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153-651: West Brit , an abbreviation of West Briton , is a derogatory term for an Irish person who is perceived as Anglophilic in matters of culture or politics. West Britain is a description of Ireland emphasising it as subject to British influence. "West Britain" was used with reference to the Acts of Union 1800 which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . Similarly " North Britain " for Scotland used after
306-529: A British Day to celebrate. One of the central issues identified at the Fabian Society conference was how the English identity fits within the framework of a devolved United Kingdom. An expression of Her Majesty's Government 's initiative to promote Britishness was the inaugural Veterans' Day which was first held on 27 June 2006. As well as celebrating the achievements of armed forces veterans, Brown's speech at
459-417: A Treaty of Union was agreed in 1706 and was then ratified by the parliaments of both countries with the passing of the Acts of Union 1707 . With effect from 1 May 1707, this created a new sovereign state called the " Kingdom of Great Britain ". This kingdom "began as a hostile merger", but led to a "full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the world"; historian Simon Schama stated that "it
612-593: A Welsh nationalist politician active in the late 20th century, rebuffed Britishness as "a political synonym for Englishness which extends English culture over the Scots, Welsh and the Irish". In 2004, Sir Bernard Crick , political theorist and democratic socialist tasked with developing the life in the United Kingdom test said: Britishness, to me, is an overarching political and legal concept: it signifies allegiance to
765-552: A "marked change in attitudes" in Great Britain towards Catholics and Catholicism. A "significant" example of this was the collaboration between Augustus Welby Pugin , an "ardent Roman Catholic" and son of a Frenchman, and Sir Charles Barry , "a confirmed Protestant", in redesigning the Palace of Westminster —"the building that most enshrines ... Britain's national and imperial pre-tensions". Protestantism gave way to imperialism as
918-517: A "particular sense of nationhood and belonging" in Great Britain; Britishness became "superimposed on much older identities", of English , Scots and Welsh cultures, whose distinctiveness still resists notions of a homogenised British identity. Because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by Unionists . Modern Britons are descended mainly from
1071-533: A West Brit label, including being from Dublin (or south Dublin), supporting UK-based football teams, using the phrase " Boxing Day ", or voting for Fine Gael . Castle Catholic was applied more specifically by Republicans to middle-class Catholics assimilated into the pro-British establishment, after Dublin Castle , the main office of the British administration . Sometimes the exaggerated pronunciation spelling Cawtholic
1224-516: A bigoted Gaelic Athletic Association member who waved his hurley around while verbally attacking his pet hates. " Little Englander " had been an equivalent term in British politics since about 1859. An antonym of jackeen , in its modern sense of an urban (and strongly British-influenced) Dubliner, is culchie , referring to an unsophisticated Irish person who resides in the countryside. Briton Modern ethnicities British people or Britons , also known colloquially as Brits , are
1377-650: A boy, but it was the BBC, not RTÉ . I was a West Brit from the start. [...] I'm a kind of child of the Pale . I think I was born to succeed here [in the UK]; I have much more freedom than I had in Ireland". He became a dual citizen of Ireland and the UK and was eventually knighted by Queen Elizabeth II . The Irish Times columnist Donald Clarke noted a number of things that may prompt the application of
1530-632: A combination of disease, Spanish hostility, Scottish mismanagement and opposition to the scheme by the East India Company and the English government (who did not want to provoke the Spanish into war) this imperial venture ended in "catastrophic failure", with an estimated "25% of Scotland's total liquid capital" lost. The events of the Darien Scheme, and the passing by the English Parliament of
1683-455: A constant source of division. Visitors from abroad such as Arthur Young in the late 1770s also deplored the penal laws as being contrary to the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment , and illogical as they were unenforced. In his Tour in Ireland (1780), that was sponsored by many landlords, Young mentioned the laws twice: Talking with Chief Baron Foster , Young commented: In 1773, Kenmare convened
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#17328562181901836-995: A continuing reminder of their defeat in the Williamite War, the Whig historian Lord Macaulay suggested that the Penal-Law regime helps account for the failure of Irish Roman Catholics to heed the Jacobite call when the Scottish army of the Young Pretender marched on London in 1745. Their submission was the effect of "the habit of daily enduring insult and oppression" and of a "brokenness of heart". The systematic discrimination and exclusion from favour kept their "natural chiefs" abroad. There were indeed Irish Roman Catholics of great ability, energy and ambition; but they were to be found every where except in Ireland, at Versailles and at Saint Ilfonso , in
1989-472: A delegation that included both Keogh and Tone. In April, at London's direction Dublin Castle put its weight behind Henry Grattan in the passage of the Catholic Relief Act . Catholics were admitted to the parliamentary franchise on the same limited and idiosyncratic terms as Protestants. They could take degrees on Trinity College, be called as barristers and serve as army officers and, under the terms of
2142-592: A factor in starting the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and the establishment of Confederate Ireland from 1642 with Papal support, that was eventually put down in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649–53. The Act of Settlement 1652 barred Catholics from membership of Parliament and the major landholders had most of their lands confiscated under the Adventurers' Act 1640 . They were also banned from living in towns for
2295-697: A further revolt set the scene for a wholesale Plantation of Ulster by the Lowland Scots and Northern English. From 1607, Catholics were barred from holding public office or serving in the Irish Army . This meant that the Irish Privy Council and the Lords Justice who, along with the Lord Deputy of Ireland , constituted the government of the country, would in future be Anglicans. In 1613, the constituencies of
2448-603: A horse worth £5, and, with the consent of their local Protestant bishop, open their own schools. In February 1791 elections to the Committee from the counties and from the five Dublin parishes brought a dramatic change in its composition. The gentry and bishops were now outnumbered by representatives of those Burke described as the "new race of Catholics": the emergent Catholic mercantile and professional middle class. Stirred by news of revolution and reform in France and dissatisfied with
2601-762: A known democrat. In Dublin Tone was a leading member of the Society of United Irishmen first formed in October 1791 by his Presbyterian ("Dissenter") friends in Belfast, in the midst of the town's enthusiasm for the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and its defence by Thomas Paine . In the 1792 Irish Parliamentary session, further petitions in favour of a Catholic relief bill, introduced at London's behest to secure Catholic loyalty in
2754-698: A lesser degree, on Protestant "Dissenters" . Enacted by the Irish Parliament , they secured the Protestant Ascendancy by further concentrating property and public office in the hands of those who, as communicants of the established Church of Ireland , subscribed to the Oath of Supremacy . The Oath acknowledged the British monarch as the "supreme governor" of matters both spiritual and temporal, and abjured "all foreign jurisdictions [and] powers"—by implication both
2907-555: A little land which we need for ourselves and our families to live on, and they drive us out of it. To whom should we address ourselves?... Emancipation has done nothing for us. Mr. O'Connell and the rich Catholics go to Parliament. We die of starvation just the same. "Emancipation" did not bring the promised relief from Church of Ireland tithes. Fearful of embarrassing his Whig allies (who in government had brutally suppressed tithe and poor law protests in England), in 1838 O'Connell rejected
