Just curious, if for whatever reason Ireland was united by a strong king between 900 and 1100 A.D., and his children managed to keep a hereditary monarchy going for long enough that the Irish would rather usurp the throne than break up the kingdom, how strong would they be? Ireland had a considerably larger population than Scotland at the time, so could it have resisted the English more effectively than the Scots did? Would they be able to colonize anything? Would Ireland be able to industrialize, or would they be sruck as an agrarian society?