AHC: Anglo-Irish Majority In Ireland

[TinyTartar]

I think the best way to make sure that Ireland stays in the UK after WW1 would be to at some point in history, make Ireland have an Anglo majority in the island. How to bring this about is less clear entirely.

I think that you could have Cromwell be utterly more ruthless in his actions and actually ethnically cleanse Ireland to the point of allowing for a settler majority. Maybe this could be brought about by encouraging religious groups out of favor at the time to migrate over to Ireland.

Rather than in OTL where you just got a privileged class of large landholders, the idea of yeoman English farmers in Ireland has to come about in my view for this to happen. Maybe offering really cheap Irish farmland to poor English farmers might work.

Any thoughts?

 

[Lalli]

Isn't Ireland already pretty anglified? Most of the islanders speak already English and many irelanders have move to foreign countries, mostly United States.

 

[Pangur]

Isn't Ireland already pretty anglified? Most of the islanders speak already English and many irelanders have move to foreign countries, mostly United States.

Depends on two questons, when and your definition of anglified. Prior to 1845 or so Irish was still quite widely spoken. If you are going to add religion in the mix at no stage was that true.

BTW whats with a post trashing the Irish?

 

[TinyTartar]

Isn't Ireland already pretty anglified? Most of the islanders speak already English and many irelanders have move to foreign countries, mostly United States.

What I meant was for people with English descent, most likely Protestant, and the group that benefitted from the Protestant Ascendancy to comprise more than 50% of the population of Ireland. OTL, they were about 10% of the Irish population by the end of WW1. After the attacks on the Big Houses by the IRA and loss of social status, this figure dropped to about 6% in the 1920s.

I am not counting Ulster's Scottish majority in this, as they were historically counted as separate from the Anglo-Irish.

 

[Pangur]

What I meant was for people with English descent, most likely Protestant, and the group that benefitted from the Protestant Ascendancy to comprise more than 50% of the population of Ireland. OTL, they were about 10% of the Irish population by the end of WW1. After the attacks on the Big Houses by the IRA and loss of social status, this figure dropped to about 6% in the 1920s.

I am not counting Ulster's Scottish majority in this, as they were historically counted as separate from the Anglo-Irish.

Actually thats not what happened. The drop had more to do with senior civil servants returning to the UK that the reasons you are suggesting

 

[Minchandre]

What about having the Hiberno-Normans maintain strong ties with the Anglo-Normans instead of assimilating into the local population?

 

[TinyTartar]

Actually thats not what happened. The drop had more to do with senior civil servants returning to the UK that the reasons you are suggesting

Yeah, that is probably right. It would be hard to believe that 40% of the Anglo-Irish were large landholders in the 20s who left to escape violence.

The point of the scenario I have in mind is for Ireland to be turned fully into a settler colony. That is a hard thing to manage in my view, and I'm not really sure how it could have been done. A more brutal Cromwellian conquest is a start, I guess, as would be an Irish equivalent of the US Homestead Act or English colonial charters.

 

[Pangur]

Yeah, that is probably right. It would be hard to believe that 40% of the Anglo-Irish were large landholders in the 20s who left to escape violence.

The point of the scenario I have in mind is for Ireland to be turned fully into a settler colony. That is a hard thing to manage in my view, and I'm not really sure how it could have been done. A more brutal Cromwellian conquest is a start, I guess, as would be an Irish equivalent of the US Homestead Act or English colonial charters.

How about impossible? There was not the people in England to populate the entire island. Initally Cromwell did depopulate most of the islandm pushed in to Connacht -`To hell or to Connacht'. They made their way home because here was simply not enough settlers. You should perhaps consider the population available in the first place 1650, a bit over 5 million.

 

[TinyTartar]

What about having the Hiberno-Normans maintain strong ties with the Anglo-Normans instead of assimilating into the local population?

There were of course various methods tried at stopping that assimilation, including laws that forbade the Normans from adopting certain Irish habits in the Statues of Kilkenny. This failed and failed badly.

Perhaps having more royal control over Ireland expressed early on when opposition would be scant and disorganized might make a difference. The best way to ensure the Normanness of the Norman lords would be more hostility. The fact that the Norman conquest of Ireland did not eradicate Irish culture as much as the Norman conquest of England did to the Saxons over time has a huge effect on this.

 

[funnyhat]

There was significant Irish Protestant emigration to the United States (before and after independence). These are often classified as "Scotch-Irish" but it's likely that some were in fact of English origin. Is there is a way to prevent them from leaving in large numbers?

 

[Ditzy Vixen (RossN)]

I don't think this achievable. There simply aren't going to be enough English people willing to go to Ireland. Even after the disastrous 1640s there were still a million or so Irish, meaning you'd need several hundred thousand permanent settlers to achieve a settler majority.

 

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

But the first fenians were protestants, so Irish independence does not go away by removing the catholics.

 

[edgeworthy]

What I meant was for people with English descent, most likely Protestant, and the group that benefitted from the Protestant Ascendancy to comprise more than 50% of the population of Ireland. OTL, they were about 10% of the Irish population by the end of WW1. After the attacks on the Big Houses by the IRA and loss of social status, this figure dropped to about 6% in the 1920s.

