The third volume of the definitive political history of Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement deserved the attention the world gave it, even if it was not always accurately understood. After its ratification in two referendums, for the first time in history political institutions throughout the island of Ireland rested upon the freely given assent of majorities of all the peoples on the island. It marked, it was hoped, the full political decolonization of Ireland. Whether Ireland would reunify, or whether Northern Ireland remain in union with Great Britain now rested on the will of the people of Ireland, North and South respectively: a complex mode of power-sharing addressed the self-determination dispute. The concluding volume of Brendan O'Leary's A Treatise on Northern Ireland explains the making of this settlement, and the many failed initiatives that preceded it under British direct rule. Long-term structural and institutional changes and short-term political maneuvers are given their due in this lively but comprehensive assessment. The Anglo-Irish Agreement is identified as the political tipping point, itself partially the outcome of the hunger strikes of 1980-81 that had prevented the criminalization of republicanism. Until 2016 the prudent judgment seemed to be that the Good Friday Agreement had broadly worked, eventually enabling Sinn Féin and the DUP to share power, with intermittent attention from the sovereign governments. Cultural Catholics appeared content if not in love with the Union with Great Britain. But the decision to hold a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union has collaterally damaged and destabilized the Good Friday Agreement. That, in turn, has shaped the UK's tortured exit negotiations with the European Union. In appraising these recent events and assessing possible futures, readers will find O'Leary's distinctive angle of vision clear, sharp, unsentimental, and unsparing of reputations, in keeping with the mastery of the historical panoramas displayed throughout this treatise.

This first volume in A Treatise on Northern Ireland illuminates how British colonialism shaped the formation and political cultures of what became Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State. Contrasting colonial and sectarianized accounts of modern Irish history, Brendan O'Leary shows that a judicious meld of these perspectives provides a properly political account of direct and indirect rule, and of administrative and settler colonialism. The British state incorporated Ulster and Ireland into a deeply unequal Union after four re-conquests over two centuries had successively defeated the Ulster Gaels, the Catholic Confederates, the Jacobites, and the United Irishmen—and their respective European allies. Founded as a union of Protestants in Great Britain and Ireland, rather than of the British and the Irish nations, the colonial and sectarian Union was infamously punctured in the catastrophe of the Great Famine. The subsequent mobilization of Irish nationalists and Ulster unionists, and two republican insurrections amid the cataclysm and aftermath of World War I, brought the now partly democratized Union to an unexpected end, aside from a shrunken rump of British authority, baptized as Northern Ireland. Home rule would be granted to those who had claimed not to want it, after having been refused to those who had ardently sought it. The failure of possible federal reconstructions of the Union and the fateful partition of the island are explained, and systematically compared with other British colonial partitions. Northern Ireland was invented, in accordance with British interests, to resolve the 'hereditary animosities' between the descendants of Irish natives and British settlers in Ireland. In the long run, the invention proved unfit for purpose. Indispensable for explaining contemporary institutions and mentalities, this volume clears the path for the intelligent reader determined to understand contemporary Northern Ireland.

The second volume of the definitive political history of Northern Ireland. This landmark synthesis of political science and historical institutionalism is a detailed study of antagonistic ethnic majoritarianism. Northern Ireland was coercively created through a contested partition in 1920. Subsequently Great Britain compelled Sinn F?in's leaders to rescind the declaration of an Irish Republic, remain within the British Empire, and grant the Belfast Parliament the right to secede. If it did so, a commission would consider modifying the new border. The outcome, however, was the formation of two insecure regimes, North and South, both of which experienced civil war, while the boundary commission was subverted. In the North a control system organized the new majority behind a dominant party that won all elections to the Belfast parliament until its abolition in 1972. The Ulster Unionist Party successfully disorganized Northern nationalists and Catholics. Bolstered by the 'Specials,' a militia created from the Ulster Volunteer Force, this system displayed a pathological version of the Westminster model of democracy, which may reproduce one-party dominance, and enforce national, ethnic, religious, and cultural discrimination. How the Unionist elite improvised this control regime, and why it collapsed under the impact of a civil rights movement in the 1960s, take center-stage in this second volume of A Treatise on Northern Ireland. The North's trajectory is paired and compared with the Irish Free State's incremental decolonization and restoration of a Republic. Irish state-building, however, took place at the expense of the limited prospect of persuading Ulster Protestants that Irish reunification was in their interests, or consistent with their identities. Northern Ireland was placed under British direct rule in 1972 while counter-insurgency practices applied elsewhere in its diminishing empire were deployed from 1969 with disastrous consequences. On January 1 1973, however, the UK and Ireland joined the then European Economic Community. Many hoped that would help end conflict in and over Northern Ireland. Such hopes were premature. Northern Ireland appeared locked in a stalemate of political violence punctuated by failed political initiatives.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the new framework of relationship between the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) applicable since 1st January 2021, following the end of the Brexit transition period and the entry into force of the EU-UK Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA), concluded on Christmas Eve 2020. The book contextualizes the new framework of EU-UK relations, including the ongoing challenges of implementing the Withdrawal Agreement (WA), and sheds light on the new mechanisms for EU-UK cooperation both in the economic domain including free movement of goods, financial services, and mobility of persons, and in the security domain including law enforcement, defence, and data protection. The work underlines the profound differences between the new status quo compared to the legal framework applicable when the UK was still an EU member state including end of free movement of persons, financial passporting, and cooperation in foreign affairs and defence, and reflects on what the latest stage in the Brexit process means for governance, sovereignty, and the future of European integration.

