ANTI-UNION. The Anti-Union. No. 1, December 27, 1798 – No. 31, March 7, 1799.

OPPOSITION TO THE ACT OF UNION

Dublin: Printed by James Moore, 45 College Green, 1798–1799. First and only edition. Quarto. pp. 124. Printed in two columns with continuous pagination. Later quarter morocco over faded tan cloth, title in gilt along spine. Some occasional age-toning and minor wear, otherwise a very good copy. Lacking only the final issue, No. 32, March 9, 1799 (pp. 125–128), of the complete run of 32 numbers. Rare.
An important and remarkably short-lived Dublin political periodical, established at the very moment when the proposed legislative union between Ireland and Great Britain became the dominant political question of the day. The Anti-Union commenced publication on 27 December 1798 and ceased little more than ten weeks later, with No. 32 on 9 March 1799. The present substantial run comprises the first 31 of the 32 numbers published, lacking only the concluding four pages. Published by James Moore of 45 College Green, directly opposite the Irish Houses of Parliament, The Anti-Union was conceived as a literary and political weapon against William Pitt’s proposal to abolish the independent Irish legislature. Contemporary accounts describe it as modelled upon the London Anti-Jacobin, but with its energies directed towards defending the constitutional independence of the Irish parliament. Its contributors included some of the most formidable political and legal talents of the period, among them Peter Burrowes, William Conyngham Plunket, Charles Kendal Bushe, Henry Deane Grady Wallace, and Thomas Goold; Robert Emmet has also traditionally been associated with contributions to its pages.
Its appearance followed immediately upon the turbulent events of 1798. Ireland had only recently witnessed a major rebellion and French intervention, yet within months the government was pressing ahead with a constitutional settlement that would extinguish the separate Irish parliament altogether. Opposition was particularly intense in Dublin, where lawyers, merchants, corporations and other organised interests feared both the constitutional consequences and the economic effects of removing the legislature from College Green. Contemporary research has shown that Dublin formed the principal centre of organised opposition to Union during the winter of 1798–99.
The periodical consequently provides an immediate commentary upon one of the decisive moments in modern Irish political history. Its pages employed political argument, satire, verse and invective against the Union and those prepared to support it. Particularly significant was the involvement of men such as Plunket and Bushe, both brilliant advocates who would later occupy senior positions within the very constitutional order whose creation they initially opposed. The publisher, James Moore, was himself deeply involved in the pamphlet warfare surrounding the Union. In addition to The Anti-Union, he published parliamentary debates, speeches and numerous tracts opposing the measure. A particularly intriguing contemporary account records that Moore subsequently sold a quantity of manuscript and printed anti-Union material to Lord Castlereagh, by whom it was destroyed — an episode which adds considerably to the bibliographical interest of surviving material emanating from his press.
The campaign represented by The Anti-Union initially succeeded: the government’s Union proposal was defeated in the Irish House of Commons in January 1799. Pitt and Castlereagh, however, regrouped and embarked upon the sustained campaign of political management and patronage which ultimately secured passage of the measure in 1800. The Act of Union came into force on 1 January 1801, bringing the independent Irish parliament to an end.
Complete runs of The Anti-Union are distinctly uncommon. Bibliographical evidence confirms that the complete publication consisted of 32 numbers and 128 pages, while institutional holdings themselves are sometimes imperfect.
Of particular interest, the final leaf of the present copy has been extensively annotated by an early, apparently contemporary reader, identifying a number of the political figures whose names were deliberately suppressed or disguised in the printed text. Among those identified are Sir John Blaquiere, Peter Burrowes, Henry Alexander, George Daly, Charles Henry Coote and Isaac Corry. The annotations provide a fascinating contemporary key to the political satire, transforming what are otherwise cryptic initials and blanks into recognisable members of the Irish political establishment. Particularly noteworthy is the identification of Peter Burrowes, himself one of the principal contributors to The Anti-Union. Such contemporary manuscript elucidation considerably enhances the historical interest of the present copy.
An unusually extensive run of this important and ephemeral anti-Union publication, containing 31 of the 32 numbers issued and lacking only the final four-page number; a vivid contemporary record of the ultimately unsuccessful campaign to preserve Ireland’s independent eighteenth-century parliament.

Goldsmiths’ 37302