I am not counting Ulster's Scottish majority in this, as they were historically counted as separate from the Anglo-Irish.

Meet another big flaw in the "A.H. THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED" (we all know which one!!!)

Somehow you know who, forgot that a lot of the good jobs, such as Harbour Master/ pilot, train driver, signalman, station master, telegraph operator etc., tended to go to this group (it was one of the grievances of the majority, and one of the reasons I exist, and have so many relatives in Boston).

And as in the latter part of the second book these are key players in the onanism it fails quite heavily.

 

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

If there are no native Irish left, independence might get carried through easier, since the imperial upper class cannot ally with the protestant lower class against the catholic lower class, and in this case, the entire island will go independent.

Meet another big flaw in the "A.H. THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED" (we all know which one!!!)

I do not know which one. A link, perhaps?

 

[Hierophant]

Qerent the majority of the people Cromwell killed the Anglo Catholic ruling class, centered in the cities he burned?

If thats the case, maybe Cromwell not going to Ireland is the ticket.

 

[TFSmith121]

Ireland's population was reduced by 50 percent in the 1840s

I think the best way to make sure that Ireland stays in the UK after WW1 would be to at some point in history, make Ireland have an Anglo majority in the island. How to bring this about is less clear entirely. I think that you could have Cromwell be utterly more ruthless in his actions and actually ethnically cleanse Ireland to the point of allowing for a settler majority. Maybe this could be brought about by encouraging religious groups out of favor at the time to migrate over to Ireland. Rather than in OTL where you just got a privileged class of large landholders, the idea of yeoman English farmers in Ireland has to come about in my view for this to happen. Maybe offering really cheap Irish farmland to poor English farmers might work.Any thoughts?

Ireland's population was reduced by 50 percent (4 million people) in the 1840s, and it still didn't take, as witness 1922.

You need Auschwitz on the Shannon, otherwise, and I don't think even the English at their worst (Cromwell?) are quite willing to go that far ... even in the 1600s.

Best,

 

[Saphroneth]

I do not know which one. A link, perhaps?

Pretty sure it's Stars and Stripes.

 

[TinyTartar]

Ireland's population was reduced by 50 percent (4 million people) in the 1840s, and it still didn't take, as witness 1922.

You need Auschwitz on the Shannon, otherwise, and I don't think even the English at their worst (Cromwell?) are quite willing to go that far ... even in the 1600s.

Best,

That is a good point. Even with the potato famine, you still didn't get an English majority.

The thought I had would be for Cromwell to literally become genocidal. The idea of pushing all the Irish to Connacht didn't end up working because of the fact that a lot of people were enslaved, and the new English landlords found that they needed a lot of farm laborers to work the huge tracts of land that they were granted. These landlords were mostly soldiers and adventurers on the good side of the Commonwealth, many without farming experience.

My idea would be for a few things to happen. First, the Irish are just massacred even more than OTL. Second, there are a lot more land grants given to ordinary English farmers used to working small tracts of land, possibly induced by a "10 acres and a mule" type promise. Third, there are NO LAND COURTS set up during the restoration. OTL, Charles gave some land back to the Catholics by appointing land courts to help get the Irish back their lands in some cases, especially with the Royalist Catholic Upper Class. Possibly, there is something in Charles's life that causes him to hate the Irish more than even Cromwell and he does nothing for them.

Another good POD would be for African Slavery in the Americas to prove less successful than OTL because of some disease that decimates them. This would mean there is more desire for Irish slaves to work the Caribbean and Virginia plantations than they did OTL, and you get a lot more Irish people shipped out.

 

[sparky42]

Got to say there are vastly easier ways of keeping Ireland as part of the Union than Genocide of the entire Catholic population.

 

[GrinningSatyr]

I think the best way to make sure that Ireland stays in the UK after WW1 would be to at some point in history, make Ireland have an Anglo majority in the island. How to bring this about is less clear entirely.

I think that you could have Cromwell be utterly more ruthless in his actions and actually ethnically cleanse Ireland to the point of allowing for a settler majority. Maybe this could be brought about by encouraging religious groups out of favor at the time to migrate over to Ireland.

Rather than in OTL where you just got a privileged class of large landholders, the idea of yeoman English farmers in Ireland has to come about in my view for this to happen. Maybe offering really cheap Irish farmland to poor English farmers might work.

Any thoughts?

Ultimately, I think what you need is to make Irish Catholics convert and begin to identify as English rather than Irish. Perhaps a similar approach to the Ottomans in the Balkans? Tax, political, and advancement incentives to "convert" to *Anglicanism, and assume a new English identity as they do.

I think some other factors would need to be in place (greater distinction between the two culture, perhaps a less recent violent past that doesn't inhibit "conversion") and I'm not familiar enough with the area or time to make specific suggestions, although I'd think that they would have to occur fairly early in the new millenia (1100? 1200?) to have anything approaching a majority identify as English/Anglo-Irish. Certainly difficult without intentional physical genocide (if you ignore what I propose essentially amounts to a slow cultural genocide, although I'm not sure how cultural genocide is different than assimilation or absorption, and where the line can be drawn in terms of ethics!)