AHC: Irish Hegemony over the British Isles.

This is inspired by a CK2 game I had as Scandinavia (started as Harldr Fairhair). In it, I unified Scandinavia and my vassals began taking England. I eventually ended up as king of England without declaring any wars of my own. Some AI irish count started blobbing and took all of Ireland, Scotland and brittany. Then 1100 hit and there was a crusade for england. I lost, and now there is an Irish empire over the entire british isles.

So your challenge is to create an Irish Empire owning or having all of the British isles under it's control or in its sphere of influence. It does not need to happen anything like what I described above, and can be accomplished with any sane POD you want.
 
I don't think Ireland on its own would be able to maintain a hegemony over Britain, it could be a rival to England without the disastrous population drop from the Famine (Why Ireland Starved by Joel Mokyr found that there was no evidence supporting the theory that Ireland was overpopulated) but you'd need the Irish to form some sort of Pan-Celtic Union for an actual hegemony over the English, which would require a very early POD such as Brian Boru and his son surviving Clontarf and managing to create a centralised kingdom with Scotland remaining the same religion as Ireland and falling into a personal union which eventually leads to Irish-Scottish unity, and then later taking Wales and possibly Cornwall from the English.
 
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TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
How about a series of Vikings Kings of Dublin of above-average competence? Then acquire Yorvik through conquest? Marriage? Over time their Hiberno-Norse state subdues more and more of the bigger island, but the capital stays in Dublin?
 
I wrote the beginning of a TL where Brian Born establishes a hereditary monarchy, but I never had them control all the British isles.
 
Half of me says: Hard to get Ireland trading with and competing with and conquering and being conquered by folk the continent as furiously as England. They're further away. And that leads to a major disadvantage in competitiveness.

Other half says: Aha, but look at Scotland. Further away on migration and trade routes, yes, but, despite this being the case, there's no real sign of sustained "backwardness" in any sense. So is this then a question of, basically, "How do we get an insular version of the Kingdom of Scotland, with more power from being able to sustain a larger population?" or "What made Ireland (and Wales perhaps) different from Scotland?"?
 
The question is even if you have a united Ireland; If they take over England either through conquest or through marriage, what would stop them from just moving over to England and settling in London like the Stuarts did?
 
The question is even if you have a united Ireland; If they take over England either through conquest or through marriage, what would stop them from just moving over to England and settling in London like the Stuarts did?

Perhaps they might, but in a reversal of what happened to Ulster, Irish settlers displace the locals in parts of England, giving them even more demographic weight?
 
Half of me says: Hard to get Ireland trading with and competing with and conquering and being conquered by folk the continent as furiously as England. They're further away. And that leads to a major disadvantage in competitiveness.

Other half says: Aha, but look at Scotland. Further away on migration and trade routes, yes, but, despite this being the case, there's no real sign of sustained "backwardness" in any sense. So is this then a question of, basically, "How do we get an insular version of the Kingdom of Scotland, with more power from being able to sustain a larger population?" or "What made Ireland (and Wales perhaps) different from Scotland?"?
Thank David I for that
 
Half of me says: Hard to get Ireland trading with and competing with and conquering and being conquered by folk the continent as furiously as England. They're further away. And that leads to a major disadvantage in competitiveness.

Other half says: Aha, but look at Scotland. Further away on migration and trade routes, yes, but, despite this being the case, there's no real sign of sustained "backwardness" in any sense. So is this then a question of, basically, "How do we get an insular version of the Kingdom of Scotland, with more power from being able to sustain a larger population?" or "What made Ireland (and Wales perhaps) different from Scotland?"?
In Ireland's case complete disunity and decentralisation, there was a High King of Ireland until the Normans invaded but they only exercised power within their own realm. Brian Boru had plans to change this with support from the Church to become Imperator Scottorum (Emperor of the Gaels) but was killed at the Battle of Clontarf when Máel Mórda mac Murchada rebelled against him.

Regrading trade in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Era the Irish (or rather the various clans and fiefdoms) traded with the French, Spanish and Portuguese as well as the English and Scots, I don't think the distance would've been too much of a problem, especially when you consider the distance between Europe and the Americas. A centralised Ireland would also be in a great geographic position to explore and colonise parts of North America.

The Irish had a lot of trade with continental Europe (the city of Galway for example owed much of its prosperity to continental trade) before it was crippled by the destruction of the Catholic merchant class following Cromwell's invasion of Ireland and the English control of Irish trade which meant that English merchants would press the government to restrain any Irish trade which could compete with English trade, such as the Irish woolen industry. Even then however the French, Portuguese and Dutch were major customers of Irish beef exports and the English ban on Irish exports to Spain and France during the War of Spanish Succession hit the Irish economy hard.
 
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I second the earlier suggestion of Viking Kingdom of Dublin giving way to a Norse-Gael hegemony rather than a true Irish one but that's also because I find it more interesting as a concept and "story".
 

dcharleos

Donor
This is inspired by a CK2 game I had as Scandinavia (started as Harldr Fairhair). In it, I unified Scandinavia and my vassals began taking England. I eventually ended up as king of England without declaring any wars of my own. Some AI irish count started blobbing and took all of Ireland, Scotland and brittany. Then 1100 hit and there was a crusade for england. I lost, and now there is an Irish empire over the entire british isles.

So your challenge is to create an Irish Empire owning or having all of the British isles under it's control or in its sphere of influence. It does not need to happen anything like what I described above, and can be accomplished with any sane POD you want.


I think this happens like a lot the rise of other hegemonic states--one step at a time. Ireland is too small to bite off the entire island of Great Britain in one chunk. But Cornwall? Wales? Less Britain? Any one of these nations could be conquered by a united Ireland, and during much of the sub-Roman period, Irish groups were in the habit of crossing the Irish sea to raid the lands on the other side, from Cornwall to Scotland. The Kingdom of the Dal Riata straddled the northern part of the Irish sea. So there's precedent for aggressive action and domination of the people on the island of Great Britain on the part of the Irish. The PoD is political. Ireland needs to be united and centralized, and this centralization needs to be permanent or semi-permanent. I think the proper era to set the PoD in is the late-Roman or sub Roman period, when Britain has disintegrated into numerous petty kingdoms. During the early part of the period, someone like Niall of the Nine Hostages unites Ireland in a more lasting and meaningful way. During the sub-Roman period, the kingdom of Ireland establishes colonies in places like the Isle of Man, Strathclyde, or northern Wales. Get the ball rolling there. In 300 years, its conceivable that the Kingdom of Ireland is dominant in many areas of Great Britain--perhaps the non Saxon parts.
 
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