3060-636: A meeting of prominent Catholics in Dublin, representatives of the surviving Catholic gentry and senior bishops. While pleading for penal laws relief, their Catholic Committee foreswore any intention of overturning the Williamite Settlement . They also demonstrated their loyalty by helping to recruit the soldiers in Ireland to fight for the Crown in the American Colonies in the 1770s and, later, by supporting
3213-495: A minority within the United Kingdom may have passed. In 1808 "friends of emancipation", Henry Grattan among them, proposed that fears of Popery might be allayed if the Crown were accorded the same right exercised by continental monarchs, a veto on the confirmation of Catholic bishops . Yet even when, in 1814, the Curia itself (then in a silent alliance with Britain against Napoleon ) proposed that bishops be "personally acceptable to
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#17328562181903366-577: A modified oath that abjured the temporal, but not the spiritual, authority of the Pope, to purchase land and join the army. A further measure followed in 1782: the Irish Parliament, acknowledging the tolerated practice of the Catholic faith, repealed the laws that compelled Catholic bishops to quit the kingdom, and binding those who had assisted at Mass to identify the celebrant. In addition, Catholics might now own
3519-569: A month, a rate that opened the Association to the poorest tenants. This enabled O'Connell to mount "monster" rallies (crowds of over 100,000) that stayed the hands of authorities, and emboldened larger enfranchised tenants (the forty-shilling freeholders ) to vote for pro-Emancipation candidates in defiance of their landlords. In 1828, O'Connell defeated a member of the British cabinet in a parliamentary by-election in County Clare . His triumph, as
3672-517: A national 'tradition'". The First World War "reinforced the sense of Britishness" and patriotism in the early 20th century. Through war service (including conscription in Great Britain), "the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish fought as British". The aftermath of the war institutionalised British national commemoration through Remembrance Sunday and the Poppy Appeal . The Second World War had
3825-812: A numerical minority, these Britons "exercised a dominant influence" upon the culture and politics of those lands. In Australia, Canada and New Zealand , "people of British origin came to constitute the majority of the population", contributing to these states becoming integral to the Anglosphere . The United Kingdom Census 1861 estimated the size of the overseas British to be around 2.5 million, but concluded that most of these were "not conventional settlers" but rather "travellers, merchants, professionals, and military personnel". By 1890, there were over 1.5 million further UK-born people living in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa . A 2006 publication from
3978-457: A portion of the empire , provided they be made so in reality and not in name alone; they are ready to become a kind of West Britons, if made so in benefits and justice; but if not, we are Irishmen again. Here, O'Connell was hoping that Ireland would soon become as prosperous as " North Britain " had become after 1707, but supposed that if the Union did not deliver this, then some type of Irish home rule
4131-477: A portion of the British Empire , provided they be made so in reality and not in name alone; they are ready to become a kind of West Briton if made so in benefits and justice; but if not, we are Irishmen again. Ireland, from 1801 to 1923 , was marked by a succession of economic and political mismanagement and neglect, which marginalised the Irish, and advanced Irish nationalism . In the forty years that followed
4284-420: A reference to John Bull ) was applied to those who emulated the homes, habits, lifestyle, pastimes, clothes, and opinions of the Protestant Ascendancy . P. W. Joyce 's English As We Speak It in Ireland defines it as "a gentleman in a small way: a would-be gentleman who puts on superior airs." The Irish historian and academic, F. S. L. Lyons , defined a "shoneen" as a person "of native Irish stock who committed
4437-486: A short period. Catholic clergy were expelled from the country and were liable to instant execution when found. Many recusants had to worship in secret at gathering places (such as Mass rocks ) in the countryside. In 1666 forty nine Catholics from hiding places in the woods in county Roscommon signed a letter in support of the Pope and protesting the loss of their 'due liberties'. Seventeen Catholic martyrs from this period were beatified in 1992. Much of this legislation
4590-475: A similar unifying effect upon the British people, however, its outcome was to recondition Britishness on a basis of democratic values and its marked contrast to Europeanism . Notions that the British "constituted an Island race, and that it stood for democracy were reinforced during the war and they were circulated in the country through Winston Churchill 's speeches, history books and newspapers". At its international zenith, "Britishness joined peoples around
4743-418: A table of West-Briton responses to certain words: According to Boyd, "The West Briton is the near Englishman ... an unfriendly caricature, the reductio ad absurdum of the least attractive English characteristics. ... The best that can be said ... is that the species is slowly becoming extinct. ... nationalism has become respectable". The opposite of the "West Briton" Boyd called the "synthetic Gael". After
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4896-633: A united kingdom, the Catholics could be safely relieved of their remaining disabilities and the country pacified. But they were unable overcome opposition in England, including that of the King, George III . Provision for Catholic emancipation was dropped from the Act of Union that Stewart pushed through a resisting Dublin parliament. A separate Irish executive in Dublin was retained, but representation, still wholly Protestant,
5049-624: A voyage of exploration around the British Isles . Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them. Pytheas called the islands collectively αἱ Βρεττανίαι ( hai Brettaniai ), which has been translated as the Brittanic Isles , and the peoples of what are today England , Wales , Scotland and the Isle of Man of Prettanike were called
5202-513: Is known as the Matter of Britain . The Matter of Britain, a national myth , was retold or reinterpreted in works by Gerald of Wales , a Cambro-Norman chronicler who, in the 12th and 13th centuries, used the term "British" to refer to the people later known as the Welsh. The indigenous people of the British Isles have a combination of Celtic , Anglo-Saxon , Norse and Norman ancestry. Between
5355-892: Is pejorative in Irish usage, though used as a value-neutral colloquialism in Great Britain. During the Troubles , among nationalists "the Brits" specifically meant the British Army in Northern Ireland . "West Brit" is used presently by Irish people, chiefly within Ireland, to criticise a variety of perceived faults of other Irish people: Not all people so labelled may actually be characterised by these stereotypical opinions and habits. Public perception and self-identity can vary. During his 2011 presidential campaign, Sinn Féin candidate Martin McGuinness criticised what he termed West Brit elements of
5508-447: Is sometimes contrasted with Little Irelander , a derogatory term for an Irish person who is seen as an extreme nationalist , Anglophobic and xenophobic , while sometimes also practising Traditionalist Catholicism . The term was popularised by Seán Ó Faoláin . On the RTÉ program The Live Mike between 1978 and 1982, sketch comedian Dermot Morgan satirised "Little Irelanders", by playing
5661-688: The Etymologicum Genuinum , a 9th-century lexical encyclopaedia, mention a mythical character Bretannus (the Latinised form of the Ancient Greek : Βρεττανός , Brettanós ) as the father of Celtine , mother of Celtus, the eponymous ancestor of the Celts . By 50 BC, Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles . However, with the Roman conquest of Britain ,
