ABSTRACT
Horace Curzon Plunkett (1854-1932) is generally cited as the leading Irish proponent of constructive unionism, indeed, one of its formulators. Founder of the co-operative movement, committee member of the Congested Districts Board, promoter and first president of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction and one of the formative influences on the United Irishwomen, he was undoubtedly a force for change in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Irish society. But to what extent did he have, as his nationalist opponents averred, an underlying political agenda; that is, to win the Irish people for the Union? This chapter will examine the evolution of Plunkett’s political thought in relation to the Union, focusing mainly on the years 1889 to 1914.
