Chapter : 1. The Rise Of Nationalism In Europe
The strange case of Britain
(iii) The strange case of Britain :
(1) In Britain the formation of the nation state was not the result of sudden upheaval or revolution. It was the result of a long draw-out process. There was no British nation prior to the 18th century. The primary identities of the people who inhabited the British ideas were ethnic ones-such as English. Welsh, Scot or Irish. All of these ethnic groups had their own cultural and political traditions.
(2) But as the English nation steadily grew in wealth, importance and power, it was able to extend its influence over the other nations of the islands. The English Parliament, which had seized power from the monarchy in 1688 at the end of a protected conflit, was the instrument through which a nation state with England at its centre, came to be forged.
(3) The Act of union (1707) between England and Scotland that resulted in the formation of the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’ meant in effect, that England was able to impose its influence on Scotland. The British Parliament was hence forth dominated by its English members.
(4) Ireland suffered a similar fate. It was a country deeply divided between Catholics and Protestants. The English helped the Protestants of Ireland to impose their dominance over a largely catholic country. Catholic revolts against British dominance were brutally suppressed. After a failed revolt led by Wolte Tone and his United Irishmen (1798). Ireland was forcibly incorporated into the united kingdom in 1801. A new ‘British nation’ was forged through the propagation of dominant English culture.
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