AHC: Have Irish dissidents take control of a British colony

I've been inspired to pose this challenge after studying the Fenien Raids of OTL and reading the book "Kelly Country" (a VERY ASB story) in which the outlaw Ned Kelly leads a rebellion that seizes Australia from British control.

Create a TL in which Irelanders unhappy with British rule decide to carve out a new Irish homeland from an existing British colony and are eventually given recognition by the British. Where, when, and how this is done is up to you as well as how much land ceded to the Irish is.
 
A more hostile religious climate back home leads Britain to change its settlement policies. Only Protestants (ideally Anglicans) are permitted to settle in Upper Canada, New South Wales, and Victoria. Non-Anglican Protestants are allowed to settle in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Some Catholic settlement is allowed in Lower Canada.

Meanwhile Catholic criminals are deported to Newfoundland and Tasmania, two forsaken outposts of the British Empire. By the Mid-19th century, these two islands are mostly Irish Catholic save for some British administrators.

Thanks to in large part to the famine back home, a rebellion breaks out in Newfoundland. Many volunteers from the United States provide funding and weapons to the Irish rebels. President Polk, already unfriendly to Britain due to the Oregon crisis, ostensibly does not interfere in the rebellion. Unofficially the rebellion becomes a proxy war between the two powers, with mounting threats of US invasion of Canada.

Finally Britain backs down by granting Newfoundland a generous deal for Home Rule.
 
A more hostile religious climate back home leads Britain to change its settlement policies. Only Protestants (ideally Anglicans) are permitted to settle in Upper Canada, New South Wales, and Victoria. Non-Anglican Protestants are allowed to settle in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Some Catholic settlement is allowed in Lower Canada.

Meanwhile Catholic criminals are deported to Newfoundland and Tasmania, two forsaken outposts of the British Empire. By the Mid-19th century, these two islands are mostly Irish Catholic save for some British administrators.

Thanks to in large part to the famine back home, a rebellion breaks out in Newfoundland. Many volunteers from the United States provide funding and weapons to the Irish rebels. President Polk, already unfriendly to Britain due to the Oregon crisis, ostensibly does not interfere in the rebellion. Unofficially the rebellion becomes a proxy war between the two powers, with mounting threats of US invasion of Canada.

Finally Britain backs down by granting Newfoundland a generous deal for Home Rule.
Interesting. One question though. Wouldn't the weather be harsher in upper Canada? Why not send the Irish there then. If it is nicer up there know that I don't know much about Canada's weather patterns.:eek:

Any other ideas?
 
Interesting. One question though. Wouldn't the weather be harsher in upper Canada? Why not send the Irish there then. If it is nicer up there know that I don't know much about Canada's weather patterns.:eek:

Any other ideas?

Upper Canada is Southern Ontario. While the summers are too hot many people seem to like that. (They're weird.)
 

Thande

Donor
Somewhere in (what would become) Canada in the early to mid 19th century seems most plausible.
 
Somewhere in (what would become) Canada in the early to mid 19th century seems most plausible.
For a while Francophones and Irish were the two main ethnic groups apparently. How we stayed loyal through that is a miracle.
 

Thande

Donor
For a while Francophones and Irish were the two main ethnic groups apparently. How we stayed loyal through that is a miracle.

Indeed. And British public opinion at the time of the 1830s rebellions was that it wasn't worth holding on to, too (but the government ignored that)...

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What about Australian Victoria? I know I mentioned in my OP that the book Kelly Country is pretty ASB by having all of Australia being taken from British control but it gave me some inspiration. I'm trying to work on a TL with and 1861 POD and it would be cool to make two Australian countries after that point.

Or what British Honduras or Guiana?
 

Thande

Donor
What about Australian Victoria? I know I mentioned in my OP that the book Kelly Country is pretty ASB but it gave me some inspiration. I'm trying to work on a TL with and 1861 POD and it would be cool to make two Australian countries after that point.

Or what British Honduras or Guiana?
I don't think an attempt in Australia would have been tolerated, as (besides opposing it for obvious reasons) the government was worried that if anything threatened the British monopoly over Australia, the French would have another go at colonising a different part of it and turn it into a land grab race, as nearly happened with New Zealand.
 
I don't think an attempt in Australia would have been tolerated, as (besides opposing it for obvious reasons) the government was worried that if anything threatened the British monopoly over Australia, the French would have another go at colonising a different part of it and turn it into a land grab race, as nearly happened with New Zealand.
Well that just gives me more ideas for setting up a harsher British-French rivalry in which France could supply Australian rebels.

Also I did a small edit of that post.
 
Interesting. One question though. Wouldn't the weather be harsher in upper Canada? Why not send the Irish there then. If it is nicer up there know that I don't know much about Canada's weather patterns.:eek:

Any other ideas?

Ontario has much nicer weather than Newfoundland.
 
Malta comes to mind, perhaps the Ionian islands. Gibralter is small and likely.

Non-starter ideas. Malta and Gibraltar are both strategic necessities in the UK's plan to control the Med - this means that not only would the British move Heaven and Hell to regain control of them in the middle of a rebellion, but more likely the governments of those islands (and of the UK in general) would actively take steps to prevent dissident populations of Irishmen ever settling in the first place - particularly Malta, which had its own native population of 2 or 3 hundred thousand, and wouldn't take kindly to being treated as a dumping ground for disaffected Irishmen.

The same goes for the Ionian Islands only moreso. The Ionian Islands were only ever a protectorate and associated state. They were essentially being safeguarded by the British for until the point when the Greeks were ready to take full control of the islands themselves - i.e. when they had gained independence and were politically stable. The islands were never even really governed by Britain, they were governed by native Greeks with a few British administrators to oversee finances and defence. It's highly unlikely that the Ionian government would even allow Irishmen (or anyone else) to settle in their country - and why would anyone pick the Ionian Islands to go to when America was a far better option and the Ionians were so incredibly obscure?
 
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