Republic of Wales: (Weriniaeth Cymru)
Background: Wales industrializes just like in OTL, except in this scenario, significantly fewer English workers migrate to industrial south Wales in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, meaning that South Wales in 1914 is more than 80% Welsh Speaking while Cardiff to remains majority Welsh Speaking.
In the 1890s: The Cymru Fydd movement manages to create a Welsh Nationalist Party just like that in Ireland with David LLoyd George as its leader in Westminster. The Welsh Nationalists, like the Irish Nationalists, manages to hold the balance of power between 1910 and 1914 and manages to achieve Home Rule, although because there is no Welsh equivalent of the Ulster Crisis, it gets passed sooner, a Welsh devolved bicameral parliament is set up by 1914. Many nationalists want it in Cardiff but Lloyd George has it set up in Aberystwyth.
Lloyd George becomes the first first minister and without him in the liberals as in OTL, it is Bonar Law who replaces Asquith in OTL. Meanwhile, the new Home Rule parliament in Aberystwyth has its powers suspended during the first world war, frustrating many nationalists but nevertheless, Lloyd George, as leader of the Welsh Government, persuades the Welsh to sign up for the war. The Welsh Parliament then gains its powers in 1918.
The Easter Rising in Dublin, along with the subsequent Irish War of independence takes place just like OTL, except for the fact that with a Tory government in Westminster (and no Lloyd George coalition), the British are harsher than OTL, and sympathy for the Irish Republicans grows in Wales.
Talk of solidarity with their celtic cousins grows.
Declaration of independence: In 1920, after the latest British atrocity in Ireland, a declaration of independence reaches the floor of the Welsh House of Commons. Lloyd George hitherto secretly sympathetic to the British government watches as the debate slips in the separatist direction. Partly fearing being forced to resign, he decides to support the separatist vote and compares Bonar Law to the Kaiser, and Ireland to Belgium. Talks of how Wales, with its industry can perfectly well survive economically motivate other into voting for the declaration. It passes, and the Tory government in London is both shocked and livid while Collins and De Valera are thrilled. The Welsh war of Independence has begun.
Local Authorities all back the declaration and the Welsh Republican Army (Myddin Gwerinieathol Cymru) is set up. They fight a a mixture of open battles and ambushes against the invading English Army, but when all hope seems lost, the Tories call a truce, due to English public opinion. The Anglo-Welsh-Irish Treaty is signed, creating a Welsh free state, along with an Irish one, both within the British Empire. The Welsh legislature accepts the Treaty, hoping that this will be a stepping stone to a Welsh Republic.
Independence: In Wales' multiparty system of the inter-war period, Lloyd George's Cymru Fydd and the Welsh Labour Party develop as the two largest parties, representing centre-right and centre-left politics, with other parties including the Communist Party and the Democratic Party, the latter representing the English speaking minority concentrated in Radnorshire and Southern Pembrokeshire. However, despite their best efforts, the Inter-War period proves disasterous for Wales' economy, due to the pressures on Wales's heavy industries, leading to high unemployment and emigration to the neighboring United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Lloyd George's combination of Keynesianism and Free Trade Economics does help a little, but times remain difficult. However, given the legacy of the war of independence, few Welshmen want to give up their independence.
Later Twentieth and Early Twenty first century: Wales's economy slowly improves after the Second World War, with the growth in services and light industry. However real prosperity comes with access to the EEC, which it joins in 1973. Like it's neighbor, Ireland, the country becomes a Celtic tiger economy more than 20 years later, with the interwar strife seeming a world away. Aberystywth and Cardiff grow as centers of light industry and Technology, and many international companies invest in Wales, along with related Welsh Startups. Successive Welsh governments, just like in 1889, develop a world class education system, this time focusing on vocational education. Its infrastructure is overhauled, with the government after the second world war choosing to invest in its railway infrastructure and not in motorways, and thus its railways experience among the highest ridership levels per capita in Europe, while trains are known for their punctuality, ease of travel and popularity. Aberystwyth, in spite of its growth in the later 20th century, remains smaller than Cardiff or Swansea, while being one of the most beautiful and safest capitals in the EU. As a result of Wales' new found prosperity, it becomes more cosmopolitan; those born in the neighboring United Kingdom number around 11% in 2011, while those born outside of the British Isles, though less numerous than those of English birth, increase in the preceding decades, giving Wales' cities a multi-cultural population.
Welsh remains the dominant first language of the Republic, the mother tongue of more than 80% of people in 2011, and is designated as the official language by the constitution, while English, as well as having co-official status as a regional language in Mid-Powys and Southern Pembrokeshire, is the default first foreign language in schools in Wales, with a majority being able to speak it as a second language, despite their being a temporary dip in English's popularity as a second language after independence, due to political reasons.
Government: Unitary Parliamentary Republic
Population: 3 million
