What would be the effects if all Ireland remained in the United Kingdom

I think Ireland staying with the UK would promote some sort of federalism, as Ireland would still have a very pronounced local identity and would demand more autonomy than Northern Ireland had done IOTL. Scotland would then go along with that.
 
Russell,
let me guarantee you living off social welfare benefits is very much a lifestyle choice for a lot of Irish people and they are far better than in the UK for sure today as is our educational system, though Scotland in fairness is highly regarded internationally in this respect!
Just look at the figures over 50K per year tax free and sundry benefits for a couple with 10 sprogs, in Scandanavia, Holland, Germany, which are countries with reknowned social welfare systems, bells would be ringing in their community affairs departments leading to constantly keeping an eye on such 'families' with a view to placing those children into care, rather than enabling them to reproduce and replicate the insanity further!!!!!!!!

I am unsure whether to report this or not, but I will give you a pass despite the language you have used.
Saying that living off welfare is a lifestyle choice for a lot of Irish people is frankly insulting and patronising. This is the kind of things Paiselyite folks said in the past with regards to their fellow Catholic British-Irish countrymen in Northern Ireland.

Terms like sprogs and "replicate the insanity" further have no place in civilisd debate, alongside of course poor grammar and poorly constructed sentences!
 
Russell,
let me guarantee you living off social welfare benefits is very much a lifestyle choice for a lot of Irish people and they are far better than in the UK for sure today as is our educational system, though Scotland in fairness is highly regarded internationally in this respect!
Just look at the figures over 50K per year tax free and sundry benefits for a couple with 10 sprogs, in Scandanavia, Holland, Germany, which are countries with reknowned social welfare systems, bells would be ringing in their community affairs departments leading to constantly keeping an eye on such 'families' with a view to placing those children into care, rather than enabling them to reproduce and replicate the insanity further!!!!!!!!

anyway getting back to the point of the bloody thread.




most people posting are only talking about the liberalising affects this will have on Ireland and not looking at the reverse.

IIRC homosexuality was only made legal in Scotland in 1980 and I.N 1982 (with abortion still being illegal-ish there).

If Westminster has a lot more Irish MPs who are more passionate about things like abortion, divorce ect (who aren’t busy arguing about sectarian issue’s) social reform might get held up for quite a while. This might even lead to the Tory’s picking up Irish votes, providing the Tories put "fight and be right" behind them.



( this sounds a bit ASB put to use an OTL parallel, a lot of the modern Tory parties ethnic minority MPs are from conservative Asian back grounds. which would have seemed absurd in the 70's or 80's)
 
Fletcher,
The population of Ireland if it was in the UK, specifically the 26 counties of the Republic as it now is would be smaller than it actually is today, we traditionally had extremely high levels of emmigration and this would continue at a faster rate to mainland Britain in a United Kingdom of GB and I.
 
Fletcher,
The population of Ireland if it was in the UK, specifically the 26 counties of the Republic as it now is would be smaller than it actually is today, we traditionally had extremely high levels of emmigration and this would continue at a faster rate to mainland Britain in a United Kingdom of GB and I.
You said the population of Scotland had shrunk over the twentieth century. I proved this to be completely untrue. When I compared the population of Ireland and Scotland over the twentieth century, you stated that I must be comparing the whole of Ireland with RoI. I was not.

Now you fall back on, well it would be lower anyway without any reasoning.

An Ireland with home rule within the union from the 19th/early 20th century would have enough scope to enact land reform and the like. It would also not have the horrible years where Ireland was far behind the UK. In addition to this, Ireland would be in a more secure position that it is today.
 

Ak-84

Banned
anyway getting back to the point of the bloody thread.




most people posting are only talking about the liberalising affects this will have on Ireland and not looking at the reverse.

IIRC homosexuality was only made legal in Scotland in 1980 and I.N 1982 (with abortion still being illegal-ish there).

If Westminster has a lot more Irish MPs who are more passionate about things like abortion, divorce ect (who aren’t busy arguing about sectarian issue’s) social reform might get held up for quite a while. This might even lead to the Tory’s picking up Irish votes, providing the Tories put "fight and be right" behind them.



