Unionism in Ireland

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Unionism
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Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the maintenance or strengthening of the political and cultural ties between Ireland and Great Britain.

The political relationship between Britain and Ireland dates to the twelfth century, and reached its apogee in the Act of Union 1800, which created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, the southern 26 counties of Ireland gained independence from the UK as the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Ireland). The territory of Northern Ireland has remained part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Unionism today is overwhelmingly concerned with the relationship between Northern Ireland and Britain: Unionism is practically extinct in the remainder of the island.

Unionism and its opposing ideology, Irish nationalism, are associated with particular ethnic and religious communities: the former with Protestants of English or Scottish origin (many of whom migrated to Ireland in the Plantation of Ulster), and the latter with Catholics indigenous to the island. However, these generalisations must be nuanced, since a significant number of individuals do not fit neatly into such sets of categories, and the distinction between a "pure" indigenous Irish population and foreign British interlopers arguably owes as much to nationalist ideology as to historical fact.

The term Unionist was originally applied to opponents of Irish self-government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Contents

Unionism and British identity

Irish Unionism is centred on an identification with Britishness,[1] though not necessarily to the exclusion of a sense of Irishness or of affinity to Northern Ireland ("Ulster") specifically.[2] It emerged as a unified force in opposition to William Gladstone's Home Rule Bill in 1886.[3] Whereas Irish nationalists believed in the need for separation from Great Britain - whether through repeal of the 1800 Act of Union, "home rule", or complete independence - Unionists believe fundamentally in the need to maintain and deepen the relationship between the various nations of the United Kingdom, expressing a pride in symbols of Britishness.

A key symbol for unionists is the Union Flag.[4] Unionist areas of Northern Ireland often display this and other symbols to show the loyalty and sense of identity of the community.[5] Unionism is also known for its allegiance to the British Crown, both historically[6] and today.[7]

Religion

Historically, most Unionists in Ireland have been Protestants and most Nationalists have been Catholics, and this remains the case. However, a significant number of Protestants have adhered to the Nationalist cause, and a significant number of Catholics have espoused Unionism. The phenomenon of Catholic Unionism continues to exist in Northern Ireland, where it may be seen in the context of middle-class Catholics' misgivings regarding the economic consequences of a united Ireland.

It is fair to say that both Unionism and Nationalism have had sectarian and anti-sectarian elements, and that both have attracted supporters from outside their base religious communities. However, while Nationalism has historically had a number of Protestant leaders (Henry Grattan, Theobald Wolfe Tone, Charles Stewart Parnell, Douglas Hyde), Unionism was invariably led by Protestant leaders and politicians. This lack of Catholic leadership encouraged accusations of sectarianism, particularly during the period when the Ulster Unionist Party had undisputed control of Northern Ireland (1921–1972). Only one Catholic served in government throughout this period (Dr. G.B. Newe, who was specially recruited to boost cross-community relations in the last UUP government in the 1970s). Ulster Unionist Leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble conceded that Northern Ireland had been a "cold house" for Catholics in the past.

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The Unionist vision is for Northern Ireland to continue with England, Scotland and Wales as part of the United Kingdom

Terminology

Unionists and Loyalists

Alongside the term Unionist, people espousing unionist beliefs are sometimes referred to as Loyalists. The two words are sometimes used interchangeably, but the latter is more often associated with particularly hardline forms of Unionism, and in some cases with individual or groups who support or engage in violence. Most unionists do not describe themselves as loyalists.

Nationalists and Republicans

A similar distinction exists in relation to Irish nationalists on the opposing side. Mainstream nationalists, such as the supporters of the SDLP and the main parties in the Republic of Ireland, are generally referred to by that term, while the more militant strand of nationalism, comprising groups such as Sinn Féin, is known as republicanism. In the Republic of Ireland, the republican tradition has moderated and moved into the mainstream, and today the Republic's "Republican Party", Fianna Fáil, has little in common with militant republicans other than certain ideological and historical perspectives.

Republican Unionists?

Unionism has traditionally been associated with strong loyalty to the British monarchy, and three members of the current Royal Family hold titles with roots in Northern Ireland: the Duke of York (Baron Killyleagh), the Earl of Ulster and the Duke of Kent (Baron Downpatrick). Older Irish royal titles included Lord of Ireland, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, Earl of Athlone and Baron Arklow. The Queen is still technically Sovereign of the Order of St. Patrick, the highest Irish order of chivalry, and the Norroy and Ulster King of Arms is an officer in the College of Arms in London.

