We've got two geographically large countries right next door, constantly interacting with each other - in OTL, Britain ends up stepping on Ireland, but is there any point in time or development that could happen where Ireland gets to have at some dominance over Britain? Even if it's not for that long, is it something doable?
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How can Ireland dominate Britain?
- Thread starter Charles EP M.
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- Colwyn Bay/Manchester
- Pronouns
- He/him
You could argue it seems Ireland did dominate Scotland and Wales for a time in the early medieval period.
England is obviously trickier. I feel like if Ireland is significantly more united and England at least stays at its most united it starts to look like it could happen for a while but I'm not sure how you get that.
EDIT: Disunited, even.
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- Pronouns
- he/him
I feel like playing around with the Triple Partition- or whatever it was called- might give medieval Ireland some breathing space it could use.
- Location
- Derbyshire
Personally I think you need to go earlier. If you can somehow trigger the sort of state-building that England had in the early Medieval period? Perhaps a larger, longer and more successful Danish incursion leading to consolidation as various native dynasties are either wiped out or submit to whoever's leftover?
TR1996
Well-known member
- Location
- Adelaide, South Australia
How plausible is a scenario where Ireland is firmly united but England remains split up into a bunch of different statelets (as it was in the post-Roman and Heptarchy periods)? Because then United Ireland could presumably exert itself on the eastern shore of the Irish sea to some extent.
I suppose this depends on how one reads the development and consolidation of 'England'- was the various little kingdoms clumping together into bigger and bigger entities an inevitability, or an accident of history? Because, I think once something resembling 'England' emerges, it becomes very difficult for Ireland to dominate, given demographics and suchlike.
I suppose this depends on how one reads the development and consolidation of 'England'- was the various little kingdoms clumping together into bigger and bigger entities an inevitability, or an accident of history? Because, I think once something resembling 'England' emerges, it becomes very difficult for Ireland to dominate, given demographics and suchlike.
That's a good question. Countries getting bigger by annexing other countries or beating them up until they give in, that seems an inevitable thing until politics/economies/ideologies reach a certain point, but I don't believe it has to be inevitable one single kingdom encompasses everything from Scotland downwards.
Artaxerxes
Senshi sautés seashells by the seashore
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- #VALUE!
Cultural dominance via Columbine Christianity, you already had that with the Northumbrian kingdom.
But for that you'd need the south east of the UK to be less plugged into the continental network and taking money from that.
A Midlands and South/East constantly beaten by Wales and Northumbria early on means that the loot is good enough that putting themselves under the leadership of Rome isn't as appealing to the elites of the north I guess which gives time for a more coherent identity and kingdom. Couple that with stronger links between Ireland and English kings you might get something.
But for that you'd need the south east of the UK to be less plugged into the continental network and taking money from that.
A Midlands and South/East constantly beaten by Wales and Northumbria early on means that the loot is good enough that putting themselves under the leadership of Rome isn't as appealing to the elites of the north I guess which gives time for a more coherent identity and kingdom. Couple that with stronger links between Ireland and English kings you might get something.
Artaxerxes
Senshi sautés seashells by the seashore
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I think ultimately you need the following, a more disorganised France and Rhine to diminish links between continent and south east.
A stronger and more able Northumbria
The Welsh and Irish kingdoms not beating the shit out of each other - a more United Ireland is a big factor here.
Less able Mercian kings.
The Vikings not showing up like a wrecking ball.
Better idea of literacy and it's benefits in the North to facilitate administration.
A stronger and more able Northumbria
The Welsh and Irish kingdoms not beating the shit out of each other - a more United Ireland is a big factor here.
Less able Mercian kings.
The Vikings not showing up like a wrecking ball.
Better idea of literacy and it's benefits in the North to facilitate administration.
- Pronouns
- he/him
You’re probably right, I just wonder if that cheats a little by changing the definition of ‘England’ too much. On the other hand, there's certainly a poetic charm to a strong Irish state being able to dominate an 'England' that's a mass of petty kingdoms. You could even have some Irish nobleman invited over to secure some dispossessed Saxon's claim to an earldom.
What's the Irish for 'Strongbow,' anyway?
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- Location
- Derbyshire
I'm not even sure you need to fully fragment England- the population disparity really wasn't quite so large in the pre-industrial as it is now.
The main thing however is that you absolutely can't do it when Ireland *is* fragmented as it historically was.
Death's Companion
General Ugg Apologist.
OTL Ireland topped up between a fourth and a third of the population of Britain in the medieval period and it had a shit ton of cultural and economic factors holding it back and even the likely screws to derail England's formation would also make any English kingdom rather more organised and militiarily and economically developed. If you leave Ireland alone its going to lag behind, if you start uniting it then that will probably be as part of a process that the Anglo Saxons/Danes will also be a part of.
