• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Irish Home Rule succeeds

J

JeffreyArchersnemesis

Active member
One of the thorniest issues in British politics from the late 19th century was that of Irish Home Rule. I think about it quite a lot and have never fully come round to a scenario where it works out. Here are the two I think are most plausible:
  1. The Phoenix Park murders are butterflied away, meaning that Hartington can be persuaded to get on board with the First Home Rule Bill in 1886, leading to it squeaking past the Commons and Lords and the Liberals not splitting. I think that's a bit of a rosy view of the balance of forces in Parliament at the time and probably overstates Hartington's control of the Liberal Unionists (not to mention you'd probably need Gladstone to have less of a "I'll do this myself and no-one else can be involved" attitude) but I think it works if you squint hard enough.
  2. The First World War (or at least Britain entering it in 1914) is butterflied away, leading to the Third Irish Home Rule Bill being enacted fully. This, I think, would lead to one of two scenarios: firstly, the Conservatives could throw their lot in fully with the Ulster Unionists and start the Troubles fifty years early; or the Tories could consider that they now haven't won an election for 15 years and think about how to reform themselves.
I wonder what people's thoughts are on this. Are there scenarios that I've missed and what do people think the long-term impact of successful Home Rule would be on the UK?
 
Very well reasoned and I agree with most of what you say. Regarding the Conservatives, they were happy to use the Ulster Unionists as a stick to beat the Liberals with (which worked very well for them outside the three Southern provinces of Ireland) but I don't think that they would have taken it to the extent of sponsoring a Civil War.
There is also the POD of William Pitt persuading King George III to combine the Act of Union with Catholic emancipation but I suspect that this would probably be more likely to put Irish Nationalism to sleep for a couple of centuries similar to Scottish Nationalism.
I wonder if someone with a bit more imagination at the time of the Buckingham Palace conference had taken a long look at Canada or Australia and suggested Federal devolution (much like the Èire Nua group would suggest in the 1970 (with virtually all powers devolved to the Provinces and a very weak Central government)?
 
OK, I misread it completely and thought you had the two scenarios follow each other - which could also be equally plausible. That is, once it comes time to enhance Home Rule (probably on board with decentralizing the UK viz. Home Rule All Round), the Third Home Rule Bill (ITTL Second, maybe with Éire Nua-type federalism?) is built on top of of the institutions created by the First Bill.
 
ShortsBelfast said:
Very well reasoned and I agree with most of what you say. Regarding the Conservatives, they were happy to use the Ulster Unionists as a stick to beat the Liberals with (which worked very well for them outside the three Southern provinces of Ireland) but I don't think that they would have taken it to the extent of sponsoring a Civil War.
There is also the POD of William Pitt persuading King George III to combine the Act of Union with Catholic emancipation but I suspect that this would probably be more likely to put Irish Nationalism to sleep for a couple of centuries similar to Scottish Nationalism.
I wonder if someone with a bit more imagination at the time of the Buckingham Palace conference had taken a long look at Canada or Australia and suggested Federal devolution (much like the Èire Nua group would suggest in the 1970 (with virtually all powers devolved to the Provinces and a very weak Central government)?
Click to expand...

I'd actually be curious what happens in a TL where the Act of Union is combined with Catholic emancipation-what does the UK look like with a "Scotland-like" Ireland? For that matter, I suspect if this leads to greater overall prosperity in Ireland and butterflies the Famine, the effects on American and Australian history might be interesting since you have fewer 19th century Irish immigrants in the US.
 
WW1 and WW2 would (if they occurred/the UK participated)bring social change to the OTL ROI as well as to the UK, but I can see a much more socially conservative UK than OTL. The Nonconformist vote largely melted away from the late 1950s, whereas the Catholic vote would have remained solid until at least the 1980s. I can't see Woy turning the UK into a civilised society in that TL with 70 seats depending on upholding "traditional values".
The other thing is (assuming the two world wars) the Irish are Olympic level grudge holders (including us in NI) and I could see greater difficulties than OTL, had Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Galway and Athlone had regular visitations from the Luftwaffe, in Germany Britain rapprochement in the 1950s and particularly with German rearmament.
 
