AHC: Make Ireland become a dominion in the 19th Century

Your challenge is for Ireland to become a dominion in the 19th Century, and for Ireland to follow a similar path to Canada and Australia in constitutional development to the present day.
 
Your challenge is for Ireland to become a dominion in the 19th Century, and for Ireland to follow a similar path to Canada and Australia in constitutional development to the present day.

Canada is the only former colony of Britain to become a Dominion before the 20th Century, becoming the Dominion of Canada in 1867, the rest, came either in the turn of the century Australia 1901 New Zealand 1907 and South Africa 1910, or after World War 2, India 1947 Pakistan 1947 and Ceylon 1948.

What about the Duke of Wellington, devolving more power to the Irish, due to fear the Americans will try and take the island as a base near Britain?
 
Your challenge is for Ireland to become a dominion in the 19th Century, and for Ireland to follow a similar path to Canada and Australia in constitutional development to the present day.

Government of Ireland Bill of 1886 is passed. IOTL it lost 341-311 so change the mind of 16 Liberals who voted against their government and job done.
 
Government of Ireland Bill of 1886 is passed. IOTL it lost 341-311 so change the mind of 16 Liberals who voted against their government and job done.

Except this doesn't solve the internal issues that plagued Ireland or the serious split in the Liberal Party the Bill engendered that would undermine any lasting settlement.

What you actually need here is an attitude shift among Irish Protestants (particularly in Ulster) that prevents them from seeing Home Rule as Catholic Domination. Without this they will derail the Dominion almost immediately (they were ready to fight the British Govt for the right to be "British" in 1914 remember).

One POD that could work would be for a more widespread growth of Protestantism in the rest of Ireland, maybe in reaction to the Land Wars of the 1870s and 1880s. Instead of being hounded out as absentee landlords, maybe Protestant owners decide to play a more active and supportive role towards their catholic tenants, thus eases tensions in time for the 1886 Bill to pass.


A more realistic settlement would be post 1900, for Asquith to hold his nerve and push Home Rule through in 1914-1915 when the nation was distracted by the war. This would give the new Dominion four years of unifying conflict to start to ease into its new identity.
 
The 1886 Bill would still have to get through the House of Lords and based on the issues Asquith had in the 1910s it would be a vicious struggle for a piece of legislation (drawn up personally by Gladstone) many Liberal and Irish MPs thought was deeply flawed. You might need Victoria to be bumped off as she hated Gladstone. Edward VII on the other hand might be more willing to ennoble more peers to get it passed- he actually favoured an Austro-Hungarian style dual monarchy so he'd at least be sympathetic to Gladstone.

Simpler idea however would be to avoid the 1801 Union altogether, say a spy uncovers the 1798 Rebellion and its leaders are arrested before it can begin.

The Kingdom of Ireland had its own parliament and its own currency and by the 1790s was increasingly independent. Have it survive into the 1820s and you'll see Catholic Emancipation and the withering away of royal power, in their case the Lord-Lieutenant. Have the post reformed and neutered to a *Governor-General. Due to location I doubt much of a Royal Irish Navy will form but I can see a distinct Irish Army growing over the years from the existing Irish regiments as home grown officers proud of their country (as opposed to people like Wellington) appear.
 
What about the Duke of Wellington, devolving more power to the Irish, due to fear the Americans will try and take the island as a base near Britain?

Given that by the time Wellington was PM the Royal Navy had already become the world's most powerful fleet, the prospects of the Americans even being able to make landfall, let alone supporting a base on the other side of the Atlantic, are... not good.
 
Except this doesn't solve the internal issues that plagued Ireland or the serious split in the Liberal Party the Bill engendered that would undermine any lasting settlement.

What you actually need here is an attitude shift among Irish Protestants (particularly in Ulster) that prevents them from seeing Home Rule as Catholic Domination. Without this they will derail the Dominion almost immediately (they were ready to fight the British Govt for the right to be "British" in 1914 remember).

One POD that could work would be for a more widespread growth of Protestantism in the rest of Ireland, maybe in reaction to the Land Wars of the 1870s and 1880s. Instead of being hounded out as absentee landlords, maybe Protestant owners decide to play a more active and supportive role towards their catholic tenants, thus eases tensions in time for the 1886 Bill to pass.


A more realistic settlement would be post 1900, for Asquith to hold his nerve and push Home Rule through in 1914-1915 when the nation was distracted by the war. This would give the new Dominion four years of unifying conflict to start to ease into its new identity.

If Ulster were excluded from the new Dominion and remained part of UK, would that be enough?
 
The 1886 Bill would still have to get through the House of Lords and based on the issues Asquith had in the 1910s it would be a vicious struggle for a piece of legislation (drawn up personally by Gladstone) many Liberal and Irish MPs thought was deeply flawed.

I agree, hence why I think a post 1900 POD is more realistic. By Asquith's time you've got both a packed House of Lords and the Parliament Act that means that, ultimately, the Commons can ram the legislation through anyway.

If Ulster were excluded from the new Dominion and remained part of UK, would that be enough?

Maybe, but you would need to change the attitudes of many of the Nationalists who saw Ulster as PART of Ireland (whether it wanted to be or not) and still get the current simmering tensions with Catholics north of the border.

But it could be done.

Or you could have a more successful moderate influence on both groups. Something like the small-scale but sweet OTL All for Ireland League. They never amounted to much but I've always thought they could be good POD stuff!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-for-Ireland_League
 
What about the Duke of Wellington, devolving more power to the Irish, due to fear the Americans will try and take the island as a base near Britain?

Seems farfetched. The United States wasn't too interested in European affairs at that time.
 
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