5814-513: The Act of Settlement 1701 asserting the right to choose the order of succession for English, Scottish and Irish thrones, escalated political hostilities between England and Scotland and neutralised calls for a united British people. The Parliament of Scotland responded by passing the Act of Security 1704 , allowing it to appoint a different monarch to succeed to the Scottish crown from that of England if it so wished. The English political perspective
5967-482: The Age of Discovery gave new-found imperial power and wealth to the English and Welsh at the end of the 17th century, Scotland suffered from a long-standing weak economy. In response, the Scottish kingdom, in opposition to William II of Scotland (III of England) , commenced the Darien Scheme , an attempt to establish a Scottish imperial outlet—the colony of New Caledonia—on the isthmus of Panama . However, through
6120-536: The Age of Discovery , the British were one of the earliest and largest communities to emigrate out of Europe , and the British Empire's expansion during the first half of the 19th century triggered an "extraordinary dispersion of the British people", resulting in particular concentrations "in Australasia and North America ". The British Empire was "built on waves of migration overseas by British people", who left
6273-563: The Chartered Institute of Housing , Amnesty International , University of Oxford 's social geographer Danny Dorling , and other public figures. The earliest migrations of Britons date from the 5th and 6th centuries AD, when Brittonic Celts fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasions migrated what is today northern France and north western Spain and forged the colonies of Brittany and Britonia . Brittany remained independent of France until
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6426-638: The Commonwealth of Nations during the mid-20th century. Since the British Nationality Act 1948 and the subsequent mass immigration to the United Kingdom from the Commonwealth and elsewhere in the world, "the expression and experience of cultural life in Britain has become fragmented and reshaped by the influences of gender, ethnicity, class and region". Furthermore, the United Kingdom's membership of
6579-497: The Duke of Wellington , invoking the spectre of civil war, the Catholic Relief Act became law in 1829. Entry to parliament did not come without a price. Bringing the Irish franchise into line with England's, the 1829 Act raised the property threshold for voting in county seats five-fold to ten pounds, disenfranchising the " forty-shilling freeholders " who had risked much in defying their landlords on O'Connell's behalf. The measure reduced
6732-484: The European Economic Community in 1973 eroded the concept of Britishness as distinct from continental Europe . As such, since the 1970s "there has been a sense of crisis about what it has meant to be British", exacerbated by growing demands for greater political autonomy for Northern Ireland , Scotland , and Wales . The late 20th century saw major changes to the politics of the United Kingdom with
6885-410: The Government of Ireland Act 1920 stated: This did not affect the Act of Settlement 1701 , which prohibited those married to Catholics from succeeding to the throne; these were later repealed by the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (between 1920 and 2013 there was no Catholic heir to the throne). As a result of sections 5(2) and 37(1) of the 1920 Act, Catholics once again became eligible to occupy
7038-401: The Holy See recognised the Hanoverian dynasty as legitimate, and so the main political basis for the laws was removed and the slow process of Catholic emancipation began, with the repeal of some of the penal laws by the Catholic Relief Acts of 1771, 1778 and 1793. However, the long drawn-out pace of reform ensured that the question of religious discrimination dominated Irish life and was
7191-434: The House of Commons in opposing Daniel O'Connell 's motion for Repeal of the Union , "I should prefer the name of West Britain to that of Ireland". Rice was derided by Henry Grattan later in the same debate: "He tells us, that he belongs to England, and designates himself as a West Briton." Daniel O'Connell himself used the phrase at a pro-Repeal speech in Dublin in February 1836: The people of Ireland are ready to become
7344-588: The Immigration Act 1971 . Having faced removal, or been deported, many British people of African Caribbean heritage suffered with loss of home, livelihood, and health. As a result of the political scandal, many institutions and elected politicians publicly affirmed that these individuals, while not legally holding British citizenship or nationality, were, in fact, British people. These included British Prime Minister Theresa May , London Mayor Sadiq Khan , Her Majesty's CPS Inspectorate Wendy Williams and her House of Commons -ordered Windrush Lessons Learned Review ,
7497-432: The Institute for Public Policy Research estimated 5.6 million Britons lived outside of the United Kingdom. Outside of the United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories , up to 76% of Australians , 70% of New Zealanders , 48% of Canadians , 33% of Americans , 4% of Chileans and 3% of South Africans have ancestry from the British Isles . Hong Kong has the highest proportion of British nationals outside of
7650-467: The Irish House of Commons were altered to give plantation settlers a majority. In addition, Catholics in all three Kingdoms had to pay 'recusant fines' for non-attendance at Anglican services. Catholic churches were transferred to the Anglican Church of Ireland . Catholic services, however, were generally tacitly tolerated as long as they were conducted in private. Catholic priests were also tolerated, but bishops were forced to operate clandestinely. In 1634
7803-408: The Iron Age , whose descendants formed the major part of the modern Welsh people , Cornish people , Bretons and considerable proportions of English people . It also refers to citizens of the former British Empire , who settled in the country prior to 1973, and hold neither UK citizenship nor nationality. Though early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages , the Union of
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#17328562181907956-506: The Napoleonic Wars with the First French Empire advanced, "the English and Scottish learned to define themselves as similar primarily by virtue of not being French or Catholic". In combination with sea power and empire, the notion of Britishness became more "closely bound up with Protestantism", a cultural commonality through which the English, Scots and Welsh became "fused together, and remain[ed] so, despite their many cultural divergences". The neo-classical monuments that proliferated at
8109-401: The Pope in Rome and the Stuart "Pretender " in the court of the King of France . The laws included the Education Act 1695 , the Banishment Act 1697, the Registration Act 1704 , the Popery Acts 1704 and 1709, and the Disenfranchising Act 1728. Under pressure from the British government, which in its rivalry with France sought Catholic alliances abroad and Catholic loyalty at home,
8262-405: The Windrush scandal illustrated complex developments in British peoplehood, when it was revealed hundreds of Britons had been wrongfully deported. With roots in the break-up of the empire, and post-war rebuilding; the Windrush generation had arrived as CUKC citizens in the 1950s and 1960s. Born in former British colonies , they settled in the UK before 1973, and were granted "right of abode" by
8415-433: The federation of Australia was achieved on 1 January 1901. Its history of British dominance meant that Australia was "grounded in British culture and political traditions that had been transported to the Australian colonies in the nineteenth century and become part of colonial culture and politics". Australia maintains the Westminster system of parliamentary government and Charles III as King of Australia . Until 1987,
8568-424: The import of Scottish products into England and its colonies (about half of Scotland's trade). However, the Act contained a provision that it would be suspended if the Parliament of Scotland entered into negotiations regarding the creation of a unified Parliament of Great Britain , which in turn would refund Scottish financial losses on the Darien Scheme. Despite opposition from within both Scotland and England,
8721-406: The style "King of Great Britain", though this title was rejected by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland and thus had no basis in either English law or Scots law . Despite centuries of military and religious conflict, the Kingdoms of England and Scotland had been "drawing increasingly together" since the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century and the Union of
