During the Easter Rising of 1916 James Connolly, leading Marxist and Irish Revolutionary was badly wounded and, after a cursory trial, was executed strapped to a chair alongside his compatriots in one of the crucial turning points of Anglo-Irish history. Meanwhile, Eamon De Valera was imprisoned and sentenced to death, although the sentence was never carried out and he escaped prison in 1918 to become President of the Dail.
What if their positions are reversed: Eamon De Valera is strapped to that chair in Kilmainham and Connolly's sentence is later commutated and he later escapes to fight again.
What would Connolly's place be in Ireland? I believe that he would be anti-Treaty due to his belief in industrialising Ireland, an almost impossible task without Ulster. However, I believe his social policies would be drastically different from De Valera's, being an atheist (or lapsed Catholic) and a Marxist. What would the country look like without De Valera and would Marxism find any place in Ireland?