Call me crazy,but its..
Nigh Impossible.
Yes.
The Irishmen are fiercely nationalistic,and no laws could stop them.
Nigh Impossible.
Yes.
The Irishmen are fiercely nationalistic,and no laws could stop them.
What would have to happen to tone down Irish nationalism?
- Thread starter The B
- Start date
...Have the Liberals insist upon genuine Famine Relief for Ireland and stop the export of grain until the Irish are fed.
Yes, Queen Vicky becoming as fond of the Irish as she was of the Scots would be rather good. A 'Balmoral' near Tara, perhaps, and regular visits?
Honestly, the Irish were shat on in a way that was incredible. It reminded me of the much later mistreatment of Heligoland (oh, OK, OK). Remember that Charles 1 was supported by Irish levies - loyalty rewarded by a Cromwellian massacre.
No need to be Protestant - just encourage an Irish Celtic Church. Not all Irish Catholics want to be driven into the arms of the Vatican.
If the Corn laws had not be passed the price of grain would not have been as high and rents lower for tenants.
The high price of grain encouraged more land to be used to grown grain to pay rent and lead to smaller farms and less land for growing for to feed the tenant farmers, meaning the only crop that could feed the Irish tennat in the small amount for ground not used to grow grain was potato.
Without this over dependence by poor tenant farmers on the potato the impact of the failure of the potato crops would not be as great.
Weren't smaller farms also partly due to the Irish having a traditional practice of dividing a farm between all of the farmer's remaining sons (less any who'd gone into the church, or emigrated) when he died?
The high price of grain made this a lot worse. Without the high price for Grain such small farms would never have been viable.
Don't blame the Irish...
...Many were driven off even marginally cultivable land into bogs and steep hillsides, where only 'lazy-bed' potatoes would grow and prospects were bleak. George Henderson ('The Farming Ladder') wrote of a visit to South West Ireland in the 1930s in which he saw smallholders gathering seaweed from the shore and planting potatoes in it, as a way to grow a crop in badly-eroded land. I realise now that it was an ingenious way to avoid some effects of blight by preventing over-using land. I used compost in the same way - trenches of compost and mowings that insulated the potatoes from adjacent soil bacteria until they were strong enough. Crop rotation only works when you do not need all the land for your main crop.
Maybe not strictly to the OP, but if the Irish had only known to cut away the haulms at the first signs of blight - and then dry and burn them - their potato crop might partially have been saved.
Irish emigration was inevitable, but industrialisation might have kept it internal, even as happened in England and Scotland. Unfortunately, in this post-industrial era, extremist politicians might have seen a chance for 'separatism' and 'nationalism' amongst a vulnerable electorate. A well-fed and profitably-occupied nation has no need for political changes.
...Many were driven off even marginally cultivable land into bogs and steep hillsides, where only 'lazy-bed' potatoes would grow and prospects were bleak. George Henderson ('The Farming Ladder') wrote of a visit to South West Ireland in the 1930s in which he saw smallholders gathering seaweed from the shore and planting potatoes in it, as a way to grow a crop in badly-eroded land. I realise now that it was an ingenious way to avoid some effects of blight by preventing over-using land. I used compost in the same way - trenches of compost and mowings that insulated the potatoes from adjacent soil bacteria until they were strong enough. Crop rotation only works when you do not need all the land for your main crop.
Maybe not strictly to the OP, but if the Irish had only known to cut away the haulms at the first signs of blight - and then dry and burn them - their potato crop might partially have been saved.
Irish emigration was inevitable, but industrialisation might have kept it internal, even as happened in England and Scotland. Unfortunately, in this post-industrial era, extremist politicians might have seen a chance for 'separatism' and 'nationalism' amongst a vulnerable electorate. A well-fed and profitably-occupied nation has no need for political changes.
As Tyr pointed out, that sort of "inferior race" thinking was alien to the 16th/17th-century mindset. Whilst it's true that Englishmen did tend to look down on Ireland as backward and civilised, the same is true of Scotland, and there weren't any large-scale dispossessions there (except the Highland Clearances, but those were mostly carried out by native Scottish landowners, not by the English).
As a matter of fact, a large part of the success of the Union of the Crowns between England and Scotland was the countries' shared Protestantism. Having a common enemy -- Catholicism, in this case -- is a very good way of uniting people, and had Ireland turned Protestant as well it's not implausible to suggest that a similar thing might have happened between them and the English.
