If we were never colonised...

The Sweeper

This idea struck me in response to the "United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland" thread on After Hours. It straddles the subjects of religion, emigration, immigration, politics and history, so I figured I'd stick it in here.

The UK of GB and Eire thread was all about whether we'd be better off as a nation if we'd stayed under English rule. It set me thinking, what would Ireland would be like now if it hadn't been colonised or invaded by anyone - from the Vikings upwards?

And most puzzling, if Ireland had never been colonised by Britain, what role do you believe Catholicism would play in Irish life today?

Would we be a nation of zealots?
Would we be Catholic extremists?
Would we be teaching a gentle, buddhism-like form of religion, more faithful to the original message of its prophet because of a lack of influence from corrupt churches?
Would we be an irreligious bunch of pagans, never having needed our religion as solace in times of invasion?
Would we be precisely as we are now?
Would we be more or less tolerant to migrants?
Would we feel as betrayed by the less savoury actions of the Church?
Would marriage even exist?
Would abortion be legal?
Would we still have a generation of bitter, priest-despising youth?
If nobody outside our borders had ever shaped our religion by crossing our borders, what would we

Hagar

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

And most puzzling, if Ireland had never been colonised by Britain, what role do you believe Catholicism would play in Irish life today?

Would we be a nation of zealots?
Would we be Catholic extremists?
Would we be teaching a gentle, buddhism-like form of religion, more faithful to the original message of its prophet because of a lack of influence from corrupt churches?
Would we feel as betrayed by the less savoury actions of the Church?

Could St. Patrick's influence also be classed as a colonization by the British after all he was British? If so we might never have followed the path into Chistianity in the way we did. And the social/religious structure that existed in Eriu would have developed naturally over time.

Would we be an irreligious bunch of pagans, never having needed our religion as solace in times of invasion?

There was a religious structure in place based on Druidism and the Celtic Gods which I suppose would have been similar to what the Greeks developed later. So I don't think we would have been irreligious. In my experience the word pagan, although it had its own meaning, was a term used by the Catholic Church to denigrate the pre-christian religions. This denigration would not exist if Christianity had not been foisted upon us.

Would we be precisely as we are now?

No. Many of the influence which shaped what we are today would not have been felt.

Would we be more or less tolerant to migrants?

Good question, Christianity doesn't seem to have made us tolerant. Perhaps something else might have.

Would marriage even exist?

Well, it existed in pre-christian times so I yould say yes.

Would abortion be legal?

I don't know, would we have kept our rapport with nature and had more respect for life?

Would we still have a generation of bitter, priest-despising youth?
If nobody outside our borders had ever shaped our religion by crossing our borders, what would we

That would be Catholic priests being despised not the Druidic priests that might have lasted until now. They were held in respect by the populace if anything I have read is to go by. I'd say we we would be predominantly Druidic with a smaller mix of outside religions as a result of natural immigration / interaction with neighbourinng countries.

InFront

With a force as strong and as major as GB beside this island, a cultural influence would have always been here. Then with the onset of television and the Americanisation of the entire West, Id say we'd have ended up equite homogenous with the rest of the west anyway, occupation or none.

The Irish history would have been very different, but the country would probably have much the same identity as it has today

Bottle_of_Smoke

We'd be slightly less anti-british so I'd imagine a better society would have comne of us.

Or we'd be the Aborigenes(not arsed checking the spelling) of Europe.

Would we be Catholic extremists?
If the Catholic church was seen as an authority maybe a little more than our world/

Would we be teaching a gentle, buddhism-like form of religion, more faithful to the original message of its prophet because of a lack of influence from corrupt churches?
No.

Would we be an irreligious bunch of pagans, never having needed our religion as solace in times of invasion?
No

Would we be precisely as we are now?
Nearly the same

Would we be more or less tolerant to migrants?
No, that's a human thing

Would we feel as betrayed by the less savoury actions of the Church?
I don't feel betrayed having never trusted them. And you can't blame the whole church when it's individuals doing wrong. The church never included compulsory child molesting as part of priest roles.

Would marriage even exist?
Of course.

Would abortion be legal?
Probably

Would we still have a generation of bitter, priest-despising youth?
Depending on which religion came into power

If nobody outside our borders had ever shaped our religion by crossing our borders, what would we

People would make up their own. And that's virtually impossible by the way.

