N.C. Fleming Cardiff University, UK, Alan O’Day Greyfriars Hall, University of Oxford, UK

• Contents: Introduction, Chronology of Events; Part 1 The Beginnings of the Union: Popular politics in Ireland and the Act of Union, James Kelly; National festivals, the state and 'Protestant ascendancy' in Ireland, 1790-1829, Jacqueline R. Hill; 'How did they pass the Union?' Secret Service expenditure in Ireland, 1799-1804, David Wilkinson. Part II The Catholic Question and Emancipation: Visualizing the liberator: self-fashioning, dramaturgy, and the construction of Daniel O'Connell, Gary Owens; Daniel O'Connell and European Catholic thought, Geraldine Grogan; The Catholic question and the monarchy, 1827-1829, G.I.T. Machin. Part III The Age of O'Connell in the 1830s and 1840s, Repeal: Daniel O'Connell, democrat, liberal Catholic and husband, Maurice R. O'Connell; 'A nation once again': Thomas Osborne Davis and the construction of the Irish 'popular' tradition, Guilio Giorello. Part IV The Great Famine: 'Shovelling out your paupers': the British state and Irish famine migration, 1846-50, Peter Gray; On landlord-assisted emigration from some Irish estates in the 1840s, Desmond Norton. Part V Politics in the 1850s and 60s: 'God save Ireland': Manchester-martyr demonstrations in Dublin, 1867-1916, Owen McGee; The Fenian infiltration of the British army, A.J. Semple. Part VI Isaac Butt and the Rise of Home Rule: Isaac Butt and Irish nationality, Alan O'Day; Cardinal Cullen and Irish nationality, E.D. Steele; The Irish dimension of the British kulturkampf: Vaticanism and civil allegiance, 1870-1875, Hilary Jenkins. Part VII Demography and Social Conditions: The impact of the blight upon the pre-Famine rural economy in Ireland, Patrick McGregor; Harvest fluctuations in pre-Famine Ireland: evidence from Belfast and Waterford newspapers, Peter M. Solar; The decline and fall of Donnybrook Fair: moral reform and social control in 19th-century Dublin, Fergus A. D'Arcy; Perceptions of agricultural labourers after the Great Famine, 1850-1870, Pádraig G. Lane. Par