In The Run-Up To The Centenary Of The Irish Easter Rising I Got To Thinking How Different Would Things...

[sandyRoe]

...have been if 'Home Rule' proposals in the late 19th Cen had come into effect. I've come to think it wasn't the union that was the problem but the Unionists.

[sandyRoe]

No historians about?
How much devolved government was envisaged in the Home Rule proposals?

[Islay]

Home rule would have bought in a whole different set of problems though Sandy wouldn't it?

[sandyRoe]

It might have drew the teeth of those two monsters which have bedevilled Irish politics, violent Republicanism and extreme Unionism.

[Jackdaw33]

Have to agree with sandy.

"Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right".

[Jackdaw33]

That is the best one I've heard in many a long year. Priceless!

[Jackdaw33]

Oops! Wrong thread. Please delete.

[sandyRoe]

I don't know, Jackdaw33. "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right", has a dark, ironic, humour about it.

[Peter Pedant]

I tended to think it would have happened anyway

that is - the 1801 union had had its day
and was on its way out...

I tend to wonder if the treaty ports had not been returned to the republic in 1938, would the outcome of the atlantic battle been different ?

[sandyRoe]

While to the west off your own shores the mackerel
Are fat—on the flesh of your kin.
Louis Mcneiss didn't think much of Irish neutrality and would have been one to have kept the ports.

[mikey4444]

Sandy...I don't know enough about the history of Ireland to comment specifically.

But my great grandfather fought with the original IRA, during the Easter Uprising. I have a photo of his medal but the medal itself has now gone astray.

Would the same mistakes have been made in the division of the island of Ireland in the late 1800's as were made years later ?...Probably would be my answer.

[sandyRoe]

I don't think there was any suggestion of dividing Ireland politically in the Home Rule proposals. Some form of assembly in Dublin would have likely satisfied the constitution nationalists while the fact that Westminster was still in control should have been enough for the Unionists.