Act of Union Creates United Kingdom

January 1, 1801

At the stroke of midnight Ireland merged, on paper, with Great Britain - a union forced through the Dublin parliament with bribes and promises of Catholic relief that London promptly withheld. The new flag bore the cross of Saint Patrick. The grievance would outlast the empire that stitched it. Catholic emancipation, the promise that sealed the deal, would not arrive for another twenty-eight bitter years.