Life for Protestants in an independent united Ireland.

[An Thuong]

What would life have been like for protestants had the whole island become independent in the 1920s. Let's say WW1 goes much worse for Britain, and any Unionist uprising is quelled by a fledgling Irish government (is the civil war butterflied?).
How would they have been treated, especially in areas where they were still a majority? Would that last, or might there be an exodus to Britain and the dominions?

 

[Lalli]

Lot of them would move to Britain regardless how Irish governm,ent treat them. They just weren't going to accept being part of independent Ireland. So OTL Northern Ireland would has much lower Protestant population as in OTL.

 

[sparky42]

Lots of different fallouts from the OP, I mean first off the idea of A Northern Ireland was already pretty fixed in U.K. policy by the start of WW1, so trying to create a situation where that doesn’t happen is the first issue. After that there’s more complications, I mean if the war goes worse, the chances are more deaths among the males of the Protestant community which given its smaller number means a much larger impact in demographics post war for Protestants, ie more mixed marriages or moving to the UK/Dominions/US? Then you get into the basic driver of much migration from Ireland, ie economics, what state would the Irish economy be in, would it pursue similar to OTL policies and similar results or something else? Would you see a similar draw down of symbols of the British period (ie the end of the Irish regiments) with impacts on employment there as well?

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

It depends on the POD.

One possible way to get this would be a British defeat in World War I, or even World War II, but that has huge implications beyond Ireland.

Another way is that the Tories don't side with the Ulster Protestants in the home rule debate, or institute home rule itself. Note that if the British avoid attempting to introduce conscription to Ireland, the island becomes an autonomous part of the British empire, but not independent. And this requires a pre 1900 POD.

It was actually the formation of the Republic of Ireland that was produced by an improbable chain of events, because the Ulster protestants would not agree to be governed by a parliament elected by a majority Catholic electorate, and at least the Conservative Party in Britain backed them. And its hard to see the Conservatives not backing them given the importance of Ulster to the British military establishment (as a source of recruits for the army and the shipyards for the navy), which in turn was linked to the Conservatives.

Another possibility is the leaders of the Ulster Protestants themselves negotiate joining the republic, which is also difficult to pull off, but in this scenario the climate in the republic would be favorable to the orangemen. Note that the OTL Irish republic has had Protestant presidents.

 

[sparky42]

It depends on the POD.

One possible way to get this would be a British defeat in World War I, or even World War II, but that has huge implications beyond Ireland.

Another way is that the Tories don't side with the Ulster Protestants in the home rule debate, or institute home rule itself. Note that if the British avoid attempting to introduce conscription to Ireland, the island becomes an autonomous part of the British empire, but not independent. And this requires a pre 1900 POD.

It was actually the formation of the Republic of Ireland that was produced by an improbable chain of events, because the Ulster protestants would not agree to be governed by a parliament elected by a majority Catholic electorate, and at least the Conservative Party in Britain backed them. And its hard to see the Conservatives not backing them given the importance of Ulster to the British military establishment (as a source of recruits for the army and the shipyards for the navy), which in turn was linked to the Conservatives.

Another possibility is the leaders of the Ulster Protestants themselves negotiate joining the republic, which is also difficult to pull off, but in this scenario the climate in the republic would be favorable to the orangemen. Note that the OTL Irish republic has had Protestant presidents.

The conscription crisis was in WW1, not sure how you think that needs a Pre1900 POD to avoid, Westminster had avoided bringing it in for much of the war, some more effort from Dublin Castle to be even a little bit good at their jobs might have flagged to the Cabinet the landline they were about to step on there. That may have delayed the rise in that generation of SF, but wouldn’t have stopped the push to Home Rule though, perhaps not even the War of Independence, and after that who knows how things would have developed.

As for getting the Tories not to side with Ulster… given they saw Home Rule as the way to break the Liberals and get into Government even to the point of aiding mutiny within the British Army (point of fact I think the “26 counties” dwarfed the 6 in terms of recruitment up until the separation) it’s not likely. As for the views of Ulster Protestants, it was as much an issue of economics as the Catholic Majority with fears on how Home Rule would impact the Heavy industries of ”NI”

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

Depends on type of independence. Peacefully independent Kingdom of Ireland as a commonwealth member with a catholic-prot partnership of oscial conservatism is a little different than an Ireland that's been reunified as part of the general anti-colonizer drive of a joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat and oppressed nations following it's victory in WWIII. I imagine prots do rather less well in scenario two.

 

[HexWargamer]

What would life have been like for protestants had the whole island become independent in the 1920s. Let's say WW1 goes much worse for Britain, and any Unionist uprising is quelled by a fledgling Irish government (is the civil war butterflied?).
How would they have been treated, especially in areas where they were still a majority? Would that last, or might there be an exodus to Britain and the dominions?