Some unionists, however, are republicans, in the sense that they oppose the monarchy and wish to replace it with a British Republic. This form of "republicanism" is naturally wholly unconnected with Irish republicanism. There is no accurate statistical information available for how much actual support exists for this position, though there is anecdotal evidence that the attitude among unionists who do not support the monarchy is mainly one of indifference rather than a positive desire to abolish it.

History

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries unionism had supporters throughout Ireland. As late as 1859 the Unionist Irish Conservative Party was predominant, winning more seats than either the Irish Liberal Party or the various Nationalist parties.

Home Rule

The political union is symbolised by the Westminster Parliament

"Home Rule" was the name given to the policy of establishing a devolved parliament to govern Ireland as an autonomous region within the United Kingdom. Home Rule was supported from the 1860s onwards by mainstream nationalist leaders such as Isaac Butt, William Shaw, Charles Stewart Parnell, John Redmond and John Dillon, and it became the aim of the Nationalist Party, subsequently known as the Home Rule League and the Irish Parliamentary Party, which was the largest political party in Ireland from the 1880s until the end of the First World War.

Unionists comprised the opposition to Home Rule. They believed that an Irish Parliament dominated by Catholic nationalists would be to their economic, social and religious disadvantage, and would move eventually towards total independence from Britain. In most of Ireland, Unionists were members of the governing and landowning classes and the minor gentry, but Unionism had a broad popular appeal among Protestants of all classes and backgrounds in Ulster. This part of the island had become industrialised, and had an economy that closely resembled that of Britain.

A series of British governments introduced Home Rule Bills in the British Parlilament. The 1886 Bill was rejected by the House of Commons, and managed to destroy the Liberal government in the process: Whig and Radical elements left the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which allied itself with the Conservative Party. Eventually, the two parties merged into the Conservative and Unionist Party (generally known as the Conservative Party), which remains Britain's dominant right-of-centre party. The 1893 Bill passed the Commons but was rejected by the House of Lords, which had a permanent and large Conservative majority.

Political Unionism crystallised around the Protestant areas of Ulster in the northern part of Ireland. By the early 20th century, the Irish Unionist Party had become predominantly associated with this territory, and in 1905 the Ulster Unionist Council was founded, which in turn produced the Ulster Unionist Party, which replaced the IUP in Ulster. In the period up to 1920, most of the IUP's leadership (including the Earl of Middleton and the Earl of Dunraven) came from other parts of Ireland, and its most prominent leader, Sir Edward Carson, opposed not merely Home Rule but any attempt to partition Ireland.

In 1911, the House of Lords' veto over legislation was removed, and it became clear that a Home Rule Bill would finally be enacted. Unionists, particularly in Ulster, mounted a campaign against Home Rule, drawing up a "Solemn League and Covenant" and threatening to establish a Provisional Government of Ulster if Home Rule were imposed upon them. They set up a milita called the Ulster Volunteers and imported 25,000 rifles from Germany. By mid-1914, 90,000 men had joined the Volunteers.

On the eve of the First World War, the Home Rule Act 1914 passed into law. The War, however, prevented it from coming into force. The Easter Rising of 1916 and the events that followed it led to the enactment of a fourth Home Rule Bill after the War, known as the Government of Ireland Act 1920. This was heavily influenced by the Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson, and provided six of the nine counties of Ulster ("Northern Ireland") with its own devolved parliament independent from that of the rest of the island ("Southern Ireland"). The 1914 Act had provided for a similar partition as a temporary measure, for an unspecified length of time. In the end, only Northern Ireland became a functioning entity, and Southern Ireland was superseded by the Irish Free State.

Sir Edward Carson signing the Ulster Covenant

Unionists opposed Home Rule for several reasons:

Not all Protestants supported Unionism. Some - notably Charles Stewart Parnell - were nationalists, while by contrast some middle-class Catholics supported the maintenance of the union. In addition, Unionism received the support in the period from the 1880s until 1914 from leading mainland Conservative politicians, notably Lord Randolph Churchill and future prime minister Andrew Bonar Law. Churchill coined the well-known slogan "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right".

