ABSTRACT
The most striking features of the popular political response in Ireland to the attempts between mid-1798 and mid-1800 to bring about the legislative union of Britain and Ireland are its comparative uneventfulness and traditional character. On first encounter, this observation may appear provocative since it is still commonly perceived, the work of G. C. Bolton notwithstanding, that the Act of Union was imposed upon a reluctant parliament and an antipathetic people. The credibility of the whig-patriots was weakened by the withdrawal from the House of Commons in 1797 of a number of their most eminent voices, as well as by revelations of their contacts with leading United Irishmen. The Act of Union was carried because Dublin Castle had the numbers to ensure it victory in all the divisions that mattered. Its opponents were still capable of generating an impressive display of opposition as their petitioning campaign in the spring of 1800 attests, but they could no longer summon up public emotion.
