ABSTRACT
The Act of Union closed the Irish Parliament in Dublin and was therefore routinely denounced by all manner of Irish nationalists. But oddly it was this Act which actually made a genuine Irish nationalist politics possible, by transferring Irish issues from the relative margin of Dublin to the main focus point of British political life: Westminster. It is perhaps an additional irony that the manner of the passing of the Act also provided Irish politicians with a readymade cause, namely Catholic Emancipation.
