Ireland without World War I

Now having just finished my history A-Levels, in which one of the major topics was Ireland 1910-1922, I've been thinking a bit about what what I've been studying and AH.com. So I decided to ask AH.com: without the disruption of World War I what would happen in Ireland?

As a POD we will assume that Gavrilo Princep doesn't spot the Archduke's car in Sarajevo. That means that the Home Rule Crisis in Britain continues unaverted. What would happen now?

-Is compromise between the various sides possible?

-Would partition still occur?


-If so, would it be four, six or nine county?

-Could Ulster manage to gain permanent rather than temporary exclusion from Home Rule?

-Would Ulster end up using the guns they brought in from Germany?

-Would Britain be able to impose Home Rule on the north in the wake of the Curragh Mutiny?

-How would the Nationalists and the population of the south react to any difficulties with imposing Home Rule in the north?

-What would the effect be on British politics as a whole?
 

Thande

Donor
I think it depends what government is in power, but I would say the main possibilities are:

1) Home Rule for all of Ireland except a few Ulster counties on the right hand side which had a Protestant majority

2) Home Rule enforced on the whole island with some special protections for the Protestant minority enshrined into law

Either way, probably lots of Troubles. Home Rule wasn't a panacea. But it will help the British government considerably in the other problems of a delayed/avoided WW1 world if it can finally put aside the Irish Question that had consumed so much attention for more than twenty years.
 
One of the big impediments to a compromise was financial. The Unionists feared that Home Rule would mean the imposition of tariffs and restricted access to Imperial markets, the Nationalists saw Ulster as a cash cow and if it wasnt included in the jurisdiction of the Irish Parliament then it wouldn't be worth doing. The other big impediment was the increasing Gaelisation of Irish Nationalism and the growing influence of the Catholic Church, you also had the increasing influence of demagogues like D.P. Moran, creator of the abusive term "West Brit" who wrote that you had to be Gaelic and Catholic in order to be fully Irish, the Unionists weren't models of tolerance themselves either, but overall they saw nothing to gain from Home Rule and Nationalists couldn't understand their objections.

By the time the War started, Carson had accepted that a 9 county Ulster wasn't tenable and saw 6 counties as the absolute maximum achievable. Given the mistrust between both sides I can't see the Unionists agreeing to participate in a 32 County arrangement despite safeguards. Maybe if the All for Ireland League who were more sympathetic to Unionist concerns had been the dominant Nationalist party then something like this could have worked but not with the IPP.

Had 26 county HR been enacted then the IPP would probably have broken up and a more left/right divide could have developed in Irish politics, the Unionists didn't want a Parliament and would have preferred to stay run by Westminster. Without the Easter Rising, War of Independence and Civil War then it's unlikely that people like De Valera would have been in power therefore the South's government avoids becoming so dominated by Catholicism so no clerical abuse scandals or the Magdalene Laundries. It was that influence that made the Unionists certain that they had made the right decision in refusing to go with Dublin. Perhaps after 40-50 years of co-existence, passions could have cooled to the extent where Unionists would start to consider whether ending partition would be desireable but the South would need to have been more advanced economically than IOTL to make this an attractive proposition.

Whatever would have come of a Carson/Redmond deal in 1914 I doubt it could been worse than the twin visions of "A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People" and images of strapping lads playing hurling with comely maidens dancing at the crossroads that poisoned relations in Ireland for so long.
 
Without the Easter Rising, War of Independence and Civil War then it's unlikely that people like De Valera would have been in power therefore the South's government avoids becoming so dominated by Catholicism so no clerical abuse scandals or the Magdalene Laundries.

Most of the clerical-run institutions in Ireland (the industrial schools, the Magdalene Laundries, etc.) were already in place before partition. The British government were happy enough to allow the Catholic and other churches run institutions on their behalf (there was a CofI-run Magdalene Laundry in the Donegall Pass until just after WW1, for example), saving the state the expense and giving the Catholic clergy a stake in a stable society.

In addition, although De Valera gets trotted out as a convenient ultra-Catholic bogeyman, most of the restrictive social legislation (on divorce, on contraception, on censorship) had already been put in place by the previous Cumann na nGaedheal governments of the 1920s.

Indeed, much of the Catholic Church establishment of the 1920s and early 30s viewed Fianna Fáil as crypto-Communist and FF were generally considered a less cravenly Catholic party than Fine Gael up to the mid-60s. FF's bases of support came from smaller farmers (hence the appeals toward agrarian idylls but also stronger positions on land reform and redistribution) and the urban working-class (largely because FF made serious efforts at slum clearance in the 30s).
 
Top