ABSTRACT
Ireland may have been the last of the non-English parts of the United Kingdom to become constitutionally united with the other nations in the British Isles when the Irish House of Commons voted by a majority of 46 for the Act of Union in 1800, but it was also the first to struggle for the modification or overthrow of this status, whether by the limited mechanism of Home Rule or the unlimited mechanism of national independence. The reasons for this apparent paradox are very evident and were clearly exposed during the course of Irish history.