Northern Ireland

The Union Flag represents England, Ireland and Scotland united together
The Ulster Banner - the flag of the former Government of Northern Ireland 1953-72
St. Patrick's Cross represents Ireland in the Union Flag

The creation of Northern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 and the later creation of the Irish Free State in the remainder of the island separated southern and northern unionists. The exclusion of three Ulster counties, Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan, from Northern Ireland left unionists there feeling isolated and betrayed. They established an association to persuade their fellow unionists to reconsider the border, but to no avail. Many assisted in the policing of the new region, serving in the B-Specials while continuing to live in the Free State (see here).

Unionists were in the majority in four counties of the new Northern Ireland (Antrim, Londonderry, Down and Armagh), and formed a large minority in the remaining counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone. Sir Edward Carson had expressly urged the new Northern Ireland Prime Minister, Sir James Craig, to ensure absolute equality in the treatment of Catholics, so to guarantee the stability of the new state. Discrimination, however, took place, particularly in the areas of housing, employment and local government representation. The extent of such discrimination is disputed, and there was also widespread poverty among Protestants: for example, recovery operations in working-class areas after the Belfast Blitz of 1941 revealed that both communities had disadvantaged elements. Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble has admitted that Northern Ireland was a "cold house" for Catholics for most of the 20th century. Many unionists, particularly in the Democratic Unionist Party, deny that organised discrimination took place and attribute the poverty suffered by both communities to wider economic conditions.

The Troubles

Main article: The Troubles
Ulster Defence Association mural in Shankill, Belfast

By the 1960s, the reforms of Prime Minister, Terence O'Neill, designed to create a more equitable society between unionists and nationalists, resulted in a backlash led by fundamentalist Protestant minister, Ian Paisley. Nationalists launched a Civil Rights movement in the mid 1960s with key demands made on matters such as one man one vote. With attacks on Northern Ireland's infrastructure by loyalists, and the resignation of a relative from the Cabinet over the principle of One man One Vote, O'Neill resigned on 2 April 1969[8] to be replaced by Chichester Clark.

In August 1969 following the annual Apprentice Boys of Derry parade in the city, serious rioting took place in Derry[9] and Belfast.[10] The Civil Rights movement responded by calling marches across Northern Ireland to further stretch police resources[11] and on August 14th the British Government allowed the deployment of the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment in Derry to relieve the Police.[12] The following day the deployment was extended to Belfast.[13] Early the next year Chichester Clark flew to London to request more military support in an attempt to stem the increasing violence. Receiving much less than he had requested, he resigned and was replaced by Brian Faulkner

By 1972 the situation in Northern Ireland had deteriorated considerably, and on January 30th, thirteen civilians on a Civil Rights march in Derry were killed by the Parachute Regimenton Bloody Sunday. Three months later the Parliament of Northern Ireland and government were suspended, and later abolished.[14] Within Unionism, Ian Paisley had entered electoral politics and quickly merged his Protestant Unionist Party into the new Democratic Unionist Party with former UUP MPs Desmond Boal and John McQuade.[15] The new party quickly began to win support from the UUP, and since 1975 polled at least 10% of the vote at elections.[16]

A power-sharing government between nationalists and unionists in 1974 was brought down by the Ulster Workers' Council Strike. Faulkner as a result lost the support of his party, where he was replaced as leader by Harry West, and formed his own Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. West subsequently resigned and was replaced by Jim Molyneaux in 1979. Secretary of State Jim Prior made another attempt at restoring devolution by introducing a plan for rolling devolution through an assembly between 1982 and 1986 but this was boycotted by nationalists. Violence intensified throughout this period.

After nearly three decades of conflict, a ceasefire and intense political negotiations produced the Belfast Agreement on 10 April, 1998 (also known as the "Good Friday Agreement"), which again attempted with mixed success to produce a power-sharing government for Northern Ireland with cross-community support. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) supported the agreement but it was opposed by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and other smaller parties.

Unionism in Northern Ireland today

Unionist - and nationalist - convictions in Northern Ireland are expressed in a number of different ways: through everyday preferences (which need not be consistent for each individual) such as choice of newspaper or sports team, participation in a locally developed unionist or nationalist subculture, and voting for the appropriate political parties and candidates at election time.