Reveals the full story of the British army's role in the most violent phase of the Troubles.

This collection of essays is a tribute to Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, who died aged 72 on 1 December 2020 after having retired from the UK Supreme Court just two months earlier. Brian Kerr was appointed as a judge of the High Court of Northern Ireland in 1993. He became the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland in 2004 before being elevated to a peerage and appointed as the last Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in June 2009. Four months later, as Lord Kerr, he moved from the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords to the UK Supreme Court where, after exactly 11 years, he concluded his distinguished judicial career as the longest-serving Justice to date. During his career he established an exceptional reputation for independence of thought, fairness and humanitarianism. Lord Kerr's judicial mind has inspired and influenced a significant number of scholars and jurists throughout the UK and beyond. In this book, his unique brand of jurisprudence is examined alongside a catalogue of broader issues in which he displayed a keen interest during his lifetime. The volume includes topical contributions from a range of legal experts in Britain and Ireland. Lord Kerr's particular interest in public law, human rights law, criminal law, and family law is featured prominently, but so too is the importance of his dissenting judgments, some influential jurisprudence of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (where he sat on many occasions), the legacy of his influence on the law and legal system of Northern Ireland and the significance of his place in the historical development of judicial roles and responsibilities more generally.

The Good Friday Agreement deserved the attention the world gave it, even if it was not always accurately understood. After its ratification in two referendums, for the first time in history political institutions throughout the island of Ireland rested upon the freely given assent of majorities of all the peoples on the island. It marked, it was hoped, the full political decolonization of Ireland. Whether Ireland would reunify, or whether Northern Ireland remain in union with Great Britain now rested on the will of the people of Ireland, North and South respectively: a complex mode of power-sharing addressed the self-determination dispute. The concluding volume of Brendan O'Leary's A Treatise on Northern Ireland explains the making of this settlement, and the many failed initiatives that preceded it under British direct rule. Long-term structural and institutional changes and short-term political maneuvers are given their due in this lively but comprehensive assessment. The Anglo-Irish Agreement is identified as the political tipping point, itself partially the outcome of the hunger strikes of 1980-81 that had prevented the criminalization of republicanism. Until 2016 the prudent judgment seemed to be that the Good Friday Agreement had broadly worked, eventually enabling Sinn Féin and the DUP to share power, with intermittent attention from the sovereign governments. Cultural Catholics appeared content if not in love with the Union with Great Britain. But the decision to hold a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union has collaterally damaged and destabilized the Good Friday Agreement. That, in turn, has shaped the UK's tortured exit negotiations with the European Union. In appraising these recent events and assessing possible futures, readers will find O'Leary's distinctive angle of vision clear, sharp, unsentimental, and unsparing of reputations, in keeping with the mastery of the historical panoramas displayed throughout this treatise.

A major study of the growth and decline of transport and industry in Ulster, this extremely detailed and comprehensive book throws new light on the infrastructure of corn grinding, spade forging, paper making, and other industries, and examines the mechanics of early road, bridge, and canal construction, more than 850 photographs and charts are contained in this volume.