From Deference to Defiance: Popular Unionism and the Decline of Elite Accommodation in Northern Ireland (original) (raw)

Unionism and the Political Party Structure of Northern Ireland

1990

This undergraduate independent study examined Unionist political reaction to developments of British Government policy towards Northern Ireland. Namely, Nationalist representatives achieved redress with the British Government, both directly and vis-a-vis the Irish Government, which should have compelled Unionists to pursue a more accommodationalist policy. Regardless, there was a paradoxical drive by integrationists in Northern Ireland for direct electoral candidacy by the Conservative Party in the regional constituency. This paper makes a defence in favour of this campaign, as a means of improving the accountability of British Government policy affecting those in its jurisdiction.

Unionist party competition and the Orange Order vote in Northern Ireland

Electoral Studies, 2007

The period since the signing of Northern Ireland's 'peace deal', the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), has seen a shift in the votes of many Protestants to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), hitherto seen as a hardline, anti-GFA organisation fusing religion and politics. This article uses a case study of the Orange Order, the largest religious-cultural organisation in Northern Ireland containing almost one-in-four Protestant voters, to examine the basis of the appeal of more militant Protestant Unionism in the DUP. The article suggests that a radical ethnic militancy is apparent amongst younger 'Orange' Protestants in particular. This shift in Protestant-Unionist opinion has been exacerbated in a post-conflict party system, in which electoral competition is based upon intra-ethnic bloc rivalry around the defence of the interests of a particular bloc.

Ex-Unionists and Irish Politics in 1922-3

The Unionist community in the newly independent Ireland tend to be overlooked in accounts of the creation of the Irish Free State. For many scholars, they represent a relic of an old Irish order which either emigrated or gradually died off over time and lacked any sense of purpose after the loss of their connection to Britain. FSL Lyons famously went so far as to describe their significance was that they were invisibile, nicknaming them the "dog that hasn't barked" on account of their seeming irrelevance in many accounts of the era. 1 This depiction has persisted, and the remnants of what was the ex-Unionist community are most often discussed in relation to a narrative of demographic decline amongst Irish Protestants and the history of Trinity College Dublin, with direct participation in politics treated as an aside.

The Ulster Crisis and the Emergence of the Ulster Women's Unionist Council

2015

This paper forms an exhibit published/posted on the Women's History Museum of Ireland website. It briefly explores an under examined organization within the Ulster unionist movement, the Ulster Women's Unionist Council (UWUC), and its role within that movement during the Ulster Crisis (1912-1914).