Unionism and religion

Most Unionists in Northern Ireland are Protestants and most Nationalists are Catholics, but this generalisation (which is evident in the work of some commentators) is subject to significant qualifications. The Ulster Unionist Party, for example, has some Catholic members and supporters, such as Sir John Gorman, a respected former MLA. Polls taken over the years have suggested that as many as one in three Catholics could be considered Unionist, though this may not translate into support for Unionist parties at election time and the size of the foregoing figure has been questioned.

In a more general sense, Catholics cannot be assumed to be hostile to the institutions of the Union: many Catholics serve in the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the British Army, just as their predecessors served in the RIC and the RUC, in the face of sometimes violent opposition from militant nationalists. The PSNI maintains a 50% quota for Catholic officers, though many of these today are Catholic immigrants from Poland.

On the Nationalist side, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) has attracted a number of sympathetic Protestants, and Sinn Féin too is said to have some Protestant members and elected officials.

Northern Ireland has an increasing number of inhabitants who are neither Catholic nor Protestant, either being adherents of other religions or being non-religious. Increasingly, the trend has been to ignore the question of religion, particularly as the numbers of practising churchgoers on both sides have been in decline.

Current Public Support for Unionism in Northern Ireland[17]
Indicator Survey Date Overall % Protestant % Catholic % No religion %
Support for the union as long-term policy[18] 2006 54 85 22 46
Unionist personal identity[19] 2006 36 69 3 17
British personal identity[20] 2006 39 63 11 35
Support for unionist political party[21] 2006 32 63 2 20

For some years, there has been a perception both in Britain and in Ireland that the Catholic birthrate will guarantee a Catholic - and hence supposedly Nationalist - majority in Northern Ireland at some point in the first half of the twenty-first century. However, a strong decline in the Catholic birthrate may slow down or even reverse the growth in the Catholic population (which may in turn be balanced by an increased rate of emigration of young Protestants, often to study and work in Britain). Recent influxes of immigrants, especially from Eastern Europe, are also having a significant effect on the demographic balance.

The rapid pace of economic growth in the Republic of Ireland in recent years is felt by many to have weakened the economic case for Unionism, though many Unionists insist that the level of growth in the Republic has been exaggerated and there are still clear economic benefits from being part of the UK, as the world's fourth largest economy. Considered by itself, Northern Ireland is a less wealthy territory than the Republic, and, ironically, one potential obstacle to a united Ireland is the suggested reluctance on the part of taxpayers in the Republic to shoulder the financial burden that unification would entail.

Political Unionism

Northern Ireland currently has a number of pro-union political parties, the largest of which is the traditionalist Democratic Unionist Party led by Peter Robinson, followed by the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party led by Reg Empey. Both parties are active across Northern Ireland.

On a smaller level, the Progressive Unionist Party, which is the political wing of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) paramilitary group, attracts some support in the greater Belfast area, while the UK Unionist Party is centred on North Down and the United Unionist Coalition is a loose grouping of independent candidates across the province.

The pluralist Conservative Party (officially named the Conservative and Unionist Party) also organises in the province. While the Alliance Party supports the status quo position of Northern Ireland, it does not define itself as Unionist.

Moderate unionists who support the principle of equal citizenship between Northern Ireland and Great Britain have campaigned for mainstream British political parties to organise and contest elections in the province. Equal citizenship pressure groups have included the Campaign for Equal Citizenship (CEC), Labour Representation Campaign, Democracy Now and, currently, Labour - Federation of Labour Groups. Momentum for this concept picked up after the Conservative Party Conference voted in favour of working in Northern Ireland in 1989. The Conservatives currently have one councillor on Down District Council, who was elected as an Ulster Unionist. No Conservative has been elected in Northern Ireland since the 1997 local government elections.[22]

Under legal pressure from local trade unionists, Labour accepted members from the province in October 2002[23] and in September 2006 agreed to organise through a forum.[24] The Liberal Democrats have a branch in Northern Ireland but do not contest elections.[25]

Recent Unionist Electoral Performance in Northern Ireland[26]
Level Election Total seats Unionist seats Unionist poll Unionist % vote
Northern Ireland Assembly 2007 108 55 329,826 47.8%
House of Commons 2005 18 10 371,888 51.8%
Local Government 2005 582 302 343,148 48.8%
European Parliament 2004 3 2 266,925 48.6%
Northern Ireland Assembly 2003 108 59 352,886 51.0%