OK, you're crazy. The Irish are fiercely nationalistic as a result of their history, nor because they're genetically pre-determined to hate foreign rule.
You are right Irish are nationalistic as a result of history.
The loss of the Gaelic social system and legal system.
The loss of owner ships of land.
The genocide by Cromwell and the sale of the Irish as slaves and indentured servants to the Americas.
The penal laws and the banning of eduction.
The famine and the loss of the Irish language.
The English conquest of Ireland and the reduction of the Irish to poverty pay rent for their own land to foreign landlord.
With all of these things happening not sure why the Irish would want to be loyal to the English invaders.
The Irish becoming loyal to the United kingdom would be Stockholm syndrome on a massive scale.
No county like being ruled by Foreigners.
I think there were less problems in Scotland due to the Highland clearances.
SunDeep
Banned
Sorry, isn't this an Alternate History Discussion? So why do any of these things have to happen in an ATL? Isn't that kind of the whole point of this thread- how could enough of these things be written out of history to mute Irish nationalism, and for Ireland to remain part of the UK? Of course, there's no reason why IOTL's Irish national identity has to come into being at all, or why it has to survive in large enough numbers to retain any real relevance into the present day (case in point- the Ainu in Hokkaido/Aynu Mosir)- but we wouldn't want to make it too easy now, would we?
Of course, there's no reason why IOTL's Irish national identity has to come into being at all, or why it has to survive in large enough numbers to retain any real relevance into the present day (case in point- the Ainu in Hokkaido/Aynu Mosir)- but we wouldn't want to make it too easy now, would we?
the difference is, the Ainu are a very small part of the population in their own land, around 60,000. The lowest population estimate of Ireland since the normans arrived was around 250,000. No matter what the English threw at them, the Irish weren't ever going to die out or assimilate.
Two late PODs are (i) no, or delayed, WWI so Home Rule is implemented; (ii) no executions of the Easter Rising participants.
The latter is an easy call because it turned into such a public relations disaster. The consequences of the former are uncertain; my guess is that it improves relations between Britain and the Nationalists but initially they get even worse between the Nationalists and Unionists.
The latter is an easy call because it turned into such a public relations disaster. The consequences of the former are uncertain; my guess is that it improves relations between Britain and the Nationalists but initially they get even worse between the Nationalists and Unionists.
Their are plenty of Irish North and South that support the UK (or did during the war of independence of both religions
But i agree with you that Britain needs to be less oppressive in its control of Ireland.
Either earliy home rule (Parnell or Gladstone, even Wellington though may fringe ASB)
Getting Ireland into the Union the same way Scotland and Wales are, so actual land reforms creating a loyal and native population base and building around that
But in my opinion British rule in Ireland seems to be one mistake over again
No Cromwell and greater support during the Famine (all of them) and it might tip the balance
No it really isn't not all Irish are nationalists, stupid mistakes lead to the moderate leaders being humiliated and radicals gaining a voice
Introduce Catholic Emancipation in 1801 like Pitt wanted. One way to do this would have George III be declared mad at around this time; with George IV as Regent Emancipation might be more politically realistic. It was, after all, George III who refused to countenance Emancipation in his own lifetime, while it was George IV who eventually let it pass.
A second step would be immediate free trade with Britain. Free trade was only introduced in the 1820s; if Ireland could benefit from the economic boom of the Napoleonic Wars and subsequently not be disbarred from British markets (which especially affected linen and commercial agriculture) then the island might be a bit better off. Unfortunately I think the famine was all but inevitable given the system of cottager agriculture which its damage was predicated upon had been in place since the mid-18th century, but it might not be as bad as OTL.
Finally I think Home Rule in the 19th century would be essential. Without Emancipation, O'Connell may never rise to the political fore, but if he does no doubt it will be under the banner of Repeal. This is extremely unlikely before the 1850s-Robert Peel was wedded to the Union, having made his political name as Chief Secretary for Ireland. Perhaps with the Liberals in power they might cut Ireland loose early; failing that the 1870s/1880s would probably be best, especially if a statesman of Gladstone's statute has a Road to Damascus moment as he did IOTL.
A second step would be immediate free trade with Britain. Free trade was only introduced in the 1820s; if Ireland could benefit from the economic boom of the Napoleonic Wars and subsequently not be disbarred from British markets (which especially affected linen and commercial agriculture) then the island might be a bit better off. Unfortunately I think the famine was all but inevitable given the system of cottager agriculture which its damage was predicated upon had been in place since the mid-18th century, but it might not be as bad as OTL.
