Iain Mclean and Alistair McMillan
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199258208
- eISBN:
- 9780191603334
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199258201.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
This chapter examines the evolution of unionism in Northern Ireland since it unexpectedly and paradoxically found itself under Home Rule, which its leading politicians had raised a private army to ...
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This chapter examines the evolution of unionism in Northern Ireland since it unexpectedly and paradoxically found itself under Home Rule, which its leading politicians had raised a private army to prevent. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK in which primordial Unionism, that is, the belief that the Union is good in and for itself, survives. But even so, primordialism runs in different streams — military, religious, intellectual — whose waters scarcely mix.Less
This chapter examines the evolution of unionism in Northern Ireland since it unexpectedly and paradoxically found itself under Home Rule, which its leading politicians had raised a private army to prevent. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK in which primordial Unionism, that is, the belief that the Union is good in and for itself, survives. But even so, primordialism runs in different streams — military, religious, intellectual — whose waters scarcely mix.