Pro-union parties and independents contest elections and represent their constituents at a number of different levels. There is a unionist presence at election time in all parliamentary constituencies. A Unionist win is a virtual certainty in ten constituencies:

Twenty peers in the House of Lords owe their peerages to a direct connection with Northern Ireland,[27] usually through a political party. Of these eight Ulster Unionists (sitting as Cross-benchers) three DUP, two Conservative two Labour and one Liberal Democrat and the rest independent. As well as the two Unionist MEPs in the European Parliament, DUP MP Nigel Dodds is also an alternate member of the UK Parliament delegations to the Council of Europe and Western European Union[28] and Unionists also participate in the EU Committee of the Regions.[29]

Unionist candidates stand for election in most district electoral areas (small areas which make up district councils) in Northern Ireland. Exceptions, in 2005, were Slieve Gullion in South Armagh, Upper and Lower Falls in Belfast, Shantallow, Northland and Cityside in Derry - all of which are strongly nationalist. Likewise, nationalist parties and candidates did not contest some areas in North Antrim, East Antrim, East Belfast, North Down and the Strangford constituency which are strongly unionist and therefore unlikely to return a nationalist candidate.

Local government in Northern Ireland is not entirely divided on nationalist-unionist lines and the level of political tension within a council depends on the district that it represents and its direct experience of the Troubles.

Future elections

Strategically, Fermanagh and South Tyrone and South Belfast will be the key target seats for unionism in the next general election, but previous experience indicates that neither seat can be won without an electoral pact between the DUP and the UUP. Both seats were lost, in 2001 and 2005 respectively, due to a divided Unionist vote.

Southern Irish Unionism/Neo-Unionism

See Also "Unionism throughout Ireland" above

The early twentieth century and the years after independence

After 1890, and particularly during the period from the start of the First World War to the mid 1920s, the number of Unionists in what is now the Republic of Ireland declined to a point where their numbers were widely regarded as almost insignificant. This is attributed to a number of factors:

Nevertheless, it is widely (though not universally) accepted that there is little evidence of widespread discrimination against Protestants in the Irish Free State. The first President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde (1938 – 1945) was Protestant, though only two senior Irish politicians attended his Church of Ireland funeral.

Some Unionists in the south simply adapted and began to associate themselves with the new southern Irish regime of Cumann na nGaedhael. On January 19, 1922, leading Unionists held a meeting and unanimously decided to support the Free State government. Many gained appointment to the Free State's Senate, including the Earl of Dunraven and Thomas Westropp Bennett. Several generations of one Unionist political family, the Dockrells, won election as TDs. The Dublin borough of Rathmines had a unionist majority up to the late 1920s, when a local government re-organisation abolished all Dublin borough councils. Later, the Earl of Granard and the Provost of Trinity College Dublin gained appointment to the President of Ireland's advisory body, the Council of State. Most Irish Unionists, however, simply withdrew from public life, and since the late 1920s there have been few professed Unionists elected to the Irish parliament.

Satellite view of Great Britain and Ireland.

The present day

Distinctions exist between several different types of contemporary Southern "unionism":

Today, the Reform Movement, the Irish Unionist Alliance, and the Loyal Irish Union are active Irish Unionist or Neo-Unionist organisations in the Republic of Ireland.

While Southern Unionists in many ways identify with their Northern counterparts, one respect in which they differ is describing themselves as "Irish Unionists". Some Northern Unionists no longer like to regard themselves as Irish at all because of a perception that the discourse of "Irishness" has become associated with a narrow and politicised Gaelic cultural nationalism. They therefore prefer the term "Ulster Unionist". Southern Unionists contend that "Irish” does not necessarily imply "Gaelic”, and the term "Ulster Unionist" is both geographically incorrect (part of Ulster is in the Republic of Ireland) and excludes Unionists from the rest of Ireland.

The study of Irish history from a Unionist perspective is known in the Republic of Ireland as revisionist history, although some Catholic writers, such as Kevin Myers and Eoghan Harris, are regarded as revisionists. Indeed, a Southern Unionist is as likely to be Catholic (or secular) as Protestant. In turn, most nationalist historians today accept that the nationalist histories written in 1920-60 are often biased and simplistic, and a synthesis is emerging. Many historians have also come to the view that the accepted and traditional view of the history of the British Isles, particularly that of the history of the Gaels, was already subject to historical revisionism (for example, in the Book of the Taking of Ireland, known as The Book of Invasions).