I think the much more plausible avenue is a united Ireland being roughly as powerful as any one or two Anglo Saxon Kingdom and at its height enjoying a status of first among equals and kingmaker in local politics. Longer term I think some sort of larger state will evolve in Britain and its never going to be under Irish thumb for long, an Ireland too strong to ever actually subdue and colonize? That seems fairly simple.
I think the much more plausible avenue is a united Ireland being roughly as powerful as any one or two Anglo Saxon Kingdom and at its height enjoying a status of first among equals and kingmaker in local politics. Longer term I think some sort of larger state will evolve in Britain and its never going to be under Irish thumb for long, an Ireland too strong to ever actually subdue and colonize? That seems fairly simple.
Probably "get out of Ireland's thumb" being part of why a larger state evolves.
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Arguably thats what happened in otl, at least to some extent. In the bit between the roman withdrawal and the unification of England, irish polities had huge influence over the west coast. The unification of scotland, the formation of the welsh kingdoms and northumbrias expansion in to cumbria all happened as a reaction to that.
ShortsBelfast
Well-known member
One of the problems, as I have said in the other place, is that Ireland hasn't a lot of minerals relatively speaking, compared to Wales or Scotland or any of the regions of the UK other than East Anglia. So any local dominance is going to wane from the mid 1700s on and totally fade by the full Industrial Revolution, even with a fractured England. Ireland in that scenario would be a sort of Sweden, a historic Power but no longer quite powerful enough to dominate its neighbours.
Possibly a situation where the different groups that invaded Britain after the Roman fall are more linguistically diverse and Great Britain ends up with a Gaelic speaking Scotland; a Norse speaking Northumbrian Kingdom; a Danish speaking Kingdom of Jorvik (Yorkshire and Lancashire) a Frisian speaking Angleland (Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk); a Mercia speaking a descendant of Anglo Saxon; a Greater Kernow encompassing Somerset and Devon and speaking Cornish; Wales speaking Welsh; and a Southern English Kingdom speaking another separate descendant of Anglo Saxon with Breton, Cornish, Frisian, French and German loan words?
Possibly a situation where the different groups that invaded Britain after the Roman fall are more linguistically diverse and Great Britain ends up with a Gaelic speaking Scotland; a Norse speaking Northumbrian Kingdom; a Danish speaking Kingdom of Jorvik (Yorkshire and Lancashire) a Frisian speaking Angleland (Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk); a Mercia speaking a descendant of Anglo Saxon; a Greater Kernow encompassing Somerset and Devon and speaking Cornish; Wales speaking Welsh; and a Southern English Kingdom speaking another separate descendant of Anglo Saxon with Breton, Cornish, Frisian, French and German loan words?
Would it be possible for a unified, stronger Ireland to get its hands on British minerials by force or is that going to lead in massive defeat?
ShortsBelfast
Well-known member
Scotland, Ireland (and the Isle of Man) have a common language pre English, so a Greater Celtendom isn't impossible, though it would be very different to OTL where the Gaelic cultures of both countries were very tribal and decentralised. Without that, the Irish could invest say South Wales or Lancashire but the problem is going to be that their main mineral resources are in an overseas colonial territory whereas all their neighbours are going to have theirs in their heartlands. Denmark and Scania style situation or England and Normandy. Or Spain and the Spanish Netherlands. And Jorvik even without Lancashire or Northumbria without Cumberland is going to have more coal and iron than Greater Ireland and can afford to fight to reclaim their lost territory and Ireland's wealthy bits would be what is being fought over. Wales would not be as wealthy without the Valleys, but would have rich neighbours in Kernow and Mercia who would probably see funding pushing the Irish out as in their geostrategic interest unless Wales had been making itself generally obnoxious prior to the invasion (and even then, they would probably provide nearly but not quite enough aid to keep rump Wales focused on the Irish and the Irish from getting too strong and consolidated). Same applies to Kernow with Wales and the Southern English Kingdom whatever it was called, Sexeny or Sachsenland. It's not utterly impossible but it is geographically difficult.
Would it be cheating to have Britain nuked in a World War III while Ireland isn't, enabling the surviving Ireland to be, at least for a time, the more dominant country?
Tired: post-apocalypse intact New Zealand
Wired: Great and Bountiful Irish Empire
ShortsBelfast
Well-known member
Irish Monks discover America around 500 AD, convert the Amerindians to Celtic Christianity and, by 1300, the Emperor of the West, at his Court in Dubh Linn, takes the decision that his squabbling Eastern neighbours need to be consolidated under his benevolent rule?
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To Jump head first into a historiographical tarpit, whether the native britains of england were mostly exterminated and replaced by settlers or mostly merely adopted new german fashions through peaceful migration is there any reason the Irish couldn't do what the saxons did, in which case the irish speakers in London might well see rule from Dublin as no more imperial than the irish speakers in Cork?