Finally I think Home Rule in the 19th century would be essential. Without Emancipation, O'Connell may never rise to the political fore, but if he does no doubt it will be under the banner of Repeal. This is extremely unlikely before the 1850s-Robert Peel was wedded to the Union, having made his political name as Chief Secretary for Ireland. Perhaps with the Liberals in power they might cut Ireland loose early; failing that the 1870s/1880s would probably be best, especially if a statesman of Gladstone's statute has a Road to Damascus moment as he did IOTL.
I think this is the best way to achieve the objective!
I once roughed out a timeline where Henry VIII got a bee in his bonnet about calvanists in Dublin and instituted a (relatively minor) pogrom along with some eloquent condemnations that the Pope approves.
Radical protestantism becomes associated with anti- English sentiment in Ireland and hence is persecuted for both reasons.
When Anne smiles at Henry and he institutes his "Catholic except the pope is not in charge" protestantism persecution of radical Irish protestants would be only religious policy all Englishmen agree on.
Assuming
rolleyes no major changes Ireland in Mid 16th C ends up with a large minority of radical Calvanists who are the heart and soul of anti-English movement. However by the start of the 17th C all protestant will end up on the same side against resugent catholic powers often including the Crypto catholic English King. We might end up with Cromwell supporting a protestant Irish army against a catholic royalist Irish army!
The result is a mostly Calvanist Country, with a catholic Southwest and Anglican minority. Ratherlike Scotland.
So, by the same logic, nobody within the USA who is [largely] of Native American ancestry should feel any loyalty to the USA?
And yet Ulster remains British despite all this. Plainly, it's merely Stockholm syndrome gone viral.
Try to engage with the premise of the thread, eh? It's not impossible to envisage an Ireland still British. It's not even difficult; the passage of the First Home Rule Bill might do it. Parnell or Redmond as "Irish Prime Minister", justifying the status quo - who knows? It's not ASB following this to envisage a 1920s reactionary figure like De Valera becoming a conservative "Prime Minister of Ireland", defending the status quo against radicals, socialists, revolutionaries and independence-freaks. Given it's Dev, that would be far more likely in such a scenario where Ireland's already had devolution for forty years, than him becoming a bomb thrower: the Alex Salmond of his day.
For a more lasting solution I think it would need the de-Catholicisation of Ireland in the late-1500s and 1600s. How that's done - a weaker Papacy, a stronger English presence beyond the Pale, more charismatic Irish Protestant preachers out in the back of beyond? Such conversion was done in England, perhaps it happens in Ireland.
May be the Spanish armada lands in Ireland and takes over the the country and welcomed at first become very repressive soon.
Later the English invade Ireland and rescue the Irish from the Spanish.
Delayed Great War
If Archduke Ferdinand doesn't get assassinated, the Great War is postponed. The Home Rule goes into effect on schedule.
There were plans by some Protestant Irish to fight against Home Rule. If they did rise, and the British army and governemnt showed that it would enforce the law and protect Ireland against the Protestants, that could go a long way towards keeping Ireland in the commonwealth...
If Archduke Ferdinand doesn't get assassinated, the Great War is postponed. The Home Rule goes into effect on schedule.
There were plans by some Protestant Irish to fight against Home Rule. If they did rise, and the British army and governemnt showed that it would enforce the law and protect Ireland against the Protestants, that could go a long way towards keeping Ireland in the commonwealth...
SunDeep
Banned
If the English had carried concerted efforts to wipe out the Irish by conducting soft or hard genocide, in the same manner as the Japan did with the Ainu on Hokkaido, then they'd have been able to do it easily- especially when you bear in mind that they (if we include the Normans) have at least 700 years longer to wipe out the Irish culture and way of life than the Japanese have needed to drive the Ainu to the verge of extinction. All you need to do is to change the Charter of Kilkenny, requiring Irish subjects as well as English subjects to speak English, follow English customs and abide by English law (instead of just applying the charter to English subjects as IOTL), and by the time you get to the Tudor conquest of Ireland, the Irish people are going to be just as assimilated as the Cornish people. So, easy fix- Just take the Cornish example, impose it on Ireland, job done. Simples...
Last edited: