Irish Political Thought under the Union: Visions of Representative Government, 1798-1922

The political history of Ireland has long been interpreted through the lens of violent conflict. Over the course of several centuries, political relations within Ireland, and between Ireland and Britain, were marked by profound differences in national allegiance and religion, with politics, in turn, assuming a seemingly intractable character. But conflict in Ireland was not simply the result of primordial hatreds; it was sustained by clashing interpretations of contemporary political ideas about the nature of government. The American and French Revolutions, which helped transform the understanding of representation, propelled ideas of popular sovereignty and democracy into the political mainstream, revolutionising relations between states, nations and citizens across Europe. Ireland was certainly not immune from these wider international and intellectual trends.

The Act of Union of 1800 created a multi-national parliamentary state. This settlement was then contested by generations of Irish political activists and thinkers who drew on the language of representative government in order to recast the terms of the British connection. The political frameworks that predominated in Ireland were underpinned by divergent conceptions of legitimacy, drawing on such ideas as democracy, popular sovereignty and historical continuity. Within each of the main ideological alternatives, the constitutional setup of the polity, together with its relationship to the seat of empire, was starkly different. The fundamental area of contention was the constitution of representative government. The sectarianism and violence unleashed in public life were symptoms rather than causes of this ideological antagonism.

In exploring the hitherto uncharted terrain of political ideas in Ireland in the era of the Union, this project pioneers a new approach to Irish historical writing. The violence, instability and successive crises that marked the British-Irish connection remain the chief focus of existing historiography, yet this emphasis has deprived these disputes of all serious intellectual content. Above all it has obscured the significance of disagreements over the nature of representative government. Accordingly, this project breaks with a narrowly high political approach, which has tended to concentrate on the activities of the political elite, and examines instead the philosophical assumptions that underpinned the range of constitutional proposals from incorporating union to devolution and federalism.

Political representation raised profound and all-encompassing issues. Consequently, the project explores its central theme across the political spectrum, from Tory notions of conditional unionism and contractarian allegiance, to the development of republican conceptualisations of the 'sovereign people'. Through an examination of the political thought of such figures as Henry Grattan, Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmet, John Wilson Croker, Isaac Butt, Robert Holmes, John Mitchel, W. E. H. Lecky, Thaddeus O'Malley, Eoin MacNeill, Alice Stopford Green, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, and Patrick Pearse, the multiple meanings ascribed to representative government in the Ireland of the Union are thrown into sharp relief.

The Union framed the political landscape for successive generations in Ireland across the long nineteenth century, forming the structure under which formal power was wielded. Ideas of representative government profoundly challenged the Union: much of the print culture after 1800 hosted an open-ended debate about the Union's legitimacy and legacy. Beginning with this material, it is possible to track debates across the entire period, and in the process investigate continuities and change in political vocabulary. In this way, this project will offer an intellectual history of the Union, and will therefore offer the first sustained study of political thought in Ireland during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

As Ireland commemorates its 'decade of centenaries' - the one hundredth anniversary of its revolutionary period, c. 1912-22 - much public appetite exists for new interpretations of Irish history. The centenaries of significant moments, such as the First World War and the Easter Rising, have triggered an unprecedented wave of attention, as recorded in mainstream and social media. This is, then, a genuinely unique time for historians to engage in public activities, and to inform wider civic discussions about the commemoration, memory and the role of history in the contemporary age. In addition, the uncertainty surrounding the status of the Irish border as a result of the United Kingdom's impending exit from the European Union creates a context in which it is imperative for scholars of Ireland to communicate to policy-makers. By confronting historical questions concerning democracy, self-determination and understandings of sovereignty in Ireland, my project will be of value to policy-makers and politicians, teachers at post-primary level in Ireland and the wider public. This project will engage the following groups:

1. Policy-makers and civil servants. I will work with Professor Ian McBride, the Foster Professor in Irish History at Hertford College, to organise a workshop in Oxford in 2021. This event will prompt policy-makers, civil servants and academics to consider how historical knowledge of ideas such as democracy, sovereignty and legitimacy can inform our understanding of the challenges facing Northern Ireland in a post-Brexit political landscape. The vexed problem of how Northern Ireland deals with its bloody past will also inform the agenda. Professor McBride has previous experience in engaging policy-makers in Irish affairs, and I can tap into his contacts (which include officials from the Northern Ireland Office in the UK and the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Republic of Ireland, as well as political figures across the British and Irish spectrum). The centenary of partition in Ireland will form the backdrop to this event, raising the issue in the public consciousness. In advance of the workshop, I will write a policy paper for the History & Policy website, which will set the agenda and enable me to reach out to policy-makers.

2. The wider public. As the period of the proposed fellowship overlaps with the centenary of partition and the creation of two political jurisdictions in Ireland, this is an opportune time to engage the general public. To capitalise on this, I will stage two public-facing, cross-border events in Ireland. Working with the Ulster Museum in Belfast, I will organise a symposium offering centenary reflections on the history of partition in Ireland in the late spring of 2021. This will feature panels of experts on various aspects of twentieth-century Ireland, as well as a practitioner roundtable session to provide the perspectives of political and cultural bodies. The second symposium will be held in the National Library of Ireland on the centenary of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which was signed in December 1921. Speakers will present their perspectives on aspects of the Treaty, from the negotiations to its aftermath. Like the Belfast event, speakers from political and cultural backgrounds will be included to participate. I will also work with the educational outreach office of the NLI to include post-primary teachers, and will include a teacher-led session on teaching the Treaty.

The Belfast and Dublin events will mix scholarly and practitioner approaches, and will be pitched at the general public. Given the 'hooks' of the centenary of partition and the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the events are likely to attract media attention. To maximise these outreach initiatives, I will contribute an article to the BBC History Magazine on the centenary of partition and the nature of political ideas relating to Ireland in the aftermath of the First World War.