Unified Ireland?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The IRA's military campaign never had any chance of being successful.

This.

If you want a united Ireland to happen IRL you probably have to go back to 1798... (if not earlier).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I guess I'm seeing what the likely hood is of this accuring:

The Thatcher is killed. The British send a lot more troops to Northern Ireland in order to stamp out the IRA

The Elksrund delivers it's cargo (SAM 7s, a buttload of AK-47s, explosives, and heavy machine guns)

The IRA launches it's border campaign intended not on driving the Brits into the sea, but on convincing the British people that it was time for the Brits to withdraw

The SAM-7s are effective at knocking out the British helicopters, and the IRA are capable of holding onto the border towns long enough for the British public to get so frustrated that the British government sues for peace (a lot like what happened in 1920)

A peace plan is agreed that over the course of ten years Ireland will become united, the IRA and the Ulster paramilitary groups will disarm.


Assuming this happens, do you think Ireland's political scene would be substantially different today?

That would not happen. You are vastly overestimating the military capabilities and competence of the (P)IRA for one thing.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Civil War is what happens, 'sectarian cleansing' is what happens. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

Why would that happen?

Because the 55-60% Protestant-Unionist population do not want to live in a United Ireland.

If the situation did get untenable for the British emergency plans were drawn up in 1972(?) to basically commit a giant population transfer moving all the Catholics to Western Northern Ireland (which would mean ethnically cleansing West Belfast...) and making that part of the republic while the British would keep North-Eastern Down, Antrim and Eastern Country Derry iirc. The Protestants from the new parts of the republic would similiarly be relocated.

Now imagine how that would go down?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I don't believe it could have occured, not without massive loss of life/ethnic cleansing at least not in the modern period.

Historically the best chances of a United Independent Ireland were 1) What if the freak blizzard of 1796 had not occured and Napoleon's forces had arrived on the Cork Coast in December of that year instead of turning back? The Irish Militia and the British Garrison was so weak the country would have been outrun quite quickly (and massive revolts would have taken place across the country... massive loss of life here too) perhaps even before Westminster could put an army together. Some sort of French quasi-puppet regime would have been installed with someone like Henry Joe McCracken as the Napoleonic stand-in (Who wants to be King of Ireland?). But if this occured European and World history would have been very different and there are doubts about the viability of this state so...

2) No Norman Invasion in 1169 in the first place and the Gaelic Chieftains finally conquer one and other enough that someone becomes powerful enough to rule over the whole Island without local chief immediateries... this was on the way to happening before the Normans intervened, the major Gaelic Kings were growing more powerful and powerful over the minor ones so perhaps give it a century or two...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I don't believe it could have occured, not without massive loss of life/ethnic cleansing at least not in the modern period.

Historically the best chances of a United Independent Ireland were 1) What if the freak blizzard of 1796 had not occured and Napoleon's forces had arrived on the Cork Coast in December of that year instead of turning back? The Irish Militia and the British Garrison was so weak the country would have been outrun quite quickly (and massive revolts would have taken place across the country... massive loss of life here too) perhaps even before Westminster could put an army together. Some sort of French quasi-puppet regime would have been installed with someone like Henry Joe McCracken as the Napoleonic stand-in (Who wants to be King of Ireland?). But if this occured European and World history would have been very different and there are doubts about the viability of this state so...

2) No Norman Invasion in 1169 in the first place and the Gaelic Chieftains finally conquer one and other enough that someone becomes powerful enough to rule over the whole Island without local chief immediateries... this was on the way to happening before the Normans intervened, the major Gaelic Kings were growing more powerful and powerful over the minor ones so perhaps give it a century or two...

Great....

Ireland was never 'unified' in the first place so I don't rate the chances of an independent all-Ireland state coming into being very strongly...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I don't believe it could have occured, not without massive loss of life/ethnic cleansing at least not in the modern period.

Historically the best chances of a United Independent Ireland were 1) What if the freak blizzard of 1796 had not occured and Napoleon's forces had arrived on the Cork Coast in December of that year instead of turning back? The Irish Militia and the British Garrison was so weak the country would have been outrun quite quickly (and massive revolts would have taken place across the country... massive loss of life here too) perhaps even before Westminster could put an army together. Some sort of French quasi-puppet regime would have been installed with someone like Henry Joe McCracken as the Napoleonic stand-in (Who wants to be King of Ireland?). But if this occured European and World history would have been very different and there are doubts about the viability of this state so...

2) No Norman Invasion in 1169 in the first place and the Gaelic Chieftains finally conquer one and other enough that someone becomes powerful enough to rule over the whole Island without local chief immediateries... this was on the way to happening before the Normans intervened, the major Gaelic Kings were growing more powerful and powerful over the minor ones so perhaps give it a century or two...

Great....

Ireland was never 'unified' in the first place so I don't rate the chances of an independent all-Ireland state coming into being very strongly...

Ireland was very unified before the War.

Not as an independent state.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Al, I disagree. Bowler hats are never silly.