Mid-19th century Scottish nationalism has been perceived as weak, failing to produce a parliamentary challenge. The European revolutions were set alight in 1848 yet missed Great Britain; for Scotland a British/imperial agenda was said to dominate. This failure of Scottish nationalism is an orthodoxy long overdue for challenge. From an analysis of the major expressions of national identity in mid-century, it is stressed that Scottish nationalism demanded equality with England within the Union of 1707. Strange as it may be to 20th-century eyes, Scotland wanted more Union, not less. Nor was it weak for its lack of rhetoric of parliamentary independence. Unionist-nationalism flowed from its axis of a British state and a Scottish civil society in the 1830-1860 period.

David Torrance reassesses the relationship between 'nationalism' and 'unionism' in Scottish politics, challenging a binary reading of the two ideologies with the concept of 'nationalist unionism'. Scottish nationalism did not begin with the SNP in 1934, nor was it confined to political parties that desired independent statehood. Rather, it was more dispersed, with the Liberal, Conservative and Labour parties all attempting to harness Scottish national identity and nationalism between 1884 and 2014, often with the paradoxical goal of strengthening rather than ending the Union. The book combines nationalist theory with empirical historical and archival research to argue that these conceptions of Scottish nationhood had much more in common with each other than is commonly accepted.

A major survey of Scotland's dominant ideology over the past three centuries by one of its leading historians.

This Companion provides an authoritative introduction to the historical, social and stylistic complexities of modern Irish culture. Readers will be introduced to Irish culture in its widest sense and helped to find their way through the cultural and theoretical debates that inform our understanding of modern Ireland. The volume combines cultural breadth and historical depth, supported by a chronology of Irish history and arts. A wide selection of essays on a rich variety of Irish cultural forms and practices are complemented by a series of in-depth analyses of key themes in Irish cultural politics. The range of topics covered will enable a comprehensive understanding of Irish culture, while the authors gathered here - all acknowledged experts in their fields - provide stimulating essays that together amount to an invaluable guide to the shaping of modern Ireland.

Lee Smithey examines how symbolic cultural expressions in Northern Ireland, such as parades, bonfires, murals, and commemorations, provide opportunities for Protestant unionists and loyalists to reconstruct their collective identities and participate in conflict transformation.

Diese Monografie untersucht das politische Denken und die geistesgeschichtliche Entwicklung der schottischen Unionisten in der Zeit von 1885/1886 bis 1965. Sie bietet eine analytische Untersuchung der unionistischen Positionen, wobei Bereiche wie politische Geschichte, Ekklesiologie, Sektierertum, Geschichtsschreibung und unionistisch-nationalistische Gefühle untersucht werden. Der Autor kontextualisiert das unionistische Denken innerhalb der Geschichte Schottlands und bietet Erkenntnisse, die sowohl auf Archiv- und Primärquellenforschung als auch auf einem gründlichen historiographischen Hintergrund beruhen. Er untersucht die Komplexität des schottischen Unionismus in dieser entscheidenden Phase zwischen der Spaltung der Liberalen Partei über die Irish Home Rule bis zur Reorganisation der Scottish Unionist Party im Jahr 1965. Anhand des unionistischen Diskurses in dieser Zeit zeigt er die Komplexität der verfassungsrechtlichen und kulturellen Beziehungen Schottlands mit dem Rest des Vereinigten Königreichs auf.

Barton and Roche have drawn on the expertise of scholars in Irish history, political philosophy, sociology, demography and criminal and constitutional law to provide a major contribution to understanding the dynamics of the terrorist conflict that engulfed Northern Ireland for thirty years. The legal dimension of the book provides accessible understanding both of the use of the criminal law in response to terrorism and of the constitutional status of Northern Ireland prior to the 1998 Belfast Agreement. The Northern Ireland Question: Myth and Reality explicates the civic character of unionism which differentiates unionism as a form of political identity from the ethnicity of traditional Irish nationalism. The contributions explore the ambiguities of southern Irish politics with respect to 'the Northern Ireland question' and challenge a conventional and widely accepted understanding (inimical to unionism and unionists) of the genesis of the terrorist conflict in Northern Ireland and the extent of discrimination under the Stormont administration but without loss of objectivity and professional detachment.

The contributions to this book challenge much conventional understanding of a number of important issues relating the Troubles. These include: the genesis and establishment of a functioning government in Northern Ireland in the context of Ireland's turbulent post-1916 revolutionary period; claims of systematic unionist discrimination in housing and employment and the origins of the Northern Ireland civil rights movement; the ideology of Irish nationalism particularly its traditional sectarian exclusivism and its legitimization of violence and the decisive contribution of the security forces in bringing the conflict to an end. The contributions relating to the post-1998 period explore post-Brexit unionist and nationalist 'expectations and anxieties' within the framework of patterns of thought embedded in nationalism and unionism and assess the operation of the institutions of government in Northern Ireland; the political motivations that have directed dealing with the past and current economic arguments for Irish unity.

Draws from a wide range of disciplines to bring together 36 leading scholars writing about 400 years of modern Irish history

Richard English's brilliant new book, now available in paperback, is a compelling narrative history of Irish nationalism, in which events are not merely recounted but analysed. Full of rich detail, drawn from years of original research and also from the extensive specialist literature on the subject, it offers explanations of why Irish nationalists have believed and acted as they have, why their ideas and strategies have changed over time, and what effect Irish nationalism has had in shaping modern Ireland. It takes us from the Ulster Plantation to Home Rule, from the Famine of 1847 to the Hunger Strikes of the 1970s, from Parnell to Pearse, from Wolfe Tone to Gerry Adams, from the bitter struggle of the Civil War to the uneasy peace of the early twenty-first century. Is it imaginable that Ireland might – as some have suggested – be about to enter a post-nationalist period? Or will Irish nationalism remain a defining force on the island in future years? 'a courageous and successful attempt to synthesise the entire story between two covers for the neophyte and for the exhausted specialist alike' Tom Garvin, Irish Times