Southern Irish Unionists are sometimes referred to as "Anglo-Irish", an often incorrect term as many Irish of English descent, such as Theobald Wolfe Tone and Roger Casement, were staunch nationalists. A more pejorative term for them, and for other Irish people seen as being unduly influenced by Britain and British culture, is "West Briton"s or "West Brits".

References

  1. ↑ Murray, D, Tracking Progress, Democratic Dialogue, June 1999, pg 2
  2. ↑ Southern, N, Britishness, “Ulsterness” and Unionist Identity in Northern Ireland in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Volume 13, Issue 1 January 2007 , pages 71 - 102 at pg 75. The Unionist politician Ken Maginnis, for example, supports the all-Ireland rugby team.
  3. ↑ Walker, G, A history of the Ulster Unionist Party, 2004, pg1
  4. ↑ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20001025/ai_n14358571
  5. ↑ Wilson, R, Flagging concern, Democratic Dialogue, July 2000
  6. ↑ National Library of Ireland, The 1916 Rising
  7. ↑ Explaining Northern Ireland By John McGarry, Brendan O'Leary, Wiley-Blackwell ISBN 0631183495
  8. ↑ Walker, G, A history of the Ulster Unionist Party (Manchester 2004) p 172-173
  9. ↑ Due to the complexities of language between the two main communities in Northern Ireland, the city is known to Unionists as Londonderry and Nationalists as Derry. Wikipedia uses Derry to refer to the city and Londonderry to refer to the county, reflecting current official usage.
  10. ↑ Hennessey, T, Northern Ireland; the origins of the troubles (Basingstoke, 2005) Chapter seven
  11. ↑ Patterson, H Ireland Since 1939 (Dublin, 2006) p 212
  12. ↑ Bloomfield, K Stormont in Crisis (Belfast 1994) p 114
  13. ↑ Public Records Office of Northern Ireland file number CAB/4/1461
  14. ↑ Walker, G, A history of the Ulster Unionist Party (Manchester 2004) p 195-197
  15. ↑ Moloney & Pollak Paisley (Dublin, 1986) p204
  16. ↑ www.ark.ac.uk/elections
  17. ↑ http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt
  18. ↑ http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2006/Political_Attitudes/NIRELAND.html
  19. ↑ http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2006/Political_Attitudes/UNINATID.html
  20. ↑ http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2006/Community_Relations/NINATID.html
  21. ↑ http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2006/Political_Attitudes/NIPARTY.html
  22. ↑ North Down council results 1997
  23. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/northern_ireland/3480575.stm
  24. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/northern_ireland/5384716.stm
  25. ↑ http://www.libdems.org.uk/party/people/inyourarea.html
  26. ↑ http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections
  27. ↑ http://www.stratagem-ni.com/nipeers.php
  28. ↑ http://www.parliament.uk/directories/delegations
  29. ↑ http://cormembers.cor.eu.int/cormembers.aspx?critName=&critCountry=GB&critFunction=MEM%7CALT&critGroup=&critDossier=&iaction=Search

See also

Unionism in Northern Ireland

Southern/Neo-Unionism

Wider interests

Unionist political parties

References

Articles

Books and reports

Manifestos

The following Unionist parties have contested at least one election in Northern Ireland since 2001 and produced online manifestos (all PDF format):

Conservative and Unionist Party
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)
Progressive Unionist Party (PUP)
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)

Debates

Speeches

Websites

Analytical

Analytical sites do not necessarily imply support for political causes:

Cultural

Lambeg Drum competition in Tyrone on 12 July

Cultural sites do not necessarily imply support for political causes:

Integrationist (with Great Britain)

Legal

A number of Acts of Parliament and other laws provide a legal framework for the union:

Political parties

Southern Ireland/Neo-Unionist

Structural

Some official agencies and organisations at a national level have developed specific structural links as part of the union. These links reflect the responsibilities of the agency or organisation to the citizens of Northern Ireland and the other UK regions. However, they do not indicate support for political unionism as the UK Civil Service is regulated by strict laws on impartiality. In addition, Northern Ireland is nowadays part of a web of co-operative links with the Republic of Ireland (north-south), the United Kingdom (east-west), the European Union and the United States.

Ceremonial

Central Government

Co-operation

Devolution

Parliament