AHC: Keep the whole of Ireland as part of the United Kingdom

Ian_W

Banned
Which is why one of the things that would be needed, would be to prevent that. Ideally, somehow have Elizabeth cotton onto the idea of "freedom of religion, provided loyalty to the Crown" and move from there.

Also a more concentrated effort to convert the average Irish away from Catholicism, would help. A bible translated into Irish as opposed to using only ones in English would be a very good start.

Regarding the first, to quote Mr Gladstone "There has been a period when grievances have been redressed under compulsion, as in 1829, when Catholic Emancipation was granted to avoid civil war. "

Regarding the second, Bedell's translation of the Bible into Irish was done in 1640 and published in 1685.
 

Ian_W

Banned
No, not exactly. Transfer those powers to each of the four Provinces - Ulster; Leinster; Munster and Connaught individually with "Ireland" only running a couple of services at the federal level, rather than to Ireland collectively as OTL and the Unionists might have agreed to a compromise. Pretty much what they signed up to in 1923 after all.

You are conflating the post 1923 Six Counties with pre 1914 Ulster. Remember that four Ulster counties had Nationalist/Catholic majorities (Donegal, Monaghan, Cavan and Tyrone), one was more or less half and half (Fermanagh, 2% Nationalist majority) and four had Unionist/Protestant majorities (Antrim, Down, Londonderry and Armagh). The Unionists of Edwardian Ulster did not want to be (a) part of a state that they feared (not without some justification it must be said) was going to be dominated by the Catholic Church; or (b) separated by protectionist tariffs of any sort from the British and Imperial markets on which their then booming economy was dependent. Reassure them on those points and perhaps a deal can be struck.
Post 1923 Ulster is a different kettle of fish. To the Ulster Protestant, the 1916 rebels are a gang of traitors who tried to stab the Empire in the back as the cream of Ulster's young men were dying heroically on the Somme. He has been radicalised by the War of Independence and the attacks on the RIC; he has had his numbers added to by an influx of Southern Unionists and former RIC men who have fled here for refuge; he has surrendered three counties in order to shore up a Unionist majority in the industrial heartlands. Between his experiences in preparing to fight not to be part of a Home Rule Ireland and the activities of people like Broy and Nelligan in Michael Collins' intelligence war he believes that it is a security risk to have Catholics in key jobs. And he is further exasperated by his Catholic neighbours refusal to accept his new state and take their seats in local government and at the Stormont Parliament. And the Orange Order has become extremely politically powerful. And there certainly is a degree of religious bigotry (I hesitate to use the term sectarian because "Ulster Protestantism" are not a sect, they are a broad coalition of over a dozen distinct religious groupings) to be added to the mix.
And, if the Curragh mutineers were prepared to resign rather than fire on the Ulstermen, plenty of other officers had expressed no such opinion. And the Royal Navy were quite prepared to bombard Belfast, Larne and Carrickfergus according to Winston Churchill.

You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.

The 1914 Ulster Unionists imported 25 000 rifles and 3 million rounds from Germany - the material they planned on winning the Civil War with.

Not 1923. Not 1916. April 1914.

At the same time, the mutinous traitors to Parliament led by Brigadier General Herbert Gough refused to carry out their orders to secure arms and ammunition depots.

The House of Commons passed a law, which received Royal Assent. The Unionists made it clear they were going to carry out a civil war to stop it. Mutineers backed them up, making it clear that the British Army would not carry out any orders to enforce either law or order in case of a Unionist revolt.

And this happened in April 1914.

I'll go back to what I said before - without a British Army that is prepared to shoot Unionist Terrorists, Home Rule won't happen, no matter what Parliament votes.
 
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1914 is just about possible - probably with some kind of "Home Rule for the Home Islands"? But - as many others have pointed out already - 1919 is far too late.
Yes once the Easter Rising happened and the ring Leaders were executed that was definitely that...
 
You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.

