WI Ireland took advantage of the Falklands War to launch a sneak attack on Britain and liberate Ulster?
- Thread starter Charles III Stuart
- Start date
The Irish war of independence took place before the Irish Civil War
Irish War of Independence - Wikipedia
Irish Civil War - Wikipedia
Probably ends in UK victory with minor Irish tarritorial concessions (Probably expanded northern Ireland comprising a United Ulster)
en.m.wikipedia.org
Ulster - Wikipedia
Not really, as I said Westminster doesn’t really want to add more poor areas that will require more spending, more troops/security forces, and crucially would likely tip NI over into a 50/50 split population decades before it happened in OTL.Probably ends in UK victory with minor Irish tarritorial concessions (Probably expanded northern Ireland comprising a United Ulster)
View attachment 889526Ulster - Wikipedia
That makes no more sense than the OPs suggestion in the first place.
I can't imagine for a moment that any senior officer in the IDF would carry out these orders.
Stage 1: " Are you fucking insane?"
Stage 2: "No I'm not going to get my troops killed needlessly"
Stage 3: " I resign"
Repeat until you have no more senior officers.
Stage 1: " Are you fucking insane?"
Stage 2: "No I'm not going to get my troops killed needlessly"
Stage 3: " I resign"
Repeat until you have no more senior officers.
Article 5 of NATO goes into effect if Ireland attacks the UK.
Ireland is not suicidal
Again, only if the U.K. calls for it, which it really doesn’t need to under any circumstances, and again, any attack is suicidal.
Not just senior officers, the DF at all ranks would refuse to commit suicide.
For a more contemporary comparison, The Finnish Civil War (lasting roughly 4 months in 1918) saw about 10 000 killed (just) in combat,
according to Wikipedia and with a population of a little over 3 000 000.
They were because, after 1916, the majority of the population thought of them as foreigners and invaders. Without even getting into the sticky issues of cultural and linguistic repression (genocide?) and the bloody evolution of the Anglo-Irish identity, it’s nonsensical to argue that Ireland actually *was* British because the population clearly rejected that idea by the time of the War of Independence. Nationality and culture, being social constructs, are incredibly malleable and political. They can be said to exist if a critical mass of people believe in them. You can easily try and argue that Americans were just North American Brits in 1775 or that Ukrainians were confused borderland Russians in 2014, but clearly the populations who identified as such rejected these identities and acted politically to reject them. I don’t see the logic of trying to impose a sense of national identity on historical subjects who emphatically rejected these labels and clearly acted in ways contrary to your argument.
I think you can certainly argue that the period preceding the Home Rule debate showed that there was some level of British identity that was accepted by the Irish population at large. The tension between Irishmen and Britishmen was defusing, and this set off alarm bells for obsessive cultural nationalists like Padraig Pearse… hell, it spawned the Gaelic revival in the final decades of the 19th century. But the degree to which the Rising reignited an Irish identity that didn’t include Britishness showed just how shallow the British identity was and just how powerful the Irish nationalist tradition was below the surface. And we saw the results of it in the massive turn out for Sinn Féin and the ensuing guerrilla war.
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I get the feeling that an ASB would have to be involved to make this happen with the Republics leader ship and even then the Irish Defence Force would probably be soundly defeated by local british forces and various Home Regiments.
Probably have other NATO and EU members face palming at the insanity though Thatchers govt just got another shot in the arm.
Probably have other NATO and EU members face palming at the insanity though Thatchers govt just got another shot in the arm.
Thatcher would be rubbing her hands at another foreign policy windfall to boost her ratings. This one would be an easy and quick victory, moreso than the Falklands War.
She will probably be doing a happy dance in her office at both victories.
Have to wonder if Ireland would get booted out of the EU or at least put on some kind of probation until they are sure the madness won’t repeat.
Also in terms of trade given how much goes between the UK and Ireland they just nuked a chunk of their economy.
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Its 1980's Ireland, the economy was barely above nuked even without this insanity, but this? Even without the massive scale of damage from this (as you rightly point out the UK is still the dominate trading partner at this point), there's also the fact that Ireland would have just demonstrated its politicians are insane, so bye bye the FDI that was starting to build up at that point with the massive knock ons from that. And then you get into questions like whether the CTA would exist and the impact that would have on the population.
Basically ATL Ireland would be massively poorer, massively more unstable and isolated for decades.
Yup probably leave more than a few economist all over the world wincing at what they just did to themselves it also probably dives a lot of Northerners to the UDF as well as driving NI closer to Britain in political and economic terms.
Though I wonder with the failure and the isolation if we will see another Irish diaspora on top of everything else.
It’s almost a given that emigration would climb again after something like this, but the UK will be out, and the other “usual” suspects might not be too eager either…
I see no reason why the UK would be out. Britain has been a destination for generations of Irish emigrants and they enjoy the right to abode, work and vote as if they were UK citizens. A significant portion of the British population are descendants of Irish immigrants.
You don’t see any reason why after launching an attack on the U.K. migrating to it might not be the best? OTL U.K. wasn’t exactly “nice” for Irish during the Troubles as it was even if you were from the Republic, after an attack I would expect it to be much worse. And given Thatcher actively asked about cancelling the CTA just because Charlie wouldn’t back the U.K. diplomatically in the Falklands war, she might push all the way after such an incident.
If it wasn’t “nice” why were they still coming? During the Troubles I lived across the road from an Irish Club in Manchester and saw no incidents at all. Even after the Manchester lorry bombing just a couple of miles away. To be sure some unpleasant things happened but not in the normal course of life for most but Irish emigrants continued arriving from both sides of the border. If anything the Irish government would be downgraded in the eyes of the British public from minor annoyance to simply silly.