8874-423: The Πρεττανοί ( Prettanoi ), Priteni , Pritani or Pretani . The group included Ireland , which was referred to as Ierne ( Insula sacra "sacred island" as the Greeks interpreted it) "inhabited by the different race of Hiberni " ( gens hibernorum ), and Britain as insula Albionum , "island of the Albions". The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls , who possibly used it as their term for
9027-433: The "landlords' church" (the established Church of Ireland ) assessed tithes atop the rack rents of Catholics and Dissenters . Following the suppression of the rebellion in the summer of 1798 , British Prime Minister William Pitt and his Chief Secretary for Ireland , Robert Stewart (Lord Castlereagh) moved to incorporate Ireland in a united kingdom with Great Britain . They believed that reduced to minority within
9180-400: The 1603 Union of the Crowns and the Acts of Union 1707 connected it to the Kingdom of England (" South Britain "). In 1800 Thomas Grady, a Limerick unionist , published a collection of light verse named The West Briton , while an anti-union cartoon depicted an official offering bribes and proclaiming "God save the King & his Majesty's subjects of west Britain that is to be!" In 1801
9333-441: The 8th and 11th centuries, "three major cultural divisions" emerged in Great Britain: the English , the Scots and the Welsh . The earlier Brittonic Celtic polities in what are today England and Scotland were absorbed into Anglo-Saxon England and Gaelic Scotland by the early 11th century. The English had been unified under a single nation state in 937 by King Athelstan of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh . Before then,
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#17328562181909486-408: The Anglo-Saxon invasions. However, the term "Britannia" persisted as the Latin name for the island. The Historia Brittonum claimed legendary origins as a prestigious genealogy for Brittonic kings , followed by the Historia Regum Britanniae , which popularised this pseudo-history to support the claims of the Kings of England . During the Middle Ages , and particularly in the Tudor period ,
9639-441: The Catholic electorate in Ireland from 216,000 voters to just 37,000. Perhaps trying to rationalise the sacrifice of his freeholders, O'Connell wrote privately in March 1829 that the new ten-pound franchise might actually "give more power to Catholics by concentrating it in more reliable and less democratically dangerous hands". The Young Irelander John Mitchel believed that this was the intent: to detach propertied Catholics from
9792-426: The Crowns in 1603 and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness and a shared British identity was forged during the 18th century and early 19th century when Britain engaged in several global conflicts with France, and developed further during the Victorian era . The complex history of the formation of the United Kingdom created
9945-415: The Crowns in 1603. A broadly shared language, island, monarch, religion and Bible (the Authorized King James Version ) further contributed to a growing cultural alliance between the two sovereign realms and their peoples. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 resulted in a pair of Acts of the English and Scottish legislatures—the Bill of Rights 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 respectively—that ensured that
10098-414: The English Glorious Revolution in 1688, the decisions of the Catholic-majority Patriot Parliament of 1688–9 in Dublin included a complete repeal of the 1660s land settlements. These were reversed after the largely Roman Catholic Jacobites that sided with King James then lost the Williamite war in Ireland in 1689–91. His opponents William III and Mary II were grandchildren of King Charles I, and so
10251-403: The English (known then in Old English as the Anglecynn ) were under the governance of independent Anglo-Saxon petty kingdoms , which gradually coalesced into a Heptarchy of seven powerful states, the most powerful of which were Mercia and Wessex . Scottish historian and archaeologist Neil Oliver said that the Battle of Brunanburh would "define the shape of Britain into the modern era"; it
10404-434: The Grand Alliance , in which the Holy See supported William III 's alliance against France, and on the news of the Battle of the Boyne a Te Deum was sung in thanksgiving at the Vatican. But from 1693 the Papacy changed its policy and supported James against William, and William's policy also moved from a degree of toleration for Catholics to greater hostility. By then, King James was based in France at Saint Germain , and
10557-508: The Great 's victory against the Vikings performed to Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1740 to commemorate the accession of George I and the birthday of Princess Augusta . " Rule, Britannia! " was the climactic piece of the opera and quickly became a " jingoistic " British patriotic song celebrating "Britain's supremacy offshore". An island country with a series of victories for the Royal Navy associated empire and naval warfare "inextricably with ideals of Britishness and Britain's place in
10710-427: The Latin description of George III on the Great Seal of the Realm was changed from MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ FRANCIÆ ET HIBERNIÆ REX "Of Great Britain, France and Ireland King" to BRITANNIARUM REX "Of the Britains King", ending the claim to the French throne and describing Great Britain and Ireland as "the Britains". Irish unionist MP Thomas Spring Rice (later Lord Monteagle of Brandon) said on 23 April 1834 in
10863-413: The Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, and later Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia (modern day Scotland north of the rivers Forth and Clyde), although the people of Caledonia and the north were also the selfsame Britons during the Roman period, the Gaels not arriving until four centuries later. Following the end of Roman rule in Britain , the island of Great Britain
11016-620: The Nine Years War saw a series of coercive new laws put into force. In 1605 the ' Gunpowder Plot ' was planned by a group of English Catholics, who were disappointed in their hopes that James would relieve laws against Catholics. This provided a further impetus and justification for restrictive laws on Catholics in Ireland, Scotland and England. In 1607 the Flight of the Earls seeking Catholic help in Europe for
11169-568: The Oath of Supremacy might be amended were dashed when, having declared in favour of admitting Catholics to Parliament, Earl William Fitzwilliam was recalled as Viceroy after just 6 months in post. Some former Committee members and convention delegates were content to focus their efforts elsewhere: in June 1795 they helped secure government the establishment of St. Patrick's seminary in Maynooth . Others, despite
11322-655: The Papacy started to support the Jacobites in 1693. A small number of Catholic landlords had sworn this loyalty oath in 1691–3 and their families remained protected. Previous Jacobite garrison surrenders, particularly the agreement at Galway earlier in 1691, specifically provided that the Catholic gentry of counties Galway and Mayo were protected from the property restrictions, though they would be excluded from direct involvement in politics. Articles 2 and 9 required that: 2. ... provided also, that no person whatsoever shall have or enjoy
11475-553: The Scots and the English respectively, with the former gaining some preference in Scotland, particularly by the economists and philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment . Indeed, it was the "Scots [who] played key roles in shaping the contours of British identity"; "their scepticism about the Union allowed the Scots the space and time in which to dominate the construction of Britishness in its early crucial years", drawing upon
11628-580: The Second World War, people from the United Kingdom made up a large majority of people coming to Australia, meaning that many people born in Australia can trace their origins to Britain. The colony of New South Wales , founded on 26 January 1788, was part of the eastern half of Australia claimed by the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1770, and initially settled by Britons through penal transportation . Together with another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies,
