United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927. It was formed by the merger of the Kingdom of Great Britain (itself having been a merger of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland) and the Kingdom of Ireland.

Following Irish independence on 6 December 1922, when the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty came into effect, the name continued in official use until it was changed to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act of 1927. That part of the island of Ireland which seceded from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1922 today constitutes the Republic of Ireland.

[edit] Origins

The merger of the two kingdoms followed the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The rebellion, which shook the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, was met with brutality on the part of the government resulting in the death of up to 30,000 at government hands through massacres, atrocities and terrors. The rebellion had been preceded by a century of discriminatory rule in Ireland, where the overwhelming majority of the population were excluded or limited from public and economic life. As a result of this, the London government pushed the merger largely in response to the perception that the rebellion was provoked as much by the brutish misrule of the Ascendancy as by the efforts of the revolutionaries.

To some measure, a crisis over the mental health of King George III, given that both separate kingdoms could in theory appoint different regents. The union was enacted by means of the Act of Union, passed by both the Irish Parliament and the British Parliament.

[edit] Terms of the Union

Under the terms of the merger, the separate Parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland were abolished, and replaced by a united Parliament of the United Kingdom.^[1] The new House of Commons consisted of all Members of Great Britain's 18th Parliament and 100 Irish MPs co-opted in a special election in 1801.^[1] The new House of Lords consisted of all members of Great Britain's House of Lords, and 4 Lords Spiritual and 28 Lords Temporal from the Irish House of Lords.^[1] The new Parliament met in the Palace of Westminster, formerly the home of the Parliament of Great Britain and, until 1707, the Parliament of England.

Part of the trade-off for Irish Catholics was to be the granting of Catholic Emancipation, which had been fiercely resisted by the all-Anglican Irish Parliament. However, this was blocked by King George III who argued that emancipating Roman Catholics would breach his Coronation Oath.

[edit] The United Kingdom

The Act of Union was initially seen favourably in Ireland, given that the old Irish parliament was seen as hostile to the majority Catholic population, some of whose members had only been given the vote as late as 1794 and who were legally debarred from election to the body. The Roman Catholic hierarchy endorsed the Union. However King George III's decision to block Catholic Emancipation fatally undermined the appeal of the Union. Leaders like Henry Grattan who sat in the new parliament, having been leading members of the old one, were bitterly critical.

The eventual achievement of Catholic Emancipation in 1829, following a campaign by Daniel O'Connell, MP for County Clare, who had won election to Westminster and who could not for religious beliefs take the Oath of Supremacy, removed the main negative that had undermined the appeal of the old parliament, the exclusion of Catholics. From 1829 on a demand grew again for a native Irish parliament separate from Westminster. However, his campaign to repeal the Act of Union ultimately failed.

Aspects of the United Kingdom met with popularity in Ireland during the 122 year union. Hundreds of thousands flocked to Dublin for the visits of Queen Victoria in 1900, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1903 and 1907 and King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. About 210,000 Irishmen fought for the United Kingdom in World War 1, at a time when Ireland was the only home nation where conscription was not in force.

[edit] Irish home rule

Later leaders, such as Charles Stewart Parnell the first leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, campaigned for a version of all-Ireland self-government called home rule within the United Kingdom, which was nearly achieved in the 1880s under the (British) ministry of William Ewart Gladstone who introduced two Irish Home Rule Bills. However, the measures were defeated in Parliament, and following the ascension of the Conservatives to the majority, the issue was buried as long as that party was in power.

With the return to power of the Liberals in 1910 supported by the Irish Party under John Redmond who now held the balance of power in the Commons, the veto power of the Lords was removed under the Parliament Act and an Home Rule Bill introduced in 1912 passed Parliament as the Third Home Rule Act in 1914, but was temporarily suspended for the duration of World War I. However the constant delaying of Home Rule and the opposition of the Orange Order in Ulster created the frustration that eventually led to political violence and the 1916 Easter Rising. The European situation changed the political climate such that in the 1918 general election, the Irish Party lost most of its seats to the new Sinn Féin party.

[edit] Breakdown of the Union

In 1919, Sinn Féin MPs elected to Westminster formed a unilaterally independent Irish parliament in Dublin, Dáil Éireann with an executive under the President of Dáil Éireann, Éamon de Valera. A War of Independence was fought between 1919 and 1921. Since 1918 the British Government had gone ahead with its commitment to introduce Home Rule to Ireland, and on the 23 December 1920 a Fourth Home Rule Act along the recommendations of the earlier Irish Convention was passed by the British parliament, the Government of Ireland Act 1920, resulting in the Partition of Ireland into two national provinces, called Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Finally, on 6 December 1922, a year after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, the twenty-six Southern Ireland counties seceded from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and formed the autonomous Irish Free State. The six counties forming Northern Ireland remained in the United Kingdom.

Thereafter, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland continued in name until 1927 when it was renamed as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland by the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927.

[edit] Legacy

Despite increasing political independence from each other from 1922, and complete political independence since 1949, the union left the two countries intertwined with each other in many respects. Ireland used the Irish Pound from 1928 until 2001 when it was replaced by the Euro. Until it joined the ERM in 1979, the Irish pound was directly linked to the Pound Sterling. Decimalisation of both currencies occurred simultaneously on Decimal Day in 1971. Coins of equivalent value had the same dimensions and size until the introduction of the British Twenty Pence coin in 1982, the first new coin to be issued since the break with Sterling. British coinage, therefore, although technically not legal tender in the Republic of Ireland was in wide circulation and usually acceptable as payment, and vice versa. The new British Twenty Pence coin and later British One Pound coin were the notable exceptions to this, as there was initially no equivalent Irish coin value, and when subsequently, Irish coins of these values were introduced, their designs differed significantly, thereby not allowing for 'stealth' passing of the coins in change.

Irish Citizens in the UK have a status almost equivalent to British Citizens. They can vote in all elections and even stand for parliament. As well as this, some people born in the Republic of Ireland before 1949, but after 3rd March 1922, are British Subjects. British Citizens have similar rights to Irish Citizens in the Republic of Ireland and can vote in all elections apart from Presidential Elections and referendums. People from Northern Ireland can have dual nationality by applying for an Irish passport in addition to, or instead of a British one.

[edit] List of monarchs

Though the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland came to an end in 1922, the monarch continued to use the title of King or Queen of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until 1927. Then, under the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927, new titles were introduced for the British monarch so that he would reign as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and King of Ireland, in the Irish Free State.

• George III (1801–1820) (monarch from 1760)
• George IV (1820–1830)
• William IV (1830–1837)
• Victoria (1837–1901)
• Edward VII (1901–1910)
• George V (1910–1922) (title used until 1927)

[edit] See also

• History of Ireland (1801-1922)
• History of the United Kingdom

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] External links

• British History Online
• Act of Union 1800

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