Governing Hibernia : British politicians and Ireland 1980-1921 / K. Theodore Hoppen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hoppen, K. Theodore, 1941- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Irish question.

British.

History.

Ireland--History--19th century.

Ireland.

Ireland--History--20th century.

Ireland--Politics and government--19th century.

Politics and government.

Ireland--Politics and government--20th century.

British--Ireland--History--19th century.

British--Ireland--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

xii, 337 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Summary:

The Anglo-Irish Union of 1800 which established the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland made British ministers in London more directly responsible for Irish affairs than had previously been the case. The Act did not, however, provide for full integration, and left in existence a separate administration in Dublin under a Viceroy and a Chief Secretary. This created tensions that were never resolved. The relationship that ensued has generally been interpreted in terms of 'colonialism' or 'post-colonialism', concepts not without their problems in relation to a country so geographically close to Britain and, indeed, so closely connected constitutionally. Governing Hibemia seeks to examine the Union relationship from a new and different perspective. In particular it argues that London's policies towards Ireland in the period between the Union and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1031 oscillated sharply. At tunes, these policies were based on a view of an Ireland as so distant, different, and violent that (regardless of promises made in 1800) its government demanded peculiarly Hibernian measures of a coercive kind (c. 1800-1830): at others, they were based on the premise that stability was best achieved by a broadly assimilationist approach-in effect attempting to make Ireland more like Britain (c. 1830-1868); and finally they made a return to a stance of differentiation pursued in significantly different ways from those adopted in the decades immediately after the Union (c. 1868-1921). The outcome of this last shift towards differentiation was a disposition, eventually common to both of the main British political parties, to grant greater measures of devolution and ultimately independence, a development finally rendered viable by the implementation of partition in 1921-1922. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I A Faraway Country, C.1800-C.1830

1 Bringing Ireland into the Fold: A Kind of Theory 11

2 Keeping Ireland at Arm's Length: A Kind of Reality 24

Part II Menus of Assimilation, C.1830-C.1868

3 A Changing Climate 63

4 Direct and Scenic Routes 93

5 Poverty, Famine, Land 118

6 Ambiguous Outcomes 154

Part III Dancing to Irish Tunes, C.1868-C.1921

7 Back to the Future 179

8 Doing it on the Cheap: Liberals 209

9 Throwing Money About: Conservatives 251

10 Partition or Squaring (Some) Circles 289.

ISBN:

0198207433

9780198207436

OCLC:

936143186