11781-580: The UK, the British diaspora totals around 200 million with higher concentrations in the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, with smaller concentrations in the Republic of Ireland, Chile, South Africa, and parts of the Caribbean. The earliest known reference to the inhabitants of Great Britain may have come from 4th century BC records of the voyage of Pytheas , a Greek geographer who made
11934-524: The Union being severed. In this sense, Lord Roberts , Lord Charles Beresford and hundreds of others, of whom all Irishmen ought to be proud, are "West Britons", and thousands who have done nothing for the empire, under the just laws of which they live, who, perhaps, are mere descendants of Cromwell's soldiers , and even of Saxon lineage, with very little Celtic blood in their veins, are of the "Irish best". Ernest Augustus Boyd's 1924 collection Portraits: real and imaginary included "A West Briton", which gave
12087-516: The Union, successive British governments grappled with the problems of governing a country which had as Benjamin Disraeli , a staunch anti-Irish and anti-Catholic member of the Conservative party with a virulent racial and religious prejudice towards Ireland put it in 1844, "a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world". Although
12240-598: The United Kingdom by people from what is now the Republic of Ireland , the Commonwealth , mainland Europe and elsewhere; they and their descendants are mostly British citizens, with some assuming a British, dual or hyphenated identity. This includes the groups Black British and Asian British people , which together constitute around 10% of the British population. The British are a diverse, multinational , multicultural and multilingual people, with "strong regional accents, expressions and identities". The social structure of
12393-440: The United Kingdom has changed radically since the 19th century, with a decline in religious observance, enlargement of the middle class , and increased ethnic diversity , particularly since the 1950s, when citizens of the British Empire were encouraged to immigrate to Britain to work as part of the recovery from World War II. The population of the UK stands at around 67 million, with 50 million being ethnic British. Outside of
12546-756: The United Kingdom and "reached across the globe and permanently affected population structures in three continents". As a result of the British colonisation of the Americas , what became the United States was "easily the greatest single destination of emigrant British", but in Australia the British experienced a birth rate higher than "anything seen before", resulting in the displacement of indigenous Australians . In colonies such as Southern Rhodesia , British East Africa and Cape Colony , permanently resident British communities were established and, whilst never more than
12699-479: The United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories, with 47% of Hong Kong residents holding a British National (Overseas) status or a British citizenship. The next highest concentrations of British citizens outside of the United Kingdom and its Overseas Territories are located in Barbados (10%), the Republic of Ireland (7%), Australia (6%) and New Zealand (5%). From the beginning of Australia's colonial period until after
12852-408: The accompanying Militia Act , most controversially of all, could carry arms. However, these concessions were "permissive rather than obligatory and a newly awakened Protestant Ascendancy chose as often as not to withhold them". Moreover the retention of the Oath of Supremacy which continued to bar Catholics from parliament, from the judicial bench and from the higher offices of state, when all else
13005-578: The appointments of all the Irish Catholic hierarchy , who were drawn from his most fervent supporters. These aspects provided the political basis for the new laws passed for several decades after 1695. Interdicts faced by Catholics and Dissenters under the penal laws were: Historians disagree on how rigorously these laws were enforced. The consensus view is that enforcement depended on the attitudes of local magistrates bringing or hearing particular cases; some of whom were rigorous, others more liberal. As
13158-529: The armies of Frederic and Maria Theresa ,. One in exile became a Marshal of France . Another became Prime Minister of Spain. If he had staid [sic] in his native land, he would have been regarded as inferior by all the ignorant and worthless squireens who had signed the Declaration against Transubstantiation . From 1758, before the death of the Old Pretender, who styled himself James III , ad-hoc groups of
13311-453: The authorities as they suppressed Whiteboy agrarian protest in the 1780s. Assisted by Edmund Burke , who in 1764 had drafted a critical commentary on the penal laws that was widely circulated at Westminster, the pro-government policy appeared to pay dividends. The Irish Act of 1774 allowed any subject of George III "of whatever persuasion to testify their allegiance to him", and the Catholic Relief Act of 1778 allowed Catholics, on taking
13464-735: The authorities, who saw the hand of the United Irishmen. The Viceroy , Lord Westmorland , called on London for additional troops. Moved by parallels with the election to the National Constituent Assembly in France, the democratic exercise also caused alarm in the Catholic hierarchy. At the opening the Convention, assembled in the Tailor's Hall in Back Lane, Dublin, in December 1792, Keogh
13617-506: The benefit of this article, that shall neglect or refuse to take the oath of allegiance, made by act of parliament in England, in the first year of the reign of their present majesties, when thereunto required. 9. The oath to be administered to such Roman Catholics as submit to their majesties' government, shall be the oath abovesaid and no other. At the European level, this war was a part of the War of
13770-638: The call of the Protestant tenant-righter William Sharman Crawford for the complete elimination of the Anglican levy. In its stead, he accepted the Tithe Commutation Act, which offered some reductions and debt forgiveness while incorporating the charge in the rents landlords remained free to set at will. The obligation remained until the disestablishment by the Irish Church Act 1869 . Section 5(2) of
13923-476: The census Bureau has stated that most of these are of Anglo-Celtic colonial stock. All six states of Australia retain the Union Jack in the canton of their respective flags. Penal Laws (Ireland) In Ireland, the penal laws ( Irish : Na Péindlíthe ) were a series of legal disabilities imposed in the seventeenth, and early eighteenth, centuries on the kingdom's Roman Catholic majority and, to
14076-632: The citizens of the United Kingdom , the British Overseas Territories , and the Crown dependencies . British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, by descent from British nationals. When used in a historical context, "British" or "Britons" can refer to the Ancient Britons , the Celtic -speaking inhabitants of Great Britain during
14229-402: The counsel of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset , advocated a union with the Kingdom of Scotland , joining England, Wales and Scotland in a united Protestant Great Britain. The Duke of Somerset supported the unification of the English, Welsh and Scots under the "indifferent old name of Britons" on the basis that their monarchies "both derived from a Pre-Roman British monarchy". Following
14382-529: The death of Elizabeth I of England in 1603, the throne of England was inherited by James VI, King of Scots, so that the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland were united in a personal union under James VI of Scotland and I of England , an event referred to as the Union of the Crowns . King James advocated full political union between England and Scotland, and on 20 October 1604 proclaimed his assumption of
14535-500: The death of the Queen Victoria in 1901. It included virtually all Church of Ireland Protestants and those Catholics who did not measure up to his definition of "Irish Irelanders". In 1907, Canon R. S. Ross-Lewin published a collection of loyal Irish poems using the pseudonym "A County of Clare West Briton", explaining the epithet in the foreword: Now, what is the exact definition and up-to-date meaning of that term? The holder of
