Historedia
Episode 1 of 4

First Union Motion Rejected

When
1799
Where
Irish House of Commons
Part of
Act of Union 1800

An initial motion for union was legally rejected in 1799, defeated in the Irish House of Commons by 109 votes to 104.

Many members of the Irish Parliament, notably Henry Grattan, jealously guarded the legislative autonomy won through the Constitution of 1782. Only Anglicans could sit in that parliament despite a Catholic majority and many Presbyterians in Ulster. A motion for union was legally rejected in 1799, with the first attempt defeated in the Irish House of Commons by 109 votes to 104, before the successful second vote in 1800.

Sources

  1. Acts of Union 1800 Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-07

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.