I assume you would like a United Ireland without a civil war .... hard to see how that's gong to happen with a POD in the 1920's. By then the north is already organising itself to resist a take-over by the south with armed force - and they had the advantage of large numbers (200,000 ?? ) trained men being demobbded from the British army - which, I assume happens even faster if ww1 goes worse. Remember, ww2 France fell and BEF was expelled from Europe == so things couldn't have been much worse for Britain but they fought on anyway. To stop GB fighting on in ww1 after being expelled from Europe and then agreeing to an independent Ireland (as some sort of 'peace deal' with the Central Powers ???) is going to be 'rather difficult'

I think you need an earlier POD. One possability could be the IRA invitation to the Kaiser to send troops to support the Easter Uprising leads to a POD where, with Frence forces collapsing at the same time, the Kaiser somehow evades the RN blackade and successfully lands half a dozen divisions in southern ireland. Then they assist the IRA not only overthrowing the Dublin administration but also successfully invade the north ... with France collapsing at the same time the Brits can't just move troops from Europe to put down the invasion. [actually, I think this has been done in another thread and most feed-back suggests that, at best, the Kaiser sending troops is borderline ASB]

What-ever - assume there is a civil war and, somehow, the British are prevented from sending troops, so the north looses ...

IMHO, religious differences are harldy ever resolved so even after 100 years I would expect that stiring up religious intollerance and hatred would still be practiced by the extreamists of both sides.

 

[sparky42]

I assume you would like a United Ireland without a civil war .... hard to see how that's gong to happen with a POD in the 1920's. By then the north is already organising itself to resist a take-over by the south with armed force - and they had the advantage of large numbers (200,000 ?? ) trained men being demobbded from the British army - which, I assume happens even faster if ww1 goes worse. Remember, ww2 France fell and BEF was expelled from Europe == so things couldn't have been much worse for Britain but they fought on anyway. To stop GB fighting on in ww1 after being expelled from Europe and then agreeing to an independent Ireland (as some sort of 'peace deal' with the Central Powers ???) is going to be 'rather difficult'

I’m not sure about your idea of numbers given the IVF had been formed and somewhat equal amounts of men from “the South” served in the war as well, giving both sides trained people, remember the Free State was able to scale to nearly 100k for the National Army for the Civil War from basically nothing, so if it came to violence “fucking messy” would likely be an understatement.

 

[Happy Nihilist]

I think most would have remained in Ireland and would have a permanent opposition party in the Dáil with loud rhetoric but otherwise little extremism. The Catholics would feel confident and comfortable enough as a majority in the full island to not bother messing with the Protestants too much and their community would be mostly left alone. The problem with Northern Ireland was that the proportions of the two populations were much closer to each other, leading to Protestant anxiety about and then discrimination against the rising Catholic numbers, while Catholics were highly embattled in such a situation. A united Ireland leaves both sides with enough breathing room to not get violent.

 

[HyperMuscularDemon]

Given how bitter social relations in Ulster and Northern Ireland were for quite some time, I think in order for Catholic Irish and Protestant Irish to get along in a United Ireland is for the Protestant Irish to form their own Irish Protestant church, which would have the advantage of forming a Irish church leadership which would be independent from British church leadership.

 

[ejpsan]

I would think that the most Pro-Unionist Irish Protestants would choose to emigrate to places that were considered to be more "Protestants" friendly, and as white, English speaking Protestants, they would be very welcomed in the United States, and they would have no trouble assimilating in to American society.
This would have the unexpected effect of having some of the extremist elements and more importantly, their descendants not being in Northern Ireland.
Think of The Rev. Ian Paisley having his pulpit in rural Pennsylvania instead of Ulster, and how that would lower the temperature of hate.

 

[1940LaSalle]

As virulently anti-Catholic as Paisley was, he would have been right at home in the Bible Belt; e.g., parts of Tennessee, the Carolinas, Kentucky or Virginia . Think of the locale of Bob Jones University or Falwell's institution and you'll get the idea. I could see him as president of Bob Jones U, or having a regular broadcast on some Appalachian media outlet. He'd also fit in well with the religious biases of the fragmented KKK.

 

[vizzer]

Given how bitter social relations in Ulster and Northern Ireland were for quite some time, I think in order for Catholic Irish and Protestant Irish to get along in a United Ireland is for the Protestant Irish to form their own Irish Protestant church, which would have the advantage of forming a Irish church leadership which would be independent from British church leadership.

They do both the Church of Ireland (Anglican disestablished from Church of England in 1871) and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (founded 1840). So both pre-exist an independent Ireland.

 

[Rinasoir]

Depends entirely on how you view the cause of Irish Independence. Being a Protestant and a Nationalist isn't impossible, nor is being a Catholic and a Loyalist.

The reasons for why people fought for what they fought for are myriad and often complex, but also sometimes brutally simple. Maybe you are still loyal to the Crown because, sure they don't like the fact you are a Catholic, but your family's very survival is tied into you still getting a pension from the Boer war, and who's to say that any independent state would continue to put food on the table. Maybe you think that monarchy and subjugation of your native gaelic heritage are nothing but a continued insult to you and your people, and while you don't follow Papish ways, religion fundamentally is not your nation, after all wasn't Christianity itself brought as a British faith to the island?

Or maybe you want to fight because those bastards shot your brother in front of you and you want revenge.

And this is not even getting into the minority religions in Ireland at the time.

At the end of the day, the treatment of the broad umbrella that is "protestants" in Ireland in a United Ireland scenario would depend so much on the "how" for a United Ireland that it could range to basically anything short of the fantastical.