Ireland - losing 50 percent of its population in a decade
Many cities or countries could/would/should have been far more than they actually were. Which two or three do you think missed greatness, or at least a vastly different fate than OTL, and why?
Ireland - losing ~20
percent of its population in a decade in the middle of the Nineteenth Century (8.5 million dropped to 6.5 million, roughly), at a point where industrialization and urbanization was about to kick off in a significant way, can not be seen as anything else but devastating.
In 1840, the Netherlands had less than 3 million people; Ireland's population was at least 8 million, and was close to 6 million by 1850...
Granted, the Netherlands were independent, as well, but if Ireland's population had topped out at 9 million (absent the famine and encouraged migration) that compares with Scotland at 3 million in 1850, from a total of 27.5 million in the UK and Ireland total in 1850 (so adding the "lost" Irish population probably bumps it to 30 million)... if a third of this "larger" kingdom is Irish/Scots/Welsh/Gaelic/Celtic, then "Britain' is going to have to be a very different place.
Certainly more democratic, federal, and equalitarian.
Which has real impact on the future of the UK, Empire, and Commonwealth in the remainder of the Nineteenth Century, and even into the Twentieth.
Best,