( this sounds a bit ASB put to use an OTL parallel, a lot of the modern Tory parties ethnic minority MPs are from conservative Asian back grounds. which would have seemed absurd in the 70's or 80's)

1) The UK's Abortion Act has still not been extended to N Ireland. Its is still illegal in Northern Ireland.

2) WRT the Tories, I think by the time the fights over homesexuality and abortion begin the "fight and be right" would be at least 50 years in the past, at least. The Irish will eventually discover that the Tory agenda has a lot of things that they like. Anyway the Tories have had a history. They have elected a Jew, A bachelor (read thought to be gay) and a woman as a PM. Which is something niether the Libs or Labour have ever done.

Challenge; have a openly gay, Southern Irish, female, Tory PM by 2011! :D
 
Fletcher,
The population of Ireland if it was in the UK, specifically the 26 counties of the Republic as it now is would be smaller than it actually is today, we traditionally had extremely high levels of emmigration and this would continue at a faster rate to mainland Britain in a United Kingdom of GB and I.

Er there was massive emmigration from the 26 counties to England anyway throughout the 20th century regardless of independence, I don't see how things would have been any different.

I'm also confused about your ideas around the Irish education system, I spent a couple of years in it, and it was not noticeably great.

I think we would probably see free healthcare in the whole island which would be nice.

I would have to agree with others on the strategic position of the Irish MPs possibly acting as a conservative break on some liberal/modernising desires within Britain.

I suspect home rule for Ireland would have encouraged successful home rule for Scotland and Wales, and possibly the replacement of the House of Lords with a senate of the nations and regions.

I wonder as well if some gerrymandering protestant dominated Orange controlled seperate home rule deal would still have been concocted in the North, probably with the full support of the Southern ruling class/church to ensure Protestant domination in one part of the island still, and Catholic domination everywhere else? With the working and middleclasses of the North still suffering communal tensions and outright conflict.

However it panned out I think politics in the North could look like anything now.
 
The Anglo-Irish Ascendancy in the South of Ireland opposed Partition because they didn't want to weaken the Protestant position in Ireland yet further after Home Rule (hence why the Home Rule diehards were generally from the south of Ireland, while the Ulster Unionists were prepared to accept exclusion). With Northern Ireland, Protestants make up a significant minority of the Irish population, possibly around the same level or more as whites in South Africa - without, they become an insignificant, powerless and despised minority (like whites in Zimbabwe).
 
1) The UK's Abortion Act has still not been extended to N Ireland. Its is still illegal in Northern Ireland.

2) WRT the Tories, I think by the time the fights over homesexuality and abortion begin the "fight and be right" would be at least 50 years in the past, at least. The Irish will eventually discover that the Tory agenda has a lot of things that they like. Anyway the Tories have had a history. They have elected a Jew, A bachelor (read thought to be gay) and a woman as a PM. Which is something niether the Libs or Labour have ever done.

Challenge; have a openly gay, Southern Irish, female, Tory PM by 2011! :D



I would read that TL
 
The Anglo-Irish Ascendancy in the South of Ireland opposed Partition because they didn't want to weaken the Protestant position in Ireland yet further after Home Rule.

I was referring to the Catholic ruling (well upper) class and the Catholic Church.

However we shouldn't exaggerate the kinship between the big house types and your average Ulster protestants, there are massive differences and always have been in class, culture, and outlook. Not surprising really given their different origins.

I just wonder if however a devolved Ireland within the UK would have had to include either a gerrymandered system where there would have to always be a Protestant deputy first minister or the two dominant communities would have to take it in turns to provide the FM - or it would just be easier to have two seperate devolved entities.

Thinking about it I also wonder if proportional representation would have come to Britain for general elections via Ireland?
 
There wasn't a Catholic upper class in Ireland. Or at least, not much of one. The penal laws of the 17th and 18th century had either dispossessed the old Catholic gentry of their lands or forced them to convert to Anglicanism.

The Catholic Church is a different matter and there was something of a Catholic middle class of course, but the Irish upper classes were, in the vast part, Protestant.
 
