Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition

CONCLUSION 233
of their psychological relationship with Ireland. At this stage at
least, the initial movement seems to have been towards a closer
association with their British identity, rather than their Ulster
identity Ulster Unionists were only prepared to consider an
ultimate unity with the rest of Ireland within a federated United
Kingdom, and this after an undefined probationary demonstration
of imperial loyalty After the 1918 General Election, however,
Nationalist Ireland’s representatives seemingly called for a
republic; this call ended the Redmondite and Southern Unionist
visions of an accommodation between Irish national and British
national/imperial identities. A process leading to the total
polarisation of these identities had begun.