14688-457: The dominant component of the British Isles in terms of size, population and power"; Magna Carta , common law and hostility to continental Europe were English factors that influenced British sensibilities. The political union in 1800 of the predominantly Catholic Kingdom of Ireland with Great Britain, coupled with the outbreak of peace with France in the early 19th century, challenged
14841-422: The early 16th century and still retains a distinct Brittonic culture and language, whilst Britonia in modern Galicia was absorbed into Spanish states by the end of the 9th century AD. Britons – people with British citizenship or of British descent – have a significant presence in a number of countries other than the United Kingdom, and in particular in those with historic connections to the British Empire . After
14994-526: The end of the 18th century and the start of the 19th century, such as The Kymin at Monmouth , were attempts to meld the concepts of Britishness with the Greco-Roman empires of classical antiquity . The new and expanding British Empire provided "unprecedented opportunities for upward mobility and the accumulations of wealth", and so the "Scottish, Welsh and Irish populations were prepared to suppress nationalist issues on pragmatic grounds". The British Empire
15147-521: The establishment of devolved national administrations for Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales following pre-legislative referendums . Calls for greater autonomy for the four countries of the United Kingdom had existed since their original union with each other, but gathered pace in the 1960s and 1970s. Devolution has led to "increasingly assertive Scottish, Welsh and Irish national identities", resulting in more diverse cultural expressions of Britishness, or else its outright rejection: Gwynfor Evans ,
15300-562: The first Catholic to be returned in a parliamentary election since 1688, made a clear issue of the Oath of Supremacy —the requirement that MPs acknowledge the King as "Supreme Governor" of the Church and thus forswear the Roman communion. Fearful of the widespread disturbances that might follow from continuing to insist on the letter of the oath, the government finally relented. With the Prime Minister,
15453-416: The first event for the celebration said: Scots and people from the rest of the UK share the purpose that Britain has something to say to the rest of the world about the values of freedom, democracy and the dignity of the people that you stand up for. So at a time when people can talk about football and devolution and money, it is important that we also remember the values that we share in common. In 2018,
15606-405: The impending confrontation with the new French Republic , were met with contempt. In response the Committee organised a country-wide election, open all male communicants in each parish, to a national convention. The Committee's insistence that it did not intend to "disturb" or "weaken" the establishment in Ireland of the Protestant religion or the security of the Protestant crown, did not reassure
15759-447: The increasingly agitated rural masses. In a pattern that had been intensifying from the 1820s as landlords cleared land to meet the growing livestock demand from England, tenants had been banding together to oppose evictions, and to attack tithe and process servers. Alexis De Tocqueville , in his visit to Ireland in 1835, recorded these Whiteboys and Ribbonmen protesting: The law does nothing for us. We must save ourselves. We have
15912-477: The independence of the Irish Free State , "West British" was applied mainly to anglophile Roman Catholics , the small number of Catholic unionists , as Protestants were expected to be naturally unionists . This was not automatic, since there were, and are, also Anglo-Irish Protestants favouring Irish republicanism (see Protestant Irish nationalism ). "Brit" meaning "British person", attested in 1884,
16065-467: The independence of the Catholic clergy was potentially fatal to a strategy of campaign, organised from 1823 in the Catholic Association, that relied on the local priest—in most districts of the country, the sole figure, with standing independent of the Protestant landlords and magistrates—to secure the confidence of the people. Typically, it was local priest collected the "Catholic rent" of a penny
16218-590: The inhabitants of the islands. Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni , the origin of the Latin word Britanni . It has been suggested that this name derives from a Gaulish description translated as "people of the forms", referring to the custom of tattooing or painting their bodies with blue woad made from Isatis tinctoria . Parthenius , an Ancient Greek grammarian, and
16371-454: The issue of the "Graces" arose; generous taxation for Charles I (whose Queen Henrietta Maria was Catholic) was supported by Irish Catholic landlords on the understanding that the laws would be reformed, but once the tax was passed, Charles' viceroy refused two of the 51 Graces, and subsequent bills were blocked by the Catholic majority in the Irish House of Lords . Catholic resentment was
16524-464: The king", the emergent leader of the popular campaign for emancipation in Ireland, Daniel O'Connell , was unyielding in his opposition. Refusing any instruction from Rome as to "the manner of their emancipation", O'Connell declared that Irish Catholics should be content to "remain for ever without emancipation" rather than allow the king and his ministers "to interfere" with the Pope's appointment of their senior clergy. For O'Connell any compromising of
16677-457: The lack of progress since 1782, they demanded an immediate repeal of the remaining penal laws. This caused a split in the Committee with Kenmare leading a withdrawal of the more cautious gentry and bishops. Under the chairmanship of the Dublin merchant, John Keogh , the Committee signalled a new departure by dismissing Edmund Burke 's son, Richard Burke , as assistant secretary and replacing him with Theobald Wolfe Tone , another Protestant but
16830-697: The laws were repealed through a series of relief acts beginning in 1771. The last significant disability, the requirement that Members of Parliament take the Oath of Supremacy, was removed in 1829, after Ireland had been incorporated by the 1800 Acts of Union into a United Kingdom with Great Britain . The Government of Ireland Act 1920 (coming into force during the Irish War of Independence ) contained an all-purpose provision in section 5 removing any remaining sacramental tests technically still in existence. The penal laws were, according to Edmund Burke , "a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for
16983-491: The laws, government and broad moral and political concepts—like tolerance and freedom of expression—that hold the United Kingdom together. Gordon Brown initiated a debate on British identity in 2006. Brown's speech to the Fabian Society 's Britishness Conference proposed that British values demand a new constitutional settlement and symbols to represent a modern patriotism, including a new youth community service scheme and
17136-489: The leading element of British national identity during the Victorian and Edwardian eras , and as such, a series of royal, imperial and national celebrations were introduced to the British people to assert imperial British culture and give themselves a sense of uniqueness, superiority and national consciousness. Empire Day and jubilees of Queen Victoria were introduced to the British middle class , but quickly "merged into
17289-483: The lineal descendants of the ancient Britons – a word that was still used to refer exclusively to the Welsh". For the English, however, by the Victorian era their enthusiastic adoption of Britishness had meant that, for them, Britishness "meant the same as 'Englishness'", so much so that "Englishness and Britishness" and "'England' and 'Britain' were used interchangeably in a variety of contexts". England has "always been
17442-551: The lives of legendary kings of the Britons in a narrative spanning 2000 years, beginning with the Trojans founding the ancient British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 7th century forced the Britons to the west, i.e. Wales and Cornwall , and north, i.e. Cumbria , Strathclyde and northern Scotland. This legendary Celtic history of Great Britain
17595-453: The media, who he said were out to undermine his attempt to win the election. He later said it was an "off-the-cuff remark" but did not define for the electorate what (or who) he had meant by the term. Irish TV and radio presenter Terry Wogan , who spent most of his career working for the BBC in Britain, described himself as a West Brit: "I'm an effete, urban Irishman. I was an avid radio listener as
