Northern Ireland Representation at Westminster: Constitutional Conundrums and Political Manoeuvres

This article focuses on the issue of Northern Ireland's representation at Westminster. It investigates the political context of the decision to increase Northern Ireland's representation in the house of commons at Westminster from 12 members to 17 in 1978-9. Exploring this episode in more detail, it is argued, provides a more informed overall understanding of the history of devolution in the UK and of the way issues concerning Northern Ireland often overlapped with questions of constitutional change in Scotland and Wales. The article also throws light on the matter of Northern Ireland MPs and their voting rights at Westminster during Northern Ireland's experience of devolution prior to 1972.

The Abbey Rebels of 1916: A Lost Revolution

The Abbey Theatre played a leading role in the politicisation of the revolutionary generation that won Irish freedom, but comparatively little is known about the men and women who formed the lifeblood of the institution: those whose radical politics drove them to fight in the 1916 Rising.

Drawing on a huge range of previously unpublished material, The Abbey Rebels of Easter 1916 explores the experiences, hopes and dreams of these remarkable but largely forgotten individuals: Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, the Abbey’s first leading lady; Peadar Kearney, author of the national anthem; feminist Helena Molony, the first female political prisoner of her generation; Seán Connolly, the first rebel to die in the Rising; carpenter Barney Murphy; usherette Ellen Bushell; and Hollywood star Arthur Shields.

Invigorating and provocative, this is the story of how, in the years following the Easter Rising, the radical ideals that inspired their revolution were gradually supplanted by a conservative vision of the nation Ireland would become. Lavishly illustrated with 200 documents and images, it provides a fresh and compelling account of the Rising and its aftermath.

Reforming the Westminster Model of Agency Governance: Britain and Ireland after the Crisis

Conventional understandings of what the Westminster model implies anticipate reliance on a top-down, hierarchical approach to budgetary accountability, reinforced by a post–New Public Management emphasis on recentralizing administrative capacity. This article, based on a comparative analysis of the experiences of Britain and Ireland, argues that the Westminster model of bureaucratic control and oversight itself has been evolving, hastened in large part due to the global financial crisis. Governments have gained stronger controls over the structures and practices of agencies, but agencies are also key players in securing better governance outcomes. The implication is that the crisis has not seen a return to the archetypal command-and-control model, nor a wholly new implementation of negotiated European-type practices, but rather a new accountability balance between elements of the Westminster system itself that have not previously been well understood.

National and Provincial Influences on Public Sector Pay: Northern Ireland after 1945

This article examines the national and regional pressures in Northern Ireland in the post-war period for parity in public sector pay with the rest of the UK. Northern Ireland had a devolved legislature and government within the UK from 192 1 and was constitutionality in all essentially federal relationship with the rest of the UK. However, the Stormont Government chose to use legislative devolution to minimize policy differences with the rest of the UK. The article highlights the national industrial relations environment as the backdrop for provincial developments in pay setting. It establishes the important role Played by the Social Services Agreement negotiated with the Labour Government at Westminster in triggering the principle of parity in public sector pay in the early post-war years. The principle of pay parity subsequently became a benchmark for regional trade union coercive comparisons in collective bargaining across the devolved public sector. The article highlights the Policy relevance of these developments both to the UK Treasury and to devolved Governments in the UK, as they address the issue of regional public sector pay.