Completing the Union : the politics of implementation in Ireland, 1801-1815

Abstract

The Act of Union came into operation on 1 January 1801. Its implementation took years to effect. By examining the administrations of the three viceroys immediately concerned with implementing the union, Hardwicke, Bedford, and Richmond, this thesis provides a new interpretation of how Ireland was governed in the critical early years of the nineteenth century. The union had been intended to resolve the confusions in the Anglo- Irish relationship: instead it created some new ones. Much thought had gone into how the union would be passed; very little thought had gone into what would happen afterwards.