Popular opposition to Irish home rule in Edwardian Britain
By: Daniel M. Jackson.
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Liverpool
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9781846311987
Subjects: Home rule -- Ireland; Irish question -- Public opinion; Public opinion -- Great Britain; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1910-1921; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 19th century; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 20th century; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 19th century; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 20th century
Description: This book 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. The book 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 260-278) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : ancient prejudice: popular politics, social geography and 'no popery' in Edwardian Britain; title: The lesson of Craigavaon : Orange Ulster anticipates Nuremberg; title: 'Liverpool, sister of Belfast' : Protestant Ulster's Lancashire bridgehead; title: Echoes of Midlothian : Sir Edward Carson's first tour of Great Britain; title: 'Stoutly and robustly Prostant' : the religious dimension of Ulster's appeal; title: The transfiguration of Sir Edward Carson : Unionist demonstrations reach their high-water mark; title: Firing the heather : rousing support for Ulster throughout Great Britain; title: Conclusion : Ulster, crowds and Britishness.