TY  - BOOK
AU  - Reid,Colin
TI  - Irish political thought and the Union: visions of representative government, 1798-1879 
T2  - Ideas in context
SN  - 9781009630191 (ebook)
AV  - JN1411 .R45 2026
U1  - 320.9415 23
PY  - 2026///
CY  - Cambridge, United Kingdom, New York, NY
PB  - Cambridge University Press
KW  - Representative government and representation
KW  - Ireland
KW  - History
KW  - 19th century
KW  - Home rule
KW  - Politics and government
N1  - Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 10 Mar 2026); Between Two Parliaments : Visions of Representation in the Union Debates -- Reform, Religion and Radicalism : Extending the British Constitution in Ireland -- Repeal : Restoration, Democracy and Revolution -- Irish Conservatives, Conditional Unionism and Contractarian Thought -- The Sovereign People : Republicanism and Popular Sovereignty After the Famine -- Federalism : The Acme in the Science of Government; Open Access
N2  - Moving beyond binary nationalist and unionist narratives of nineteenth-century Irish history, this study instead explores political thought through ideological battles over government. Drawing on neglected pamphlets, political tracts and polemic newspapers, Colin Reid reveals how Irish protagonists - unionists and anti-unionists, Catholic Emancipationists, Repealers, Tories, Fenians, and federalists - clashed over the meaning of representation, sovereignty and the British connection. Reid traces how competing constitutional visions, rather than national allegiances, drove Ireland's political evolution. From the bitter Union debates to the birth of Home Rule, it recovers forgotten arguments about parliamentary reform, the 'Irish question' in imperial context and the fraught experience of a small nation within a multinational polity. With fresh insights into figures such as Daniel O'Connell, Isaac Butt and lesser-known polemicists, this study redefines Irish political thought as a dynamic struggle for representative government. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009630191
ER  -