A professional Irish Catholic middle class had certainly become quite well established by the 20th century and there was an Irish merchant class consisting of many Catholics from the mid 19th century for sure. With the unfortunate decline in our protestant population in the ROI post independence going from 10% to about 3% but thankfully growing today, these catholics in the merchant and professional classes became dominant and ultimately they for the most part operated closed shop practices which prevented ordinary working class Catholics from accessing the professions and well paid jobs which continues to this day! Why do you think so many decent and well educated Irish people have had to run out of here? I know it rains alot but its not down to the weather for sure!
Prior to The British being removed as our Imperial masters in ROI, the civil service was becomming Hibernized any way with Irish Catholics heading towards a majority within it, if not already there by that time. Also Irish people played a massive role in developing the civil service in colonial India, to such an extent AFAIK, that the traditional British establishment were getting mad jealous and had to try and stop them!
 
I have posted an OP on what if you had 85 or so eccentric Irsh nationalist MPs floating around and generally acting the maggot around Westminister to this day? Actually as was pointed out to me under the Home Rule Bill it would have been reduced to around 45 or so, still enough to obstruct and cause alot of devilment!
 
A professional Irish Catholic middle class had certainly become quite well established by the 20th century and there was an Irish merchant class consisting of many Catholics from the mid 19th century for sure. With the unfortunate decline in our protestant population in the ROI post independence going from 10% to about 3% but thankfully growing today, these catholics in the merchant and professional classes became dominant and ultimately they for the most part operated closed shop practices which prevented ordinary working class Catholics from accessing the professions and well paid jobs which continues to this day! Why do you think so many decent and well educated Irish people have had to run out of here? I know it rains alot but its not down to the weather for sure!
Prior to The British being removed as our Imperial masters in ROI, the civil service was becomming Hibernized any way with Irish Catholics heading towards a majority within it, if not already there by that time. Also Irish people played a massive role in developing the civil service in colonial India, to such an extent AFAIK, that the traditional British establishment were getting mad jealous and had to try and stop them!
Well there's a difference between a Irish Catholic middle class, which is what you're talking about, and an Irish Catholic upper class, which there wasn't much of - in my eyes upper class means landed gentry, aristocrats and very wealthy merchants/industrialists, and the vast majority of all three groups were composed of Irish Protestants.
 
A professional Irish Catholic middle class had certainly become quite well established by the 20th century and there was an Irish merchant class consisting of many Catholics from the mid 19th century for sure. With the unfortunate decline in our protestant population in the ROI post independence going from 10% to about 3% but thankfully growing today, these catholics in the merchant and professional classes became dominant and ultimately they for the most part operated closed shop practices which prevented ordinary working class Catholics from accessing the professions and well paid jobs which continues to this day! Why do you think so many decent and well educated Irish people have had to run out of here? I know it rains alot but its not down to the weather for sure!
Prior to The British being removed as our Imperial masters in ROI, the civil service was becomming Hibernized any way with Irish Catholics heading towards a majority within it, if not already there by that time. Also Irish people played a massive role in developing the civil service in colonial India, to such an extent AFAIK, that the traditional British establishment were getting mad jealous and had to try and stop them!

Protestant is still a dirty word in parts of the Republic. Obviously in the cities, not so much, but in the Midlands? It still holds a stigma. My grandparents still associate the Protestants in Ireland with the poverty they had growing up.
 
For the most in The Irish Republic today nobody gives a damn what religeon another person is! And that's exactly the way it should be!
 
This thread has to estalish first how and why Ireland remains in the UK before it can tackle the challenges of the (middle of the) twentieth century.
 

Tprynn

Banned
This thread has to estalish first how and why Ireland remains in the UK before it can tackle the challenges of the (middle of the) twentieth century.

It might be possible if the British are less heavy handed with their reprisals to the 1916 Rising. In the immediate aftermath, the was great hostility towards the Volunteers. It wasn't till the Army started interning, court martialing and executing people did public opinion really turn on the British.

Alternatively, getting the Second or Third Home rule bills passed before WWI might be enough
 
Top