17748-683: The more liberal Protestants that they presented no political threat, and that reforms must follow. Events abroad in the 1760s, such as the outcome of the Seven Years' War , the death of the Old Pretender (1766), the emerging " Age of Enlightenment ", and the Suppression of the Society of Jesus by Europe's Catholic monarchs, all seemed to confirm their position. On the death of the Old Pretender in January 1766,
17901-570: The national status of Australian citizens was formally described as "British Subject: Citizen of Australia". Britons continue to make up a substantial proportion of immigrants. By 1947, Australia was fundamentally British in origin with 7,524,129 or 99.3% of the population declaring themselves as European. In the 2016 census , a large proportion of Australians self-identified with British ancestral origins, including 36.1% or 7,852,224 as English and 9.3% (2,023,474) as Scottish alone. A substantial proportion —33.5%— chose to identify as 'Australian',
18054-476: The north, the demonym "Briton" became restricted to the Brittonic-speaking inhabitants of what would later be called Wales , Cornwall , North West England ( Cumbria ), and a southern part of Scotland ( Strathclyde ). In addition, the term was also applied to Brittany in what is today France and Britonia in north west Spain , both regions having been colonised in the 5th century by Britons fleeing
18207-478: The notion of a shared "spirit of liberty common to both Saxon and Celt ... against the usurpation of the Church of Rome". James Thomson was a poet and playwright born to a Church of Scotland minister in the Scottish Lowlands in 1700 who was interested in forging a common British culture and national identity in this way. In collaboration with Thomas Arne , they wrote Alfred , an opera about Alfred
18360-473: The office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , the British monarch's representative in Ireland. Within months of the enactment of this legislation, Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent became in April 1921 the first Catholic Lord Lieutenant of Ireland since the penal laws forbade such appointments in 1685. Because of the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the altered constitutional relationship between Ireland and
18513-500: The oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." Burke long counselled kinder relations by London with its American and Irish cousins, fearing that the punitive spirit fostered by the British was destroying English character, and would spur violent revolt. Initially, the dual monarchs of England and Ireland were cautious about applying penal laws to Ireland because they needed
18666-694: The previous century's concept of militant Protestant Britishness. The new, expanded United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland meant that the state had to re-evaluate its position on the civil rights of Catholics, and extend its definition of Britishness to the Irish people . Like the terms that had been invented at the time of the Acts of Union 1707, " West Briton " was introduced for the Irish after 1800. In 1832 Daniel O'Connell , an Irish politician who campaigned for Catholic Emancipation , stated in Britain's House of Commons : The people of Ireland are ready to become
18819-548: The religious, political and economic activities of Catholics and Protestant Dissenters . Harsher laws were introduced for political reasons during the long War of the Spanish Succession that ended in 1714. James Stuart, the son of James II, the " Old Pretender ", was recognised by the Holy See as the legitimate King of Great Britain and Ireland until his death in 1766, and Catholics were obliged to support him. He also approved
18972-557: The remaining Catholic nobility and merchants worked towards repeal of the penal laws and an accommodation within the Hanoverian system. These were based locally on county lines. An earlier attempt in 1727 had met with strong opposition from the Jacobite movement, which resisted any negotiations with the Hanoverians, being usurpers. By 1760 eminent Catholics such as Lord Trimlestown , Lord Kenmare and Charles O'Conor of Belanagare persuaded
19125-422: The rise of the British Empire led to a very specific drive in artistic technique, taste and sensibility for Britishness. In 1887, Frederic Harrison wrote: Morally, we Britons plant the British flag on every peak and pass; and wherever the Union Jack floats there we place the cardinal British institutions—tea, tubs, sanitary appliances, lawn tennis, and churches. The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 reflected
19278-399: The same time hate the mere Saxon, and revel in the oft resuscitated pictures of long past periods, and the horrors of the penal laws he is a mere "West Briton", his Irish blood, his Irish sympathies go for nothing. He misses the chief qualifications to the ranks of the "Irish best", if he remains an imperialist, and sees no prospect of peace or happiness or return of prosperity in the event of
19431-440: The second: and their majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit them to summon a parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics such farther security in that particular, as may preserve them from any disturbance upon the account of their said religion. The quid pro quo to attain these privileges involved swearing an oath of loyalty to William and Mary. Many Catholics found this oath repugnant when
19584-443: The shared constitutional monarchy of England and Scotland was held only by Protestants. Despite this, although popular with the monarchy and much of the aristocracy, attempts to unite the two states by Acts of Parliament were unsuccessful in 1606, 1667 and 1689; increased political management of Scottish affairs from England had led to "criticism" and had strained Anglo-Scottish relations. While English maritime explorations during
19737-515: The support of the Catholic upper classes to put down the Gaelic Irish rebellion in the Nine Years War (1594–1603). In addition, a significant section of the Catholic aristocracy was composed of Old English , who had traditionally been loyal to English rule in Ireland. However, the ascent of James VI of Scotland to both the English and Irish thrones as James I in 1603 and the eventual victory in
19890-579: The term "British" was used to refer to the Welsh people and Cornish people . At that time, it was "the long held belief that these were the remaining descendants of the Britons and that they spoke ' the British tongue ' ". This notion was supported by texts such as the Historia Regum Britanniae , a pseudohistorical account of ancient British history, written in the mid-12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth . The Historia Regum Britanniae chronicled
20043-404: The threat of excommunication by their bishops, leaned toward the United Irishmen who, despairing of representative parliamentary reform, now moved to draw the agrarian Catholic Defenders with them toward a French-assisted republican insurrection. In calling people to arms, the United Irishmen promised complete civil and religious equality, and with this the abolition of the hated system whereby
20196-511: The title may be descended from O'Connors and O'Donelans and ancient Irish Kings . He may have the greatest love for his native land, desirous to learn the Irish language, and under certain conditions to join the Gaelic League . He may be all this, and rejoice in the victory of an Irish horse in the " Grand National ", or an Irish dog at " Waterloo ", or an Irish tug-of-war team of R.I.C. giants at Glasgow or Liverpool, but, if he does not at
20349-526: The unforgivable sin of aping English or West-Briton manners and attitudes". Similar to shoneen , another variant since c. 1840, jackeen ('Little Jack'), was used in the countryside in reference to Dubliners with British sympathies; it is a pun, substituting the nickname Jack for John , as a reference to the Union Jack , the British flag. During the 20th century, jackeen took on the more generalized meaning of "a self-assertive worthless fellow". The term
20502-523: The varied ethnic groups that settled in Great Britain in and before the 11th century: Prehistoric , Brittonic, Roman , Anglo-Saxon , Norse , and Normans . The progressive political unification of the British Isles facilitated migration, cultural and linguistic exchange, and intermarriage between the peoples of England, Scotland and Wales during the late Middle Ages, early modern period and beyond. Since 1922 and earlier, there has been immigration to
