Ireland without World War I

[CaliGuy]

Had World War I either been delayed or been outright prevented, what would the situation in Ireland have looked like?

Specifically, how would the implementation of Irish Home Rule have looked like and how would Ireland's history have developed throughout the 20th and early 21st century in this TL?

 

[ShortsBelfast]

Have look at Gonzo's "Killing Home Rule with Kindness" TL. Probably a total lack of political violence is implausible but the social and economic consequences of no WWI and its consequent coarsening of the political discourse would have been considerable. There was extensive comment on this topic at the time including by me. Probably especially by me.

 

[The Red]

Given such a massive PoD the potential butterflies make it difficult to see very far into the future. The Third Home Rule Bill had been passed a few months prior to the outbreak of war, but even without the war taking place it's questionable as to whether the Liberal government actually goes ahead with its implementation. An outbreak of Loyalist and/or Nationalist violence seemed imminent and the Curragh mutiny had raised questions about the British army's willingness to fight for what many officers believed to be 'Rome Rule'. With a general election due before December 1915, kicking the subject into the long grass yet again may have seemed like an attractive move for Asquith.

 

[Cook]

If war hadn't been declared in August 1914, civil war in Ulster would have almost certainly broken out in the later part of 1914.

 

[CaliGuy]

Have look at Gonzo's "Killing Home Rule with Kindness" TL. Probably a total lack of political violence is implausible but the social and economic consequences of no WWI and its consequent coarsening of the political discourse would have been considerable. There was extensive comment on this topic at the time including by me. Probably especially by me.

Interesting. Indeed, are your extensive comments about this topic in the thread with that TL?

Given such a massive PoD the potential butterflies make it difficult to see very far into the future. The Third Home Rule Bill had been passed a few months prior to the outbreak of war, but even without the war taking place it's questionable as to whether the Liberal government actually goes ahead with its implementation. An outbreak of Loyalist and/or Nationalist violence seemed imminent and the Curragh mutiny had raised questions about the British army's willingness to fight for what many officers believed to be 'Rome Rule'. With a general election due before December 1915, kicking the subject into the long grass yet again may have seemed like an attractive move for Asquith.

What do you think would have happened after December 1915, though?

If war hadn't been declared in August 1914, civil war in Ulster would have almost certainly broken out in the later part of 1914.

Would this civil war have been more or less intense and bloody than the troubles in Northern Ireland were in the late 20th century in our TL?

 

[ShortsBelfast]

Interesting. Indeed, are your extensive comments about this topic in the thread with that TL?

