Divided Treasons and Divided Loyalties: Roger Casement and Others: Read at the Society's conference 11 September 1981

1982 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 153-174
Author(s):  
Owen Dudley Edwards

The problem of treason in the first half of the twentieth century is at its most acute for the historian of Britain in contemplating the Irish dimension. Treason against the realm up to 1922 meant treason against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The dissolution of that Union, and the subsequent progress of twenty-six of the Irish counties to the status of a Republic in 1949, has built up a retrospective assumption on both sides of the Irish sea that such dissolution was inevitable. The British Tory and the Irish nationalist, similar in many cultural attitudes, agree on this point: the perpetual irreconcilability of the two countries and the inevitability of their disunion absolves the Tory from anxiety that the causes of Irish separation may have lain in British failure, and that they have comparative significance for possible future English divergence from Wales and Scotland; while the Irish nationalist separatist, the child of the Easter Week Rising of 1916, insists that Ireland never accepted British rule, and that the insurgent handful who took up arms in 1916 were acting on behalf of a people who secretly had been demanding such separation since the Norman invasion of 1169 and would continue so to do until the end of time.

2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Belchem

As imperial pride flourished in the racial discourse of late Victorian British politics, ethnic revival and Celtic nationalism also gained purchase and resonance. These complex and seemingly competing issues of identity extended beyond the “four nations” of the United Kingdom to the Isle of Man, a crown dependency constitutionally outside the United Kingdom but at the very center of the British Isles. In this “land of home rule,” adrift in the Irish Sea, the juxtaposition of Britishness and Celticism was particularly acute, compounded by the proud persistence of Norse traditions. Manx independence within the Atlantic archipelago was symbolized by the annual Tynwald Day ceremony, a Viking “Thing” or general meeting, at which the year's new legislation was promulgated in both English and Manx Gaelic. In the late Victorian period, as Anglo-Manx business syndicates invested heavily in the “visiting industry,” transforming the island into “one large playground for the operatives of Lancashire and Yorkshire,” gentlemanly antiquarians constructed (and/or invented) the necessary traditions to safeguard Manx cultural distinctiveness and its devolved political status. Through the assertion of Celticism, a project that tended to downgrade Norse contributions to the island's past, the little Manx nation girded itself against cultural anglicization, yet remained unquestionably loyal to the British empire.Slightly other than English, the Manx have displayed what Sir Frank Kermode has described as “mild alienation” and “qualified foreignness,” characteristics that need to be considered in the wider debate about British identity.


Author(s):  
Robert Holland

This chapter examines the history of Great Britain, the British Commonwealth, and the end of the British Empire in the twentieth century, suggesting that the twentieth century ended in Britain as it began, with the constitutional structure of the United Kingdom a contested and vital subject of public discourse. It concludes that the transitions that characterised the Empire-Commonwealth over the twentieth century were ultimately constrained within the due process of British constitutionalism.


2003 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 611-619 ◽  
Author(s):  
MALCOLM J. C. FORSTER

On 3 December 2001, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued an Order in response to Ireland's request for the prescription of provisional measures in accordance with Article 290 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In its request, Ireland alleged violation by the United Kingdom of numerous provisions of UNCLOS. The scope of provisional measures requested by Ireland included, among others, the immediate suspension by the United Kingdom of the authorization of the Sellafield Mox Plant and a guarantee of no movement of radioactive substances or materials or wastes that are in any way related to the plant into or out of the waters of the Irish Sea. This article reviews the background to the dispute between Ireland and the United Kingdom over the operation of the Sellafield Mox Plant. It focuses on the various jurisdictional challenges raised before ITLOS and critically assesses the conclusions reached by the Tribunal in its Order.


2021 ◽  
pp. 169-204
Author(s):  
Michael Ledger-Lomas

This chapter assesses Victoria’s efforts to cope with the religious diversity of the United Kingdom. Although Victoria’s admiration for the Church of Scotland, which was centred on the Highlands and a small circle of eloquent preachers, made her a biased participant in disputes over its established status, impressions of Victoria’s Presbyterian sympathies sank deep in Scotland and around the Empire. Victoria had hoped to commend herself to the Irish as she had to the Scots, by paying respect to their different kind of national faith, but the chapter shows that her estrangement from Irish Roman Catholics mounted with her reluctance to cross the Irish Sea. Though increasingly appreciative of Roman Catholicism as she encountered it during travel or in the lives of friends and relatives, and friendly towards popes, who she hoped might bring the Irish hierarchy to heel, Victoria could not translate these affinities into a constructive relationship with Catholic Ireland.


