Ehem...
...I believe a native Irish state would, in fact, be based in the British Isles, hence outside the scope of this thread.
Can anyone else rule Ireland?
- Thread starter pa_dutch
- Start date
Ehem...
...I believe a native Irish state would, in fact, be based in the British Isles, hence outside the scope of this thread.
I did an okay job in my timeline, but that involves Brian Boru surviving Clontarf and successfully establishing a United Irish Kingdom under a Boru Dynasty.
Yeah when I saw that, in my head I said "Ireland isn't British" and posted. Only after did I remember that the majority of people in the world would still refer to Ireland as part of the British Isles.
It's not "British," but it works in the same sense that not every country in the Indian Subcontinent is part of India, or not every country bordering the Gulf of Mexico is part of Mexico, etc.
Ireland isn't British but it is part of the British Isles. The British Isles is a geographic descriptor which happens to also be the name for a people.
Revolutionary Todyo
Banned
A lot of Republicans say "The islands of Britain and Ireland."
Not least because it lets us remind Unionists that they're still Irish geographically.
Revolutionary Todyo
Banned
I'd like to call it the Gaelic Isles myself, it sounds cool, though it is highly inaccurate.
Careful! that's exactly the scenario I joined AH to promote!
The contempt was withering.
It was very much a long shot; the thread was a challenge to come up with a US colony in Europe before 1914, presumably so the USA would be drawn into WWI from the get-go. People seemed to be liking Heligoland when I last looked into that thread!
But yeah, the US had a special interest in Ireland around 1900. Not an unambiguous one, and it's just about impossible to imagine a scenario where the British would prefer it come under Yankee protection (I suggested, as a Commonwealth like Puerto Rico is today); if the revolutionary situation on the island got so bad they had to admit they couldn't hold the place they'd probably much prefer the current situation, with it a fully independent country (kingdom, republic, whatever, from the British point of view).
And we should care about "withering contempt" from people with no imaginations?
While one has to imagine other events unrelated to Ireland itself to make a US occupation and/or absorbtion of Eire into the US plausible, I could see events related to both WW1 (including the 1916 revlolution) and WW2 that might give the USA reason to consider occupying Eire, both from the Irish-American angle and/or in the context of British defeat by, or accomodation with, Imperial and Nazi Germany in the world wars. Unlikely, yes, but not totally implausible.
Revolutionary Todyo
Banned
Neither Germany can defeat Britain badly enough to mean that the US has any chance of occupying Ireland.
End of.
And also, on here if your idea is treated with contempt, it's usually because you're flying in the face of reality rather then encountering unimaginative folks.
Revolutionary Todyo
Banned
Manufacturing a POD where the Gaelic Irish successfully settle large parts of Britain would be a definate for me if I had a time machine.