A concise history of Northern Ireland through its pivotal moments.

Since the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, the constitutional position of Northern Ireland within the Union has endured an unusual level of attention. Northern Ireland and the UK Constitution leads us through its pivotal moments: the 1920–72 Unionist-led governments, the following thirty years of bitter conflicts, the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, and the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership in the European Union. Considering each of the moments in the broader setting of UK constitutional norms and narratives, she addresses the exceptional constitutional characteristics of Northern Ireland and the ways in which these have often resulted in “blindspot” analyses of the Union. This short book also considers the implications of Brexit and the constitutional impacts and shifts it has brought to Northern Ireland and discusses the possible constitutional repercussions.
 

Lisa Claire Whitten is a research fellow at Queen's University Belfast. Prior to entering academia, Whitten held a variety of posts in the public sector including working in Westminster and in the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels.

"Tables and Figures, vi

Abbreviations, vii

Introduction: The Exception and the Rule, 1

1. The Northern Ireland Story, 4

2.. The United Kingdom Story and its Northern
Irish Blind Spot, 69

3. The Future(s) of Northern Ireland and the
United Kingdom Constitution, 91

Conclusion: The Rule of the Exception, 148

Notes, 151"