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The highland clearances ended rebellions in the highlands and broke the power of the clan system.

I am not sure Union with Scotland would have worked well until after the highland clearances.

They had common enemies to fear and were not divided by a sea.

The biggest problem with a shared national identity in the British isles is distance and the time it takes to travel to remoter parts of the British Isles, eg Scotland and Ireland. Many of the settlers that moved to Ireland adopted Irish customs, legal system and culture and were just as will...

Without the corn laws to protect against cheaper imports of grain for North America farmers had to sell grain into a market competing directly with cheaper American imports. There was the collapse of the railway bubble at around the same time. Railway Mania was an instance of a stock market...

Sadly a lot of nonsense is still in some history books and documentaries. Like a German invasion of British isles in 1940 being possible. History is often written to support a current political agent instead of reflecting on what happened in the real world.

You are right there was a tendency in the past to portray Irish and Scots and Welsh and helpless victims of oppression. Not so much now. History is never that simple. Many oppressed groups in the world often worked with those who oppressed them and even help oppress other countries.

As you say they could have stopped the famine. But it would be expensive and feeding that many Irish would lead to increased taxes and lead to resentment. Giving free food and accommodation to the poor and starving was not something the whigs thought was a good idea. Food shortage happened in...

No guns for MacGyver, but he did like to use explosives.

The Welsh and Irish were part of building that empire too. The standard operating procedure for conquering nations is to use the ones that have been conquered to conqueror more land.

I cannot think of anything else that other than a common enemy and a long very unpleasant occupation to build a national identity for the British isles. The process of building a national id is usually a bloody one. History after all is one Bloody thing after another.

What you need to make a united British isles is a common enemy. Napoleon taking over the British isles and after a long struggle, the French are forced out. 100 years of being forced to speak French and use the metric system and drive on the wrong side of the road and the landed gentry and...

It is hard to see the British giving enough famine relief to stop the famine. It would mean feeding up to 4 million people long term. The Irish economy these people relied on was based on exporting wheat and grain to Britain. With the repeal of the corn laws, the price of wheat and grain...

Road building in Ireland with Roman methods would be very hard due to how much of the country was covered in bogs where Roman roads would sink.

Most Irish did not get to vote due to the requirement to have a rate valuation above that that most people had. only people who controlled a large amount of land or property could vote. The lack of relief in Ireland was partly because of the large number that needed it and the collapse of the...

That might be possible if the Brtish had not spent so much time and effort creating a worldwide empire. There were better places in the empire where English settlers could go and Ireland was never important enough for the English to take the time and effort needed to assimilate them. To the...

NO. I reland is the hardest part to make a part of the British isles as one nation. Ireland only becomes a majority English speaking country after the famine of the 1840s. Anglican faith was a minority in the south and north of Ireland. less than 10%. In Northern Ireland, the biggest faith was...

It is an interesting question. Why without ASB is it not possible for the Germans to win ww2? They started off running the German economy on Autarky and useless mega civil engineering projects. The central planning of the economy only made matters worse. They failed to import enough of a...

Improved rocket engine nozzle.

That would depend on how the Soviets won the cold war. The reasons the Soviets lost the cold war OTL was mostly economic. Soviets introduce market economics they could avoid economic collapse, but this does not mean they will win. You could have inflation continue from the 1980s getting higher...