The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland?

[Kvasir]

What kind of changes would need to happen to keep the Act of Union of 1801 in place up to modern times? I imagine the anti-Catholic stuff would have to be ended, at what time would that be practical?

[perfectgeneral]

Queen Victoria was rather anti-Irish and never stayed there. A different succession and an Irish royal residence would help. Land reform against the absentee landlords and greater investment in industry to make the Irish less dependent on agriculture. Less likely, but also helpful would be equal rights for catholics.

[Kvasir]

Originally Posted by perfectgeneral

Queen Victoria was rather anti-Irish and never stayed there. A different succession and an Irish royal residence would help. Land reform against the absentee landlords and greater investment in industry to make the Irish less dependent on agriculture. Less likely, but also helpful would be equal rights for catholics.

So do we know any pro-Catholic Protestant Monarchs in line for the British throne some time in the Early Nineteenth century? Also what kind of industry could Ireland support at the time? Much in the way of Coal? What would larger industry have on the Potato Famine? If more Irish lived in the cities rather than on the land then there wouldn't be so catastrophic a disaster, right? Problem is no potato famine could have repercussions on the construction of the canals and railways in Britain.

[Kvasir]

Sorry. Double post.

[Andrew Hudson]

Catholic Emancipation at the same time as non conformists got the vote
Relief for the potato famine
Land reform
Home rule under Gladstone

If relief had been forthcoming from the Potato famine and Joesph Chamberlain hadn't split the Liberal Party maybe Ireland would still be in the UK or possibly if Asquith had brought in Home Rule he may have saved the union.

No 1916 rising and Redmond might have stayed on top

[stevep]

Andrew

On home rule the problem is your forgetting about the unionist/loyalists/Protestants, call them what you will. It was the problem of getting something that was agreeable to both them and the hard lined nationalist that made Ireland such a problem. If the nationalists had been dominated by people who were concerned to rule themselves then you probably could have had a peaceful solution, and a lot earlier as the hard line unionists would have been isolated. However the extremists on both sides basically made a peaceful solution impossible and isolated and largely destroyed the more moderate elements on both sides.

On the question of earlier votes for Catholics you would have change the history of religious mistrust and hostility in Europe. To get major famine relief you would have to drastically change the standard economic and political theory at the time to get the latter. [Talking about Britain in the latter case here as the standard on the continent was still highly interventionist, although possibly not heavily so in terms of rebellious minorities].

Some form of land reform may have helped, although on its own earlier on it might well have made the famine markedly worse. However again your going to have to change the basic philosophy of the sanctity of property and minimal government in Britain at the time.

Steve