WI: No Potato Famine in Ireland

In 1841 Ireland's population was six million today it is still only four million.
What would the effects of this be on the British Empire and the rest of the world, during this time a lot of Irish came to find work in England and they are one of the biggest expatriate communities, they also fled to America, Australia, Argentina, and Canada.
 
In 1841 Ireland's population was six million today it is still only four million.

Plus two million today in Northern Ireland(who would've been included in the 1841 total) for a total of six million.

On to the WI, I'm spitballing, but here goes: I think you'd see earlier loosened restrictions on German/Scandinavian immigration(which there weren't many of anyway) in the US. The free states needed cheap labor badly. If the ATL need for immigrant labor is bad enough, we could see an ATL Homestead Act that keeps more poor immigrants in cities(say, it requires citizenship or a fee paid by non-citizens to settle) This would probably lead to more extensive German populations in major cities than OTL(IOTL most German immigration went to rural areas, most would ATL as well, but with much more staying behind in the cities, probably those who couldn't afford to make it out to a farm) which would be interesting to see develop.
 
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What would the effects of this be on the British Empire and the rest of the world, during this time a lot of Irish came to find work in England and they are one of the biggest expatriate communities, they also fled to America, Australia, Argentina, and Canada.
Without the famine and any future catastrophies, I could easily see TTL's Ireland having a population of 20 million or maybe even 30 million people today. In America, there would be much less Irish-Americans/Irish-Canadians, so its diaspora might likely not be among the largest 'hyphenated' communities of the US and Canada.

In 1841 Ireland's population was six million today it is still only four million.
8.2 million, even. Here, I made a chart for this.

NOTE: This chart includes the population of Northern Ireland, so the numbers are for the island of Ireland.

british_isles_population_[25%].png
 
NOTE: This chart includes the population of Northern Ireland, so the numbers are for the island of Ireland.

Man, England's population growth in the 19th century is just astonishing. And that doesn't even take account the millions of Englishmen who moved abroad that century. It makes OTL feel like a Brit-wank: "Oh, let's just have the population quadruple in 100 years."
 

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Man, England's population growth in the 19th century is just astonishing. And that doesn't even take account the millions of Englishmen who moved abroad that century. It makes OTL feel like a Brit-wank: "Oh, let's just have the population quadruple in 100 years."

200 years :p But if we assume that it would have had population growth comparable to those of Scotland and Wales, you're looking an Irish population of around 15 to 24M, putting it somewhere between 6th and 14th on the list of the world's most populous islands- more populated than Kyushu at the very least, and potentially even more populated than Formosa/Taiwan. In all likelihood, the population of TTL's British Isles would be around the same as that of the Philippines.
 
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Historically the Potato Famine provided a major boost to Irish nationalism, so Ireland might well still be part of the Union.

Probably not. The Union was probably already doomed by the 1830s; too many cultural, religious and economic factors weighed against it.

In fact whether the Famine produced any significant boost to Irish nationalism in Ireland is very debatable. It certainly produced a radical diaspora but at home there was no sudden upsurge in revolutionary fervour and Ireland remained mostly quiet - though undoubtly unhappy for decades.

Remember that immediately before the Famine Irish nationalism was generally rising and becoming more vocal - these were the years of Daniel O'Connell and "Monster Meetings" in favour of Repeal. Ironically the Famine might have helped the Union with the country lapsing into a state of demoralised fatalism.

Without it I think the crisis might have come earlier, been more radical and probably bloodier.
 
200 years :p

It was 100 years. In 1801, England's population was 7.7 million. In 1901 it was 30.1 million. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_England)

One timeline idea might be for the UK to have a much lower birth rate, like that of France, in the 19th century. France's population only grew by a third that century. Can a UK with only 15 million residents (not counting Ireland) in 1900 be a world power? Would it have the manpower to control all these colonies? If this scenario would also include no potato famine, Ireland may be lost to the UK a lot sooner.
 
Avoiding the potato famine is impossible. Postponing it is certainly possible, but when you have a very widely grown crop with little genetic diversity, you WILL get diseases that cause massive crop failures.

If you did postpone it, say, then continental history would be very different, too.

1847 was a horrible year for all crops, and northern Germany grew a lot of potatoes, too, just not as high a proportion as Ireland.

Removing the potato famine in Ireland means no 1848 revolution in Germany. If theres no faminine then because the weathers better, then theres no revolution in France or Italy, either, and Napoleon iii never becomes emperor, and Italy doesnt have that first abortive effort to unite.
 
Without the Famine there still would have been a lot of people leaving Ireland.
There were too many people in Ireland for an agricultural based economy.
People were already leaving Ireland in large numbers even before the famine.
Without the famine people who left would have been in better health and more would have survived the crossing.
With the ending of the Corn laws 1846 there would be less worker in farming.
 
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