They are indeed. The gist (and in this TL the Central Powers won in 1914 due to Britain being preoccupied with Irish affairs) was:-
Certainly the War had a radicalising (some might say a coarsening) affect on Irish politics that in TTL would be avoided. For instance:-
1) The social pressures in Ireland were somewhat heightened by the U-boat threat making emigration to the USA, Canada and Australia less viable 1914-18. Didn't happen TTL.
2) The USA never entered the War so unlikely to have adopted Prohibition. Apparently this had a significant social effect in Ireland as a lot of Irish emigrants to the USA had gone into the drinks trade. Some had to close down and some had increased overheads (in bribes and paying smugglers I would imagine!) so less "money from America" and "send the lad over" OTL than TTL.
3) On that front, it is impossible to read a history of the (legal and licenced) Irish whiskey industry without reflecting on what a law abiding bunch they were. They tamely cut back production and closed stills following the closure of their greatest export market rather than finding themselves a lot of new "agents" and "customers" in Mexico, the Bahamas and Canada. As a consequence the number of people in skilled employment in Ireland actually fell during 1919-32. Won't happen TTL. And the Dunville heirs won't have been killed in WWI, so the Royal Irish Distillery may not close down in 1941.
4) No wartime overproduction of shipping so not so much of a post-war slump. Sectarian tensions in Belfast in the late Teens and early Twenties were heightened by layoffs at Harland & Wolff and Workman & Clark and by attempts by the Protestant community to ensure that these fell disproportionately on Catholics. So tensions in Belfast slightly lessened TTL.
5) Less encouragement to physical force nationalism from foreign intelligence services and the shadier and more deniable elements of diplomacy fishing in troubled waters TTL than OTL. Germany achieved most of its foreign policy objectives in 1915 so is now a satiated power and probably quite conciliatory in its foreign policy towards Britain. Austria-Hungary will, having seen off Russian encroachment into the Balkans, be inward looking and concentrating on internal reform and constitutional and political settlements. Neither Kaiser Wilhelm nor Kaiser Karl will have much sympathy with militant separationism or Republicanism. The Irish have done their job keeping Britain distracted at the crucial moment and can now be discarded. Russia and France have seen what happens when Britain is distracted by Ireland and didn't enjoy it. Any hope of recovery, let alone revanche is dependent upon Britain being at best supportive and at worst acquiescent. Paris and Petrograd will not want to risk pushing Britain into alliance with Germany. Spies being spies, foreign agents will probably use Irish Republicans as sources of information on Royal Naval vessels in Cork Harbour, submarine trials off Skibbereen, what the RNAS are up to at Shackleton Barracks and what the new Royal Air Service is at at Aldergrove and Baldonnel. But they will only be providing money and not arms or military training.
6) With no involvement in the War, the USA will still be quite inward looking and the Irish-American lobby still isn't quite the political force it will later become. The trickle of American money OTL only became a flood after the executions post the Easter rising. Which didn't happen TTL.
7) A lot of the most pro-British people in Ireland OTL joined up and were killed/maimed/disillusioned by the callous incompetence of the British military command. TTL they are still alive and well and running the family business or farming in Wexford.
8) The English tourist trade collapsed 1914-18 OTL. And didn't revive much 1919-23 for obvious reasons. TTL it didn't.
9) WWI provided all sides in the OTL War of Independence and Civil War with men with military experience and desensitised to violence -Black and Tans, pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty and IRA. TTL not the case.
10) Casement not seized as a spy TTL and will have added his voice to those of Redmond, McNeill and Hobson. He didn't support a rising with token German support so he won't support a rising with none whatsoever

 

[ShortsBelfast]

Continued:-
11. If there was a 1916 Rising at all leaders would likely only be jailed rather than executed. Joseph Plunkett either killed in action or jailed so Count Plunkett's focus mightn't be quite the same. Could be visiting him in the prison hospital and Joseph Plunkett agonising over whether to give his parole in order to go to a sanatorium in Switzerland.
12. Rebel leaders haven't been martyred, just sent to jail. Going by previous risings this will impede the IRB in two ways. Firstly, they will quarrel among themselves and blame each other for the failure of the Rising, perceived slights and failures etc. Secondly as living prisoners and not dead martyrs they will take sides in the debates within Republicanism and exacerbate splits rather than provide a powerful unifying force.
13. The Asquith Liberal government OTL prematurely ran down the formidable network of intelligence agents and informers maintained by Dublin Castle because they were going to settle the Irish question by Home Rule. I suspect the Unionist government would have restored funding and, without a couple of theatres of war to distract their attention, not been caught on the hop as they were OTL and allowed a quantity of army weapons to be seized by the rebels.
14. OTL Republicanism was the coming thing. Post WWI Austria, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland all became bourgeois republics and the former Russian Empire the USSR. Here the Germans have won so these states will all become monarchies. I note the reference to "Communist forces" but suspect the Whites may have won the Civil War TTL with Central Power support. The Germans and Austrians will hardly want a Communist neighbour. And France has surprising continuity at local government level but its higher echelons of government traditionally collapse in serious political crisis. So probably no more Third Republic - Etat Francaise with Petain as Regent? Third Empire? Fourth Republic? Kingdom of France? So Arthur Griffiths more in tune with the zeitgeist of TTL than Patrick Pearse.
15. No post rising atrocities by Bowen-Colthurst (a cousin of Elizabeth Bowen incidentally). Bowen-Colthurst was possibly suffering from shell-shock and certainly brutalised by the conflict. Unlikely to be convalescing in Dublin at all and without the same hatred for "conshies" in less febrile circumstances so Francis Sheehy Skeffington not shot and is able to act as an ongoing influence against violence.
16. No Croke Park shootings. No Black and Tans. No murders of RIC men and no reprisal squads under District Inspector Nixon.
That largely reiterates what I said back at the start of the year in Gonzo's TL.