1. Colin Reid c.reid@sheffield.ac.uk
Doing Irish and British History in an Age of Constitutional Uncertainty
Colin Reid

2. Back in yonder days…
Irish and British history during the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland.
Relevancy of the past wasn’t questioned: it was still being lived (‘unfinished business’).
History used to legitimise/delegitimise violence.
The ‘Troubles’ shaped historiography: origins of Britain’s Irish problem – or Ireland’s British problem. High politics, role of violence etc. The search for a ‘solution’?
Contemporary constitutional crisis aided the creation of a more sophisticated (if potentially politically charged) approach to Irish history.

4. Making Sense of British and Irish History in an Age of Constitutional Uncertainty
Is the UK facing an existential crisis? How will this shape our approach to its history?
Where we are today – what are the constitutional choices not taken (e.g. federalism)? What are historical roots of Scottish separatism? What antagonisms underpin problems in the NI peace process? Is there a previously unseen English nationalism? How does Britain see itself in the world?
John Pocock (1982): ‘British history… cannot be written as the memory of a single state or nation or as the process by which one came into existence. It must be a plural history.’
But this history is one of national/international/regional tensions: one state but multiple nations, and empire to boot.
Living through an age of constitutional uncertainty might sharpen our historical minds on these issues.

5. Scotland, Ireland, Home Rule, and Separation
All kinds of parallels between campaign for Scottish independence and the Irish question(s) of 1886 and
A. V. Dicey’s argument about Home Rule being a ‘halfway house to separation’ appears vindicated by later Scottish example.
Home Rule as splitting sovereignty – take more seriously the legal and constitutional objections made in nineteenth century. Look beyond party unionism & nationalism.
The manner in which a constituent part of the UK becomes independent: Violence? Convincing the sovereign? The principle of consent?
The language of politics: the case for Irish and Scottish independence.

8. Wither the United Kingdom?
Death knell of the union rung many times, but it survives. Question is not why union failed, but why it survived so long.
Ireland – union lasted , and continues in Northern Ireland. How do we account for this longevity?
Scotland – union has lasted over 300 years. But has devolution amplified nationalism? Why?
National identity in of itself doesn’t explain this. More about evolving ideas of representative government? i.e. Westminster not ‘delivering’?
One way to track this is through devolution/federation debates through 19th & 20th centuries: reimagining the UK.

9. ‘During those stressful moments when the problems inherent in attempting to maintain unity while protecting diversity were most acute, the federal idea was often examined’.
‘A strong and vibrant Greater Britain was one of the most prominent solutions offered to the crisis of confidence in national supremacy [during the 19th century.]’
‘The cumulative impact of the book is to demonstrate that before 1945 the forces which pulled Britain together were more potent than those which might pull it apart’.

10. ‘Of one thing I am sure – that the desire for national independence will never be plucked or torn from the heart of the Irish nation. This tract was written, not to stimulate that desire – not even so much to show that it is reasonable – as to point out the means by which it is possible to realise that independence without breaking up the unity of the empire, interfering with the monarchy, or endangering the rights or liberties of any class of Irishmen’

11. The English question
Robert Hazlett: ‘The United Kingdom is a union of four nations that works in practice but not on theory’. England has 85% population, but no devolution. Constitutional oddity.
Tension between England and rest of the union if sovereignty is popular (e.g. EU referendum). But has an English question always been with us?
Jackson (2012): a tale of two unions; but what about the English elephant in the room?
While historians are interesting in campaigns to reform/break the Union, we need to think about England and the English as a political/social entities and identities during constitutional disputes in the past – franchise reform, Irish Home Rule, relations with EU etc.
Is England the only part of the UK that can’t leave the union?

12. The English question
Pocock (2001): ‘The predicament of the English is that it is peculiarly hard from them to separate English from British history… how they have governed themselves is hard to separate from the history of how they have governed others’.

13. The Future of British and History
Exploring a broader range of issues in past constitutional disputes – regional variations in attitudes; the development of political languages; why certain paths weren’t taken.
An engagement with constitutional ideas to reimagine the union – and why these were rejected.
Avoidance of seeing inevitabilities. The NI Troubles weren’t inevitable; Brexit wasn’t inevitable. Restore the choices were taken.
A greater awareness of Englishness within the broader framework of British history. They can’t be the same thing.
There can’t be one narrative of British and Irish history, but all the histories of the component parts are intertwined.
It’s complicated.