Belfast Politics

Rev. William Bruce (1757-1841) And Henry Joy (1754-1835) were leading cultural and political figures in late eighteenth-century Belfast, prominent in the Irish Volunteer movement and with many links to the British parliamentary reform cause. While retaining their commitment to substantial Parliamentary reform, Bruce and Joy eventually joined the Belfast yeomanry corps before the outbreak of the 1798 rebellion to resist domestic insurrection and foreign invasion and subsequently also became supporters of the Act of Union. John Bew is completing a PhD in history at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

"University College Dublin Press has now published over thirty 'Classics of Irish History'. These contemporary accounts by well known personalities of historical events and attitudes have an immediacy that conventional histories do not have. Introductions by modern historians provide additional historical background and, with hindsight, objectivity." Books Ireland Nov 2007 "In recuperating the work for the 'Classics of Irish History' series published by University College Dublin Press, John Bew has provided a valuable snapshot of a current in Northern political thinking in the years before the 1798 Rising that developed into the pro-Union position dominant among the Northern majority in the nineteenth century." Robert Mahony, Catholic University of America, Washington DC Irish Studies Review 13 (4) 2005 "Scholars of nineteenth-century Irish and Irish-American politics should reacquaint themselves with these classics, part of a long running and immensely useful series from University College Dublin Press." Irish Literary Supplement Fall 2008

• Introduction by John Bew; Preface by William Bruce and Henry Joy; Thoughts on the British Constitution I-XX; Editor's notes