Ulster, crowds and Britishness
Appendix. Extracts from original documents
Bibliography
Index
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