AHC: earliest independence of Ireland

I think it's certainly possible in the Gladstone ministry if Parnell hadn't lost some of his supporters and credibility over the O'Shea girl.
 
If Napoleon managed to occupy a large part of mainland Britain, he could probably have forced a peace settlement involving the independence of Ireland. This is pretty unlikely, though, given the relative states of the two countries' navies at the time (France's navy still hadn't recovered from the big purge of royalist officers during the Revolution). Alternatively you could have a more successful Home Rule movement in the late 19th century. IOTL the second Irish Home Rule Bill passed the Commons in 1893 (the first, in 1886, having been defeated), but was voted down by the House of Lords. If Their Lordships are better-disposed towards the Bill, you'd have Home Rule in 1895 or so (leaving a couple of years to set everything up).
 
If Napoleon managed to occupy a large part of mainland Britain, he could probably have forced a peace settlement involving the independence of Ireland. This is pretty unlikely, though, given the relative states of the two countries' navies at the time (France's navy still hadn't recovered from the big purge of royalist officers during the Revolution). Alternatively you could have a more successful Home Rule movement in the late 19th century. IOTL the second Irish Home Rule Bill passed the Commons in 1893 (the first, in 1886, having been defeated), but was voted down by the House of Lords. If Their Lordships are better-disposed towards the Bill, you'd have Home Rule in 1895 or so (leaving a couple of years to set everything up).

First I doubt that the Lords would support it at any point during the 1800's, held they didn't support it even after they lost their Veto, second not entirely sure that Home Rule is Independence. It's Home Rule, with major powers still held by the UK and control over domestic affairs alone.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
Perhaps if George III married Lady Sarah Lennox, I believe her brother was sympathetic to Irish secession, perhaps she was too. In that period the Monarchy still had significant influence over Parliamentary matters. Of course if any Monarch married a Catholic, or converted themselves, then the Protestant settlers would likely want to break form the Union. Ironically perhaps the Irish Catholics may not in that case, although by this time Irish nationalism has gained sufficient momentum that they would probably still desire independence no matter what.
 
So if we go with a George III period, maybe the independence involved Ireland sharing a monarch with Britain, but otherwise running most of it's own affairs, maybe even the construction of an official royal residence in Dublin helped to keep the Monarchy present in Ireland for longer than it would have been...
 
So if we go with a George III period, maybe the independence involved Ireland sharing a monarch with Britain, but otherwise running most of it's own affairs, maybe even the construction of an official royal residence in Dublin helped to keep the Monarchy present in Ireland for longer than it would have been...

The monarchy had an official royal residence in Dublin. It's called Dublin Castle.

They just didn't use it because the monarchy barely left London let alone going to Ireland.
 
The monarchy had an official royal residence in Dublin. It's called Dublin Castle.

They just didn't use it because the monarchy barely left London let alone going to Ireland.

Really? Because I remember reading that Victoria refused to build an official residence in Ireland at one point.
 
Really? Because I remember reading that Victoria refused to build an official residence in Ireland at one point.

It would have been as a replacement for Dublin Castle. The main reason she refused to was because she had essentially no desire to ever go to Ireland in person, and saw no real need to (hell, she only ever visited Wales during some Royal tours as the heiress apparent in the 1830s.)
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
...Then they would no longer be legally eligible to inherit the throne, and still wouldn't be to this day.

The Act of Settlement could be rescinded, or amended, as any other act of Parliament. But it would require a seismic shift of public opinion, perhaps a deeply unpopular and corrupt King and Church, or a shift in allegiances away from Protestant Royalty (mainly in Hanover) to Catholic Monarchs in, say, Portugal, Brazil or some other Catholic State.
 
OR it could be decided that Ireland was completely unmanageable from London due to the ever-growing differences of culture and religion. So one of the Hannover Kings (or possibly even far back as Charles I) chose a second or third son and gave him the Irish Throne separate from the UK/England throne.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
If you delay the discovery of the Americas, can you get significant numbers of protestant sects and others to migrate to Ireland, as they migrated to America in the OTL? The main groups would be Anglicans, Puritans, Presbyterians, Quakers and maybe Huguenots and Jews. Most of these groups were represented in Ireland in the OTL anyway, to some extent. The reasons for this are mainly to escape the absolute authority of the church of england. Anyway as their numbers increase, inevitably there will be some dissatisfaction with England's rule, maybe something of an analog to both the American Revolutionary War and the Jacobite rebellion can take place in Ireland.
 
It would have been as a replacement for Dublin Castle. The main reason she refused to was because she had essentially no desire to ever go to Ireland in person, and saw no real need to (hell, she only ever visited Wales during some Royal tours as the heiress apparent in the 1830s.)

You do realise that she came to Ireland four times...
“I am very sorry to leave Ireland. I have had an extremely pleasant time,” she said at the end of her last official visit to the Emerald Isle in 1900.
 
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