The 1914 Ulster Unionists imported 25 000 rifles and 3 million rounds from Germany - the material they planned on winning the Civil War with.

Not 1923. Not 1916. April 1914.

At the same time, the mutinous traitors to Parliament led by Brigadier General Herbert Gough refused to carry out their orders to secure arms and ammunition depots.

The House of Commons passed a law, which received Royal Assent. The Unionists made it clear they were going to carry out a civil war to stop it. Mutineers backed them up, making it clear that the British Army would not carry out any orders to enforce either law or order in case of a Unionist revolt.

And this happened in April 1914.

I'll go back to what I said before - without a British Army that is prepared to shoot Unionist Terrorists, Home Rule won't happen, no matter what Parliament votes.
Well at the end of the day they could in theorey have followed Churchill's suggestion and used the Indian Army, the butterflies from that would make one hell of a novel..
 

Ian_W

Banned
Well at the end of the day they could in theorey have followed Churchill's suggestion and used the Indian Army, the butterflies from that would make one hell of a novel..

By the time the Indian Army steps off the boats, Pariiament will have a passed a revocation of the Home Rule Bill - you really don't want the constitutional crisis of having to fire the British Army for refusing the orders of Parliament.
 
DeValera.

I think the dug up corpse of Oliver Cromwell would do a better job of negotiating for Irish Freedom.

Dev was a lot of things, and stubborn as a mule with none of the charisma is one of them. He would have come to loggerheads with Churchill inside five minutes and the whole thing would have gone to hell.

The real answer, is Arthur Griffith, he was on the team OTL and the only reason Mick was viewed as "leading" the team over him is purely because nobody had a damned clue who he was until he showed up to negotiate, and then he was such a "celebrity" that the spotlight was thrown on him. It also helped that Mick had connection in the "London-Irish" society from his youth that most of the others, bar Griffith, lacked.
 
By the time the Indian Army steps off the boats, Pariiament will have a passed a revocation of the Home Rule Bill - you really don't want the constitutional crisis of having to fire the British Army for refusing the orders of Parliament.

The outcome from that would be fascinating.
 

Ian_W

Banned
The outcome from that would be fascinating.

Not really. It's pretty much OTL.

Home Rule bill passes via the efforts of the Liberal party.

Ulster Unionists credibly threaten civil war, including importing weapons.

British Army declines to intervene.

British government pretends they did not, in fact, pass a Home Rule bill.

Remember, you've got two months between when the Ulster Unionists bring in and distribute 25 000 rifles and when the Austrian prince gets shot in Sarajevo - this all essentially happens before WW1 is a thing.
 
Not 1923. Not 1916. April 1914.
Indeed, two years after the Buckingham Palace Conference that I was suggesting as a possible POD. Yes, the Ulster "rebels" were prepared to fight if they had no better alternative, no question about that. But in 1912 or even 1914 there were not the deep wells of bitterness that existed in 1919 or 1923. They weren't taking up arms against the forces of the Crown for the fun of the thing and wouldn't (and for that matter didn't) once offered a better alternative. My suggested POD is to offer them a better alternative in 1912. Not as "good" from their POV as 1923 when they basically got 95% of what they wanted, but good enough to assure them that they wouldn't be swamped. Because of the Nationalist counties and the island of Ireland dimension it would mean that Northern nationalists couldn't be ignored or suppressed either

At the same time, the mutinous traitors to Parliament led by Brigadier General Herbert Gough refused to carry out their orders to secure arms and ammunition depots.
The Curragh mutineers were a coterie of mostly Anglo-Irish and mainly Cavalry Officers who refused to take action to suppress the Ulster rebels. They were not going to order their troops to take action but nor were they going to launch a military coup. They let it be known that they would resign their commissions if pressed and Asquith's government (not wanting to pay the political cost of a wave of senior military resignations) didn't want to push it. Essentially they went on strike. If Ulster had indeed launched an armed insurrection they would quickly have been replaced with officers prepared to do the suppression. Kitchener (although sympathetic to the Ulstermen) agreed that an Ulster Rising would have to be countered militarily and Rawlinson, Lawrence and (if memory serves) Maxwell were all being considered to potentially command such an operation.
 
another two sacked for being, well, Catholics
More for being Catholicizers. Cardinal Pole would have had to go in any event I fully grant you but Charles II was quietly and discreetly Catholic for nearly 25 years in power. If James III had been equally circumspect he would never have been overthrown.
 

