He was right about giving Home Rule to Ireland. Not because it was the right thing to do or Irish Catholics were being oppressed or just to get Irish support to get in power. But because the fucking lot of them had become such an autistic nuisance that was holding parliament hostage and were even winning MPs in England so it was best if they fucked off.
>Home Rule was correctYeah, it's pretty cut and dry. It could have been secured much earlier too, in the 18th Century; the "Kingdom of Ireland" existing as a nation but within the wider bloc of the British Empire is what the Patriot movement of the 1780s sought, and Home Rule was simply the next evolution of that rhetoric. It is not an exaggeration to say that backing the Unionist minorities was one of the most fucktarded decision in Anglo-Irish history.>the fucking lot of them had become such an autistic nuisance The Irish Parliamentary Party were simply extremely good at politics. They were practising a level of party discipline and voter mobilisation that many British parties could have only dreamed of.It's a blackpill for a lot of Anglophiles (including those in Ireland) that Ireland leaving the UK was not some sure-thing but in fact a huge political upset that shocked people in Ireland as much as it did those outside of Ireland. The Home Rule movement incredibly managed to capture popular revolutionary figures such as Emmet as symbols to be associated with *them* instead of with unpopular Republican movements. There was a widely adopted idea of romantic Irish nationalism that did not require a republic nor full severance from Britain, merely self-governance and a "restored Irish nation." It is not an exaggeration to say that Ireland could have very easily been wedded to Britain indefinitely with a far closer relationship what Britain enjoys with even its most beloved former dominions.
>>18688122Had it not been for WW1, would home rule have been established by the liberals? Or would they still have messed it up by giving into Unionist demands? Stalling it out with WW1, the violent repression post Dublin, and a lack of any plan forward definitely revived the Republican cause.
>>18689607There was basically no avoiding violence once the Ulster Unionists were able to form the Ulster Volunteers. The formation of the Ulster Volunteers was the catalyst through which the Irish Republican Brotherhood was able to justify forming the Irish Volunteers; as soon as there were two ideologically opposed and armed paramilitary groups (as well as the revolutionary ICA, which formed around the same time) it was likely inevitably that at least one would have to be forcibly faced down.While "no WW1" is far too much speculation for a topic like this, it's safe to say that had Home Rule been granted prior to WW1 it's highly likely that Ireland would have retained its ties to Britain indefinitely. Both the Irish Revolution and the Troubles were conflicts ultimately caused by a failure to deal with Ulster Unionist autism. Both could have been avoided, but the underlying decision to see the Ulster Unionists as patriotic allies instead of subversive enemies (thank Randolf Churchill for that) is where things went wrong. Separatism and Republicanism were tiny fringe movements, dwarfed in popularity by even the socialists. But any all-island parliament in that period would have essentially become:>Irish Parliamentary Party bloc; liberal, nationalist, self-governance but strictly within an imperial context>Unionist/Conservative; with no real hope of abolishing the Parliament, these guys become the broad opposition to the IPP>seething socialists and the rest; if they managed to win seats (and agreed to take them), a small minority of dissenters advocate "extreme" views like republicanism or full independence