Roger II said:
I'd actually be curious what happens in a TL where the Act of Union is combined with Catholic emancipation-what does the UK look like with a "Scotland-like" Ireland? For that matter, I suspect if this leads to greater overall prosperity in Ireland and butterflies the Famine, the effects on American and Australian history might be interesting since you have fewer 19th century Irish immigrants in the US.
Click to expand...
Hmmm. Ireland had already started exporting people prior to the Famine and carried on afterwards. Ireland doesn't have a load of coal, iron or copper that would assist in first stage industrialisation.
 
ShortsBelfast said:
. The Nonconformist vote largely melted away from the late 1950s, whereas the Catholic vote would have remained solid until at least the 1980s. I can't see Woy turning the UK into a civilised society in that TL with 70 seats depending on upholding "traditional values".
Click to expand...
I wouldn't take that as a total given, as the roman catholic church and the free state enjoyed a very close relationship until the 1980s - in an ATL where Ireland has Home Rule, this wouldn't develop to the same extent, and social values might be slightly more liberal, especially if the poor weren't entirely reliant on the church for any assistance.

Additionally, a British Ireland might enjoy more industrial investment, particularly during the second world war and the post war growth in light industry.
 
Yeah, combining the 1801 union with Catholic emancipation would be the best solution, although not one available to Galdstone in the 1880s of course. (Although it does fittingly remind me to the joke about asking an Irishman for directions.) On the butterflies of that, I think that that butterflying away the Famine is unlikely; the poor response was primarily caused by an ideological commitment to free trade, not a quasi-genocidal hatred of the Irish (not to say there wasn't that too, though, in some cases), although you'd probably get a lot more Irish Catholic Whig MPs who would say "yeah, this free trade stuff is fine but my constituents are dying here" and then that would encourage the Tories to have some kind of political response to that. So, yeah, amelioration rather than a butterflying away. I agree with ShortsBelfast about the prospects of emigration - Ireland outside the big cities will remain a relatively poor agricultural economy and a prime target for emigrants, albeit probably not to the same extent as OTL.

ShortsBelfast said:
WW1 and WW2 would (if they occurred/the UK participated)bring social change to the OTL ROI as well as to the UK, but I can see a much more socially conservative UK than OTL. The Nonconformist vote largely melted away from the late 1950s, whereas the Catholic vote would have remained solid until at least the 1980s. I can't see Woy turning the UK into a civilised society in that TL with 70 seats depending on upholding "traditional values".
The other thing is (assuming the two world wars) the Irish are Olympic level grudge holders (including us in NI) and I could see greater difficulties than OTL, had Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Galway and Athlone had regular visitations from the Luftwaffe, in Germany Britain rapprochement in the 1950s and particularly with German rearmament.
Click to expand...

This is a really interesting point. But I wonder how much Irish cultural conservatism (both in the republic and the north) was down to the conditions of independence and the Troubles? If it's still part of the UK (even in an Eire Niu-type situation) then would the Church have as much influence as it had on the mid-century education system, for example? And would the Unionist population in Ulster develop such a strongly conservative self-perception if it hadn't been for the peculiar circumstances of that nation's creation? I don't know. It seems at least arguable.

Another thing I'd say is that successful Home Rule (certainly in 1886, maybe in 1914 too) would probably result in the Liberals not splitting and remaining a large party, including in Ireland; with all the knock on effect that might have for social attitudes.

One thing that does occur to me that Ireland in the UK might make the UK joining TTL's EEC (if that even comes around) less likely, with CAP-style subsidies being given to Irish farmers to act as the "Breadbasket of the UK" (which would also have the desired effect of being a bung to landowners too).
 
Torten said:
I wouldn't take that as a total given, as the roman catholic church and the free state enjoyed a very close relationship until the 1980s - in an ATL where Ireland has Home Rule, this wouldn't develop to the same extent, and social values might be slightly more liberal, especially if the poor weren't entirely reliant on the church for any assistance.

Additionally, a British Ireland might enjoy more industrial investment, particularly during the second world war and the post war growth in light industry.
Click to expand...

I think this could be right, especially given the possibility of a surviving strong Liberal party. The industrial development question is interesting: the obvious thing to do would be to encourage land and agricultural reform (which, to be fair, did happen OTL a bit) to encourage a high-wage agricultural economy like Australia and the US at the time. That could change post TTL-WW2 of course. I can imagine someone like Tony Benn wanting to proletarianise the Irish farmers...