Terry

there are a lot of factors that need to be taken into acount when answering a question like this.
firstly you have to take the crusades into account. would king richard have come to Ireland and forced christianity upon us heathenistic pagans? i think he would. or if he didn't then maybe the spanish, french or dutch might have been inclined to come over here to educate us in the ways of christ.
if none of that had happened, then you have to take the five provinces into account. would we still have five provinces or would we be a united Ireland?
i think we would be united, but there would have been several territorial wars between the provinces.
had christianity not been introduced here, i think we would be a more enlightened people because early christianity did preach about the sins of the flesh and so called dark practices. this wouldn't have happened here and as a result we would have gone through the dark ages without burning witches and the like.
i don't think we would be particularly zealous about our practices because of the enlightened path we would have taken. i also think celtic gods would also have been phased out over time. religion has caused some major stumbling blocks in the mental evolution of humanity by telling people what to do and what not to do and if they do the wrong thing they will burn in hell. without those shackles we would have progressed much faster in terms of logical thinking.
i don't think we would have a problem with the workings of the catholic church as we wouldn't have had many dealings with them.
(note: i do not have a hatred for any religion and have a great deal of respect for those who devote their lives to the teachings of any religion. it takes a lot of strength to do such a thing. the fact that a position of trust has be abused by several members of the catholic church should not be a reflection of catholicism as a whole. i don't believe in any god, but i do understand that others do and i would never question their beliefs.)

moving on from the religious aspect, i think we would have a much bigger population because the famine and mass migration would not have been an issue. due to this, trade links with britain and coastal western europe would have thrived during this time. we may also have travelled to the americas (leaving out saint brendan and all that) and may have settled there before the spanish and the rest of europe. as an island, i think sea travel would have been a major part of life in Ireland.

in more modern times it's quite difficult to imagine who we would have sided with during the first and second world wars.
the easy answer would be britain as they are our closest neighbours, but there is every chance we could have sided with prussia/ germany.
having developed on our own, our country wouldn't have been stunted in growth and we could possibly have had quite a large army. there is every chance we could have aided hitler in the conquest of britain.

i think we would be a completely different people had the british not invaded. whether we would be better or worse is a question nobody can truly answer, but i like to think that the colonisation of this country by britain made us a stronger nation and one with more respect for other cultures.
you could point out that racism and bigotry exists here and now, but i think part of this may be due to fear of invasion by 'them damn foreigners', something still in the subconscious of every Irish person. i like to believe that this only manifests itself in a very small minority of people. they are usually referred to as skangers, scumbags, knackers etc.

i'm going back to AH. thinking makes my head hurt.

Nevyn

Hagar wrote:

I don't know, would we have kept our rapport with nature and had more respect for life?

I don't think is precludes abortion at all. Infact there was abortion before there was artifical contraception as when crops weren't good and there number of animlas were down it would have been irresponsible to bring a child into a community that could not provide for it.

iguana

We would probably have a larger population as about 40% of the Irish population died or emmigrated during the potato famine. And a potato blight might not have had such a devestating effect if we weren't under English rule. In fact we might not have even had potatoes!:eek:

The chances are that more of us would be multi-lingual. Irish would most likely be our spoken tongue, and as such we would nearly all be proficent in other languages. As we would all make a determined effort to learn English and I believe that people who speak more than one language have an easier time learning others. So in that respect we would be more European. We would probably not watch quite as many English and American tv imports either, as English would not be our first language. And we would all have watched Friends with Joe Duffy as the voice of Joey.:D

Ireland not being occupied by England may also have had farther reaching effects. It is unlikely that there would have been quite as much emigration, so America would not have as large an "Irish" community as it now does, so Halloween would not be an international holiday. But it would probably be a much bigger deal in Ireland.

Procrastinator

I notice that most people think that had e not been colonised, things would invariably be much better now.

No famine, no emigration, milti-lingualism, liberality, etc...

let me just say though, that we gained independence in 1922 and de-colonised here in the South with the republic of Ireland Act, so we've had over 50 years of functional political and cultural independence...so why all the emigration in the 1950s and then again in the mid 1980s? To crisis points in recent irishhistory and nothing to do with colonisation, decolonisation or any other -ism or -ation,

My point here, admittedly a longwinded one, is what's the point of a focus on what could have been?
Is this focus, this thread, an expression of deep dissatisfaction with the state of the place now? I know I'm pretty bloody dissatisfied.

If annoyance with the now is the thing here, what are we doing about it in the now?

Colonisation was years ago, let's move on. Please.