West Britons

""The people of Ireland are ready to become a portion of the Empire provided they be made so in reality and not in name alone; they are ready to become a kind of West Briton if made so in benefits and justice; but if not, we are Irishmen again.""

Daniel O'Connell, 1832

Any chance of it becoming a reality by that point? I was quite shocked to hear a nationalist say it so late.
 
Thats an interesting idea. Could that set the United Kingdom towards making the populations of OTL Dominions just 'Extra-Insulan Britons'. Making colonies territories of a United Empire of Greater Briton, and then integrating them as provinces alongside England, Scotland and Ireland, once they ave achieved a certain level of development. Quite a terrifying prospect, considering how inflated our heads got at the height of our imperial history. If each province was given a measure of home rule, it could have been quite successful and produced an entity politically and ideologically united enough to present a decent enough threat to any other colonial power.
 
Thats an interesting idea. Could that set the United Kingdom towards making the populations of OTL Dominions just 'Extra-Insulan Britons'.

I don't think so, no. This is about winning the hearts and minds of the Irish...somehow...to make them actively support their British identity. It's not about further integrating the Irish into the British state, because in the 1830s Ireland was already considered an integral part of the UK. Similarly, this situation doesn't really transport over to the colonies as by-and-large the British-descended colonists considered themselves British, and their conversion to Dominions and eventually to independence was about practicality and sensibility, and nothing to do with the colonists not wanting to remain part of the Empire or about the British having a reputation for appeasing agitative ethnic groups.
 
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