20655-510: The vast majority of Unionists in Ireland proclaimed themselves "simultaneously Irish and British", even for them there was a strain upon the adoption of Britishness after the Great Famine . War continued to be a unifying factor for the people of Great Britain: British jingoism re-emerged during the Boer Wars in southern Africa . The experience of military, political and economic power from
20808-573: The war against the French, and of several spectacular victories, the spear was replaced by a trident... The navy had come to be seen...as the very bulwark of British liberty and the essence of what it was to be British. From the Union of 1707 through to the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Great Britain was "involved in successive, very dangerous wars with Catholic France", but which "all brought enough military and naval victories ... to flatter British pride". As
20961-451: The war ultimately decided whether Catholic or Protestant Stuarts would reign. The war ended with the Treaty of Limerick agreed by Sarsfield and Ginkel in October 1691. This provided in article 1 that: The Roman Catholics of this kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as are consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the reign of king Charles
21114-409: The world in shared traditions and common loyalties that were strenuously maintained". But following the two world wars, the British Empire experienced rapid decolonisation . The secession of the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom meant that Britishness had lost "its Irish dimension" in 1922, and the shrinking empire supplanted by independence movements dwindled the appeal of British identity in
21267-459: The world". Britannia , the new national personification of Great Britain, was established in the 1750s as a representation of "nation and empire rather than any single national hero". On Britannia and British identity, historian Peter Borsay wrote: Up until 1797 Britannia was conventionally depicted holding a spear, but as a consequence of the increasingly prominent role of the Royal Navy in
21420-429: Was "crucial to the idea of a British identity and to the self-image of Britishness". Indeed, the Scottish welcomed Britishness during the 19th century "for it offered a context within which they could hold on to their own identity whilst participating in, and benefiting from, the expansion of the [British] Empire". Similarly, the "new emphasis of Britishness was broadly welcomed by the Welsh who considered themselves to be
21573-470: Was "responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood" in the 13th century. Schama hypothesised that Scottish national identity , "a complex amalgam" of Gaelic , Brittonic , Pictish , Norsemen and Anglo-Norman origins, was not finally forged until the Wars of Scottish Independence against the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Though Wales
21726-404: Was a "showdown for two very different ethnic identities – a Norse Celtic alliance versus Anglo Saxon. It aimed to settle once and for all whether Britain would be controlled by a single imperial power or remain several separate independent kingdoms, a split in perceptions which is still very much with us today". However, historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward I of England who solely
21879-516: Was careful to place two prelates seated on either side of the chairmen. But the petition, as finally approved and signed by the delegates, was presented to the bishops as a fait accompli , with no implication that their sanction was sought or obtained. Appealing over the heads of the Dublin Parliament and Castle administration, in January 1793 this petition was presented to the King, George III , who, persuaded by his ministers, gave audience to
22032-557: Was conceded, seemed petty, and was "interpreted by the newly politicised Catholic populace as final proof that the existing government was their natural enemy" France declared war on Britain and Ireland in February 1793, and while the British government could rely on the revulsion within Catholic hierarchy against the aggressive anti-clericalism of the French Republic , it saw no need to hazard further reform. In February 1795, hopes that
22185-597: Was conquered by England, and its legal system replaced by that of the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 , the Welsh endured as a nation distinct from the English ; and to some degree the Cornish people , although conquered into England by the 11th century, also retained a distinct Brittonic identity and language. Later, with both an English Reformation and a Scottish Reformation , Edward VI of England , under
22338-442: Was essential. The Dublin administration as performed during the 1830s was intermediate between these two possibilities. The term "West Briton" became used next pejoratively during the land struggle of the 1880s. D. P. Moran , who founded the publication The Leader in 1900, used the term frequently to describe those who he did not consider sufficiently Irish. It was synonymous with those he described as "Sourfaces", who had mourned
22491-570: Was left open to invasion by pagan , seafaring warriors such as Germanic -speaking Anglo-Saxons and Jutes from Continental Europe , who gained control in areas around the south east, and to Middle Irish -speaking people migrating from the north of Ireland to the north of Great Britain, founding Gaelic kingdoms such as Dál Riata and Alba , which would eventually subsume the native Brittonic and Pictish kingdoms and become Scotland. In this sub-Roman Britain , as Anglo-Saxon culture spread across southern and eastern Britain and Gaelic through much of
22644-427: Was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history". After 1707, a British national identity began to develop, though it was initially resisted, particularly by the English. The peoples of Great Britain had by the 1750s begun to assume a "layered identity": to think of themselves as simultaneously British and also Scottish, English, or Welsh. The terms North Briton and South Briton were devised for
22797-612: Was rescinded after the Restoration in Ireland by Charles II (1660–1685), under the Declaration of Breda in 1660, in terms of worship and property-owning, but also the first Test Act became law from 1673. Louis XIV of France increased Protestant paranoia in Europe when he expelled the Huguenots from France in 1685, and took his policy from the hard-line Bishop Bossuet . Following the flight from England to Ireland by James II caused by
22950-413: Was supported politically and financially by Louis XIV, the long-standing enemy of William and Mary. Religion eventually became an issue in defining a notable family's loyalty to the crown. With the defeat of Catholic attempts to regain power and lands in Ireland, a ruling class which became known later as the Protestant Ascendancy sought to ensure dominance with the passing of a number of laws to restrict
23103-437: Was that the appointment of a Jacobite monarchy in Scotland opened up the possibility of a Franco-Scottish military conquest of England during the Second Hundred Years' War and War of the Spanish Succession . The Parliament of England passed the Alien Act 1705 , which provided that Scottish nationals in England were to be treated as aliens and estates held by Scots would be treated as alien property, whilst also restricting
23256-423: Was transferred to Westminster constituted as the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . It took the Union thirty years to deliver on the promise of completing Catholic emancipation —to admit Catholics to Parliament—and permit an erosion of the Protestant monopoly on position and influence. An opportunity to integrate Catholics through their re-emerging propertied and professional classes as
23409-531: Was used to suggest an accent imitative of British Received Pronunciation . These identified Catholic unionists whose involvement with the British system was the purpose of O'Connell's Emancipation Act of 1829. Having and exercising their new legal rights according to the Act, Castle Catholics were then rather illogically being criticised by other Catholics for exercising them to the full. The old-fashioned word shoneen (from Irish : Seoinín , diminutive of Seán , thus literally 'Little John', and apparently
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