Although your comment about not taking the decline of Nonconformity does make me think of a scenario where power ends up being horsetraded between the Conservatives (CofE and CofIre), the Liberals (Nonconformists) and a Catholic party in a kind of permanent grand coalition like in the Netherlands. Whether that's good or not depends on your point of view of course... What that would mean for non-Christian immigration post-1945 (if it happens), among other things, would be fascinating.
 
Torten said:
I wouldn't take that as a total given, as the roman catholic church and the free state enjoyed a very close relationship until the 1980s - in an ATL where Ireland has Home Rule, this wouldn't develop to the same extent, and social values might be slightly more liberal, especially if the poor weren't entirely reliant on the church for any assistance.

Additionally, a British Ireland might enjoy more industrial investment, particularly during the second world war and the post war growth in light industry.
Click to expand...
Very true and a fair point, but I was rather thinking of an enhanced version of the OTL Glasgow and Liverpool Catholic vote than of the OTL Cardinal McQuaid Thought.
For instance, I know there is a bit of a "one that got away" element to 1960s and 1970s TV, radio and theatre producers stories about how hard they had to push against socially conservative senior management unwilling to rock the boat, but it really would have been harder to produce ground breaking drama with 70 or 80 odd additional socially conservative MPs at Westminster.
And "Cathy come home" and "The Prisoner", hell even Mr. Humphries in "Are you being served?" all had an impact on social attitudes. And the 1963 Lady Chatterley's Lover trial wouldn't have been as ground breaking as OTL if the Chief Baron had awarded exemplary damages to Mrs Whitehouse and her organisation against Longman Penguin six months later. Imagine Harold Wilson with Dev and Dom Mintoff (because a stronger Catholic ethos at Westminster is keen on having a couple of additional sympathetic seats) in his cabinet.
 
ShortsBelfast said:
Very true and a fair point, but I was rather thinking of an enhanced version of the OTL Glasgow and Liverpool Catholic vote than of the OTL Cardinal McQuaid Thought.
For instance, I know there is a bit of a "one that got away" element to 1960s and 1970s TV, radio and theatre producers stories about how hard they had to push against socially conservative senior management unwilling to rock the boat, but it really would have been harder to produce ground breaking drama with 70 or 80 odd additional socially conservative MPs at Westminster.
And "Cathy come home" and "The Prisoner", hell even Mr. Humphries in "Are you being served?" all had an impact on social attitudes. And the 1963 Lady Chatterley's Lover trial wouldn't have been as ground breaking as OTL if the Chief Baron had awarded exemplary damages to Mrs Whitehouse and her organisation against Longman Penguin six months later.
Click to expand...

This makes a lot of sense but, given the demographic weight of the two nations, doesn't it seem more likely that British cultural mores would influence Ireland rather than the other way round?

ShortsBelfast said:
Imagine Harold Wilson with Dev and Dom Mintoff (because a stronger Catholic ethos at Westminster is keen on having a couple of additional sympathetic seats) in his cabinet.
Click to expand...

A terrifying thought, although I have to say the thought of a TL where Dev becomes British Foreign Secretary or something is tantalising. (On this theme I did read a TL on the other place where Michael Collins ends up the Secretary General of the Commonwealth.)
 
JeffreyArchersnemesis said:
This makes a lot of sense but, given the demographic weight of the two nations, doesn't it seem more likely that British cultural mores would influence Ireland rather than the other way round?
Click to expand...
Up to a point, but Norn Iron is still Norn Iron despite having only 3% of the UK's overall population. We are culturally influenced by England because its hard not to be in the Anglosphere, but a distinct local cultural identity remains
 
In your opinion, is Ireland under home rule likely to remain part of the UK until the present day or is it eventually going to get dominion status, and, thus, become independent? I am unsure.
 
Ricardolindo said:
In your opinion, is Ireland under home rule likely to remain part of the UK until the present day or is it eventually going to get dominion status, and, thus, become independent? I am unsure.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting thought. If you managed to squeeze through the First Bill unamended, that would have effectively made Ireland independent anyway and so I could see a move around the turn of the century to make that independence de jure as well as de facto. If the Third Bill is enacted then that would be less of a direct issue, although I can see the devolved Dublin Parliament being a forum for the legitimation of a pro-independence party (Sinn Feinn or otherwise) which eventually leads to independence anyway. (As seems to be likely with Scotland in the not-too-distant future.) In my head, though, Home Rule for Ireland would lead directly to Home Rule for Wales and Scotland and devolution to the English regions, creating a federal system like OTL Germany. But that might be wishful thinking.
 
