Might want to redo the whole 'cutting abortion clinics' thing - he could get away with blocking their construction or pushing alternatives (adoption services, etc.) but if he tried to openly impede access to a legal service because of personal religious beliefs the Canadian government would be less than happy. Otherwise, he works, though if he continues his pro-US rhetoric he might not get another term...
Anyway...
* * *
Harland and Wolff Shipyard, Belfast, Republic of Ireland. Gaining control of the shipyards was a major economic boost for the fledgling Republic, and Ireland as a consequence would be a hub for shipbuilding in Europe. Even today, ships built at the Belfast yards are sought-after by buyers who want reliability and durability, and they provide repair services to all shipping lines active in Europe...as well, naturally, as employment to a large portion of Belfast's population.
Two-term President* of the Irish Republic and then-Leader of the Democratic Left (
Daonlathas Clé) Party Mary Robinson meeting with Queen Elizabeth II in 1993. Even with her administration now part of history, Mary Robinson is remembered as one of the greatest leaders in Ireland's time as an independent nation. Chiefly remembered for her reinvigoration of the Irish economy following the economic downturn of the 1980s, her funding for a large new network of state schools (as well as the academic scholarship that bears her name), and her ensuring that Berlin and Paris were made well aware that Ireland was a partner in
Allianz Paneuropa, not a satellite state.
Still from the 2016 film
Heroes of the Litani, starring Jamie Dornan as Commandant (ultimately General) Patrick Quinlan, then-comander of A Company, 35th Battalion, a part of the Irish commitment to the Pan-European peacekeeping force sent to what would later become the Arab Republic of Phoenicia, during the Ottoman withdrawal in 1961. Quinlan and his force of 155 lightly-armed soldiers were forced to defend a small town near the Litani River against a force of over 4,000 pro-Turkish militia, as part of their overall aim to create a separate Turkish puppet state separate to the forming Phoenicia. Quinlan and his men resisted enemy assaults for six days, exhausting their ammunition in the process but killing over three hundred of the enemy and wounding up to a thousand. They were ultimately relieved by a German
Panzergrenadier unit. Quinlan and his men were hailed as heroes on their return to Ireland, and as well as their native awards would be personally decorated by the Kaiser.
Still from the 2002 film
The Magdalene Sisters, set in Ireland of 1938. Telling the story of several young women imprisoned in one of the infamous Magdalene Asylums for 'Fallen Women', the film is but one of a number of Irish works of screen and writing that have told the story of these grim institutions.
During the Union of Britain's Occupation of Ireland, Syndicalist forces raided and forcibly closed the Asylums, along with a range of industrial schools and educational institutions. Their findings were - by order of Oswald Mosley himself - broadcast wholesale across the island, in an attempt to discredit the former government and institutions and reconcile the Irish people to Syndicalist rule. While the latter would not happen, the effect of the revelations was to entirely shatter the power of the Catholic Church in Ireland when the Republic was restored. Most Irish Catholics felt personally betrayed by the Church, given their nation's prior history of devotion**, while many politicians saw opportunity.
In large part as a result of these revelations, Ireland today is a highly secular country, having borrowed considerably (or copied wholesale) from France in its post-Liberation legislation on Church-state. Social Conservatism is largely dead as a political force, and many of those who work to try to resurrect it are in fact non-Catholics such as...
...the late Reverend Ian Paisley, one-time Independent TD for North Antrim and founder of the Liberated Presbyterian Church. Born into what had been a Unionist family, the Occupation had made public support of re-unification with Britain effectively a dead letter in Irish politics. Paisley's political career, therefore, was based around two things: campaigning for a socially conservative legal and penal code; and 'protecting the people of Ireland from the grasping hand of Rome'. As a TD, Paisley would be repeatedly ejected from Government buildings for furious outbursts on the floor, including a long harangue about how Ireland should withdraw diplomatic recognition of the Italian Federation until the Pope - or as Paisley called him, the 'Whore of Babylon'*** - renounced any temporal power in the government of Italy.
This photograph shows him being led away from Armagh Cathedral by two members of An Garda Síochána, following a particularly vitriolic protest against the new Archbishop in 1980. It was shortly thereafter that he lost his seat for the final time, ending his political career for good.
* Following the Union of Britain Occupation, then-President Collins had even further strengthened the role of the President under Irish law, thus establishing it as a Presidential Republic.
** Pretty much what happened OTL, only earlier and harder.
*** No offence meant to anyone, these are his words not mine
- and while he
did in fairness mellow in later life and took part in the Peace Process, at one stage in his career rhetoric like this was par for the course for Paisley OTL.