Public Law ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 159-194
Author(s):  
Andrew Le Sueur ◽  
Maurice Sunkin ◽  
Jo Eric Khushal Murkens

This chapter examines multilevel governing within the UK. It is organized around three levels of governing: national, regional, and local. For most of the twentieth century, Great Britain (England, Wales, and Scotland) formed a centralized political unit, with policymaking and law-making being led by the UK government and the UK Parliament. There was devolved government in Northern Ireland from 1922, but this was brought to an end by the UK government in 1972 amid mounting civil unrest and paramilitary violence. At the local level, there are more than 400 local authorities throughout the United Kingdom. These vary considerably in size, both in terms of their territorial area that they cover and their populations.


2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 701-718
Author(s):  
Gino Naldi

Abstract The long-standing dispute between Spain and the United Kingdom over the British overseas territory of Gibraltar was characterized in 2012 by repeated Spanish incursions into Gibraltar’s territorial sea. Spain claims these waters as Spanish historic waters that were never ceded to Great Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht 1713, and therefore insists that Gibraltar has no territorial sea. The United Kingdom maintains that Gibraltar’s entitlement to a territorial sea is in keeping with international law. Although the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht are open to interpretation, the Spanish position does not appear to be compatible with the law of the sea.


Author(s):  
Brigid Hadfield

This chapter examines the changes in the conception of the United Kingdom as a territorial state. It discusses the two major territorial questions relevant to the United Kingdom: the question concerning Ireland and Northern Ireland; and the relationships between the component parts of the United Kingdom, specifically Great Britain. The chapter explains the key aspects of the evolution of the twentieth-century constitution of the United Kingdom.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-151
Author(s):  
Andrea Circolo ◽  
Ondrej Hamuľák

Abstract The paper focuses on the very topical issue of conclusion of the membership of the State, namely the United Kingdom, in European integration structures. The ques­tion of termination of membership in European Communities and European Union has not been tackled for a long time in the sources of European law. With the adop­tion of the Treaty of Lisbon (2009), the institute of 'unilateral' withdrawal was intro­duced. It´s worth to say that exit clause was intended as symbolic in its nature, in fact underlining the status of Member States as sovereign entities. That is why this institute is very general and the legal regulation of the exercise of withdrawal contains many gaps. One of them is a question of absolute or relative nature of exiting from integration structures. Today’s “exit clause” (Art. 50 of Treaty on European Union) regulates only the termination of membership in the European Union and is silent on the impact of such a step on membership in the European Atomic Energy Community. The presented paper offers an analysis of different variations of the interpretation and solution of the problem. It´s based on the independent solution thesis and therefore rejects an automa­tism approach. The paper and topic is important and original especially because in the multitude of scholarly writings devoted to Brexit questions, vast majority of them deals with institutional questions, the interpretation of Art. 50 of Treaty on European Union; the constitutional matters at national UK level; future relation between EU and UK and political bargaining behind such as all that. The question of impact on withdrawal on Euratom membership is somehow underrepresented. Present paper attempts to fill this gap and accelerate the scholarly debate on this matter globally, because all consequences of Brexit already have and will definitely give rise to more world-wide effects.


Author(s):  
Mykola Trofymenko

Public diplomacy of Great Britain is one of the most developed in the EU and in the world. The United Kingdom has developed an extremely efficient public diplomacy mechanism which includes BBC World Service (which due to its popularity boosts the reputation and the image of Great Britain), Chevening Scholarships (provides outstanding foreign students with opportunity to study in Great Britain and thus establishes long-lasting relations with public opinion leaders and foreign countries elite) and the British Council, which deals with international diplomatic ties in the field of culture. The British Council is a unique organization. Being technically independent, it actively and efficiently works on consolidating Great Britain’s interests in the world and contributes to the development of public diplomacy in Great Britain.   The author studies the efforts of the British Council as a unique public diplomacy tool of the United Kingdom. Special attention is paid to the role of British Council, which is independent of the governing board and at the same time finds itself under the influence of the latter due to the peculiarities of the appointment of Board’s officials, financing etc. The author concludes that the British Council is a unique organization established in 1934, which is a non-departmental state body, charitable organization and public corporation, technically independent of the government. The British Council, thanks to its commercial activities covers the lack of public funding caused by the policy of economy conducted by the government. It has good practices in this field worth paying attention by other countries. It is also worth mentioning that the increment in profit was getting higher last year, however the issue of increasing the influence of the government on the activities of British Council is still disputable. Although the Foreign Minister officially reports to the parliament on the activities of the British Council, approves the appointment of the leaders of organizations, the British Council preserves its independence of the government, which makes it more popular abroad, and makes positive influence on the world image of Great Britain. The efficiency of the British Council efforts on fulfillment of targets of the United Kingdom public diplomacy is unquestionable, no matter how it calls its activities: whether it is a cultural relations establishment or a cultural diplomacy implementation. Keywords: The British Council, public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, cultural relations, Foreign Office, Her Majesty’s Government, official assistance for development


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