I'm strongly inclined to the view that by the latter half of the nineteenth century, something was seriously rotten in the Union and it would have been very hard to keep Ireland within it. The crippling aftereffects of the Famine are well known, but I think the Land War doesn't get enough attention either; when a constituent part of the United Kingdom has serious and continual disruption in its agrarian regions in a way more reminiscent of the outer domains of the Habsburgs and Romanovs, things have got very bad indeed.

This is, incidentally, also why I'm skeptical of the idea that an Ireland that remains within the UK would necessarily be a conservative force; arguably, people like Michael Davitt had far more political influence by the end of the nineteenth century than their English- though not so much Scottish- peers. Furthermore, the turn to serious social conservatism was to some extent a result of the failure of Home Rule. Parnell, it must be remembered, was not a Catholic; his success would have kept Irish Nationalism as a much more openly broad church than it was in our timeline. Even then, it must be stressed, conservative Catholics were never entirely dominant even by the War of Independence.

To return to my point though, I think that by the 1880s a serious political breach had developed between Ireland and the rest of Britain. This was not necessarily a cultural breach: the majority of Irish 'nationalists' would have considered themselves to be royalist and loyal to the Empire. But the home government was also seen as distant, a tool of the landlords and disrespectful of Irishness.

I don't think that could be repaired by Home Rule. In fact, much as Scottish Devolution strengthened the SNP I'd expect Parnell and his heirs to find themselves to be so dominant in the new parliament that their opposition would risk being tarred with unIrishness by default. If things go well, then a natural increase in confidence will spur a movement towards Dominion status and inevitable independence- the Canadians, Australians et al were tremendously loyal, after all, but by the end of the nineteenth century it was clear to all observers that there was a major drift away from British rule that was already well under way.

If things go badly, then yes, that could spur a nervous desire to stay close to Britain- but it's also very possible that you see the dynamic of 'success is from Dublin, failure from London.'

I really think that if you want Irish MPs in Britain today, you need to back at least before the famine, but frankly all the way to the Act of Union- a disastrous law with the seeds of its own dissolution.
 
Roger II said:
Can I ask more here?
Click to expand...

To be precise, the disaster was in the failure to bring in Catholic Emancipation.

It's ironic, but at the time much of the opposition to the act was led by the old Ascendancy- as well as the Orangemen. Many Catholics supported the bill, because they had been promised that the law would be part of a package of reforms and concessions: principally emancipation and the removal of tithes to the Church of Ireland.

When that failed to eventuate, you now had a situation where Irish political rights had been demonstrably rolled back. Not only were the majority of the Irish denied any representation in parliament- which they had in common, of course, with the majority of the Scots, Welsh, and English- but that parliament was no longer even nominally theirs. The shift of authority from Dublin to London meant that while on the face of it the underrepresentation continued, symbolically authority and prestige had been stripped away and centralised in a foreign, protestant city.

Worse still, it greatly exacerbated absenteeism. The Irish parliament may have been dominated by ascendancy landlords, but they at least tended to be in the country itself. Look at the Vendée- authoritarian feudal landlords can be tolerated, respected and even admired so long as they were present and engaged with their communities. The Act of Union encouraged the movement of the great magnates to London- setting in motion key drivers of the Famine and Land War.

Henry Grattan is an interesting one: not a democrat, not a republican, certainly not a rebel. In some ways he as a proto-Parnell: loyal to the crown and a staunch nationalist, a rigorous defender of the Anglo-Irish protestant elite. He was in many ways the exact model of the kind of leader Britain needed to cultivate in Ireland if they wanted to keep the place long-term; but instead he was marginalised by the rulers of the new union and superseded by the more populist O'Connell.

The Act either had to be brought in as part of a great package of reforms- or it needed to be avoided. If you want Ireland in a Federal Britain, it might be easier for Ireland to Federate with Britain, not be gradually granted devolved government.
 
So to clarify-the Act A) exacerbated mismanagement by moving authority farther away and as you put it "setting in motion key drivers of the famine and Land War"(which alienated the old Ascendancy) while at the same time failing to attract Catholic support to the Crown by failing to put in reforms? At the same time, it's hard not to imagine emancipation and reforms that benefit the Catholics of Ireland having some kind of political repercussions within the metropole if it means a big chunk of the UK is now enfranchised Catholics. Maybe not large ones but repercussions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top