Ian_W

Banned
More for being Catholicizers. Cardinal Pole would have had to go in any event I fully grant you but Charles II was quietly and discreetly Catholic for nearly 25 years in power. If James III had been equally circumspect he would never have been overthrown.

Yep. You cant be British *and* Catholic.

Which kind of raises interesting questions about Ireland, doesnt it ?
 

Ian_W

Banned
Indeed, two years after the Buckingham Palace Conference that I was suggesting as a possible POD. Yes, the Ulster "rebels" were prepared to fight if they had no better alternative, no question about that. But in 1912 or even 1914 there were not the deep wells of bitterness that existed in 1919 or 1923. They weren't taking up arms against the forces of the Crown for the fun of the thing and wouldn't (and for that matter didn't) once offered a better alternative.

This alternative, of course, being that their threatened treason and attempted civil war meant the abandonment of the Irish parliament and Asquith spending several months pretending the whole thing never happened.
 
Yep. You cant be British *and* Catholic.

Which kind of raises interesting questions about Ireland, doesnt it ?
Well my cousin married into a family of English recusants who have managed to be British and Catholic for some 485 years, so it definitely can be done. Got a whole lot easier after 1835 I am told. An earlier Catholic emancipation in the early 1800s could make a huge difference.
But even in the later OTL twentieth century I have a feeling that G.K. Chesterton; General Sir George McDonough; Evelyn Waugh; General Sir William Slim; Sir John Biggs-Davison; Sir Michael Quinlan; J. R.R. Tolkien; Cardinal Basil Hume; Nigel Dempster; Piers Paul Reid; Michael Ancram and Paul Johnson might beg to differ from your contention.
 

Ian_W

Banned
Well my cousin married into a family of English recusants who have managed to be British and Catholic for some 485 years, so it definitely can be done. Got a whole lot easier after 1835 I am told. An earlier Catholic emancipation in the early 1800s could make a huge difference.
But even in the later OTL twentieth century I have a feeling that G.K. Chesterton; General Sir George McDonough; Evelyn Waugh; General Sir William Slim; Sir John Biggs-Davison; Sir Michael Quinlan; J. R.R. Tolkien; Cardinal Basil Hume; Nigel Dempster; Piers Paul Reid; Michael Ancram and Paul Johnson might beg to differ from your contention.

Kindly list me the entire list of Catholic British Prime Ministers between say, 1835 and 2015.
 
This alternative, of course, being that their threatened treason and attempted civil war meant the abandonment of the Irish parliament and Asquith spending several months pretending the whole thing never happened.
Implementation of the Home Rule Bill was actually delayed by the declaration of war with Germany (and the parallel proposal for Home Rule for Scotland never got off the ground at all). While unkind things can definitely be said about Kaiser Bill and von Moltke they weren't being treasonable in invading Belgium. Violating their neutrality guarantee yes but not treasonable. Nor were Gough and company for that matter either, it isn't treasonable to resign your commission rather than carry out orders you believe to be wrong. Now if any of them had then headed North to offer their services to the Ulstermen that would have been treasonable.
What Asquith actually did was exclude the four Unionist majority counties from the Home Rule Act. At which point the UVF stood down.
Pearse and company and later Collins, de Valera and company appear to have felt that 28 counties were too many and went to an immense amount of trouble to ensure that two further counties were handed back to the Ulster Unionists. Very generous of them it was too, even if the upkeep of Fermanagh and Tyrone is quite expensive....
 
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