Review by Choice Review
The Irish Unionists in the House of Commons in the late 19th and early 20th centuries have not attracted much detailed scholarly attention. This study, derived from a thesis, is the first to examine in detail the role of parliamentary action within the political strategies of organized loyalism. It is all too easy to dismiss the political significance of these MPs, but Jackson builds a plausible case for seeing them as having both influence and durability during the early development of popular opposition to Home Rule. He shows, however, a rapidly changing context after 1905 in which the Unionists were forced to abandon their dependence on the House of Commons and turn instead to agitation and organization in Ulster itself. This, of course, is important in explaining the militant strategy of loyalists in 1912-14, but it has a further interest. Jackson explains the changing context in terms of a combination of local dissent and an increasingly unsympathetic Conservative leadership; many of his most valuable insights are on the nature of the bond between loyalism and British conservatism. The study is fully researched in manuscript and printed sources, and contains a full and useful bibliography. Stylistically, it is a dense work but one that nonetheless merits the attention of students of modern Ireland and Britain. Upper-division undergraduates and above. -R. Howell Jr., Bowdoin College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
