Parliaments, Nations and Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660-1850 (UCL/ Neale Series on British History)

About the Author Julian Hoppit is Professor of British History, University College London. Product Description In 1660 the four nations of the British Isles were governed by one imperial crown but by three parliaments. The abolition of the Scottish and Irish Parliaments in 1707 and 1800 created a UK of Great Britain and Ireland centered upon the Westminster legislature. This book address questions about how this monolith affected identities in the four nations. From a wide variety of perspectives, it shows how the parliaments at Dublin, Edinburgh and, especially, Westminster, were seen and used in very different ways by people from very different communities. Parliament may have been conceived as a repository of “the” national interest, but in practice it was the site of four national and multiple cross-national identities. Review "This book makes a genuinely original contribution to the field. By putting parliament and political processes at the center of the contest to negotiate national and other identities, it constitutes an important step forward in the historiography of Britain and Ireland." -- David Eastwood, University of East Anglia