If you could go back to any point in Irish History to change something what would

AMKC

What would you do?

Me I would make sure Micheal Collins never got killed and have Eamon De Velera killed by a British soldier. I think the outcome of this would have been far better for all of us on the island. It would mean the Americans would be as angry and annoyed with the British as our people and they would help us take our little Island back and make it a United Ireland. Also it would mean we would never have the stupid senseless civil war.

Ubbquittious

I'd go back to 2008 and stop the bank bailout from happening

TheValeyard

Kick Strongbow in the nuts and stop him becoming friends with Henry II

JeffKenna

AMKC wrote: »

What would you do?

Me I would make sure Micheal Collins never got killed and have Eamon De Velera killed by a British soldier. I think the outcome of this would have been far better for all of us on the island. It would mean the Americans would be as angry and annoyed with the British as our people and they would help us take our little Island back and make it a United Ireland. Also it would mean we would never have the stupid senseless civil war.

Would you not just go back in time and make sure Dev was never brought back from America as a child?

Chips Lovell

Introduce blight-resistant potatoes.

YFlyer

Chips Lovell wrote: »

Introduce blight-resistant potatoes.

The Brits would have taken those as well.

Baybay

As I’m currently stuck trying to do my family tree, I’d have to do something to try to avoid the destruction of generations worth of family records.

murpho999

Chips Lovell wrote: »

Introduce blight-resistant potatoes.

No, the real question is why was the majority of the population then dependent on the potato crop for survival?

Population was 8m then, imagine what Ireland would be like now if the famine had never happened.

mickdw

YFlyer wrote: »

The Brits would have taken those as well.

I think the irish history books in schools distort the reality of the famine.
All i ever learned in school was that the potatos failed and there was nothing to eat.
There was no mention of the british loading up boat loads of pigs and cattle and shipping them out of the poorest parts of ireland to England and leaving the people here with nothing.

EmmetSpiceland

murpho999 wrote: »

No, the real question is why was the majority of the population then dependent on the potato crop for survival?

Wasn’t it because most of the poor were unpaid workers on estates? They were given a small patch of unwanted land to live and, on which, they would plant potatoes as that was the easiest, and most reliable, crop.

ulster

JeffKenna wrote: »

Would you not just go back in time and make sure Dev was never brought back from America as a child?

Or just go back and nail that tosser who invited the Normans in.

randd1

AMKC wrote: »

What would you do?

Me I would make sure Micheal Collins never got killed and have Eamon De Velera killed by a British soldier. I think the outcome of this would have been far better for all of us on the island. It would mean the Americans would be as angry and annoyed with the British as our people and they would help us take our little Island back and make it a United Ireland. Also it would mean we would never have the stupid senseless civil war.

Knowing what we know now? Upon the creation of the free state -

- Introduced a science based school curriculum
- Introduced mandatory school leaving age of 16
- Introduced mandatory 2 years national service at 17. The second year would be primarily be for the purpose of skill development and to provide the new state with a labour force for national projects.
- Introduce a planned housing programme.
- Enshrine the current freedoms we have to date (abortion, marriage, divorce, contraception, free healthcare etc)

I'd imagine we'd be in a healthier state as a country.

YFlyer

mickdw wrote: »

I think the irish history books in schools distort the reality of the famine.
All i ever learned in school was that the potatos failed and there was nothing to eat.
There was no mention of the british loading up boat loads of pigs and cattle and shipping them out of the poorest parts of ireland to England and leaving the people here with nothing.

That is true. Many non Irish people believe it was solely the lack of available potatoes. Sad if Irish believe that.

I was at a FP7 EU funded project launch in Shannon. Had to feck some Danish Professor out of it saying we suffered because of the lack of potatoes.

YFlyer

randd1 wrote: »

Knowing what we know now? Upon the creation of the free state -

- Introduced a science based school curriculum
- Introduced mandatory school leaving age of 16
- Introduced mandatory 2 years national service at 17. The second year would be primarily be for the purpose of skill development and to provide the new state with a labour force for national projects.
- Introduce a planned housing programme.
- Enshrine the current freedoms we have to date (abortion, marriage, divorce, contraception, free healthcare etc)

I'd imagine we'd be in a healthier state as a country.

Be hard for our Irish politicians to consider those steps.

Sure Chuck Feeney had to carrot and stick the Government to contribute to research at universities.

murpho999

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

Wasn’t it because most of the poor were unpaid workers on estates? They were given a small patch of unwanted land to live and, on which, they would plant potatoes as that was the easiest, and most reliable, crop.

Exactly. The land issue and absentee landlordism was really devastating for Ireland.

whisky_galore

Kick Archbishop John Charles McQuaid up the arse.

It won't change anything, would just like to do it.

whisky_galore

randd1 wrote: »

Knowing what we know now? Upon the creation of the free state -

- Introduced a science based school curriculum
- Introduced mandatory school leaving age of 16
- Introduced mandatory 2 years national service at 17. The second year would be primarily be for the purpose of skill development and to provide the new state with a labour force for national projects.
- Introduce a planned housing programme.
- Enshrine the current freedoms we have to date (abortion, marriage, divorce, contraception, free healthcare etc)

I'd imagine we'd be in a healthier state as a country.

Good luck with that in Holy Catholic Ireland.

murpho999

randd1 wrote: »

Knowing what we know now? Upon the creation of the free state -

- Introduced a science based school curriculum
- Introduced mandatory school leaving age of 16
- Introduced mandatory 2 years national service at 17. The second year would be primarily be for the purpose of skill development and to provide the new state with a labour force for national projects.
- Introduce a planned housing programme.
- Enshrine the current freedoms we have to date (abortion, marriage, divorce, contraception, free healthcare etc)

I'd imagine we'd be in a healthier state as a country.

Agree with a lot of above but I don't agree with national service at all and would have made neutrality in WW2 more difficult.

Also, socially the world was very different then, let alone Ireland , so the social rights you mention would be dificult in ,ost cases and impossible in some,

One thing they should have done though is education and set up their own schools programmes and not depended on religious orders to run schools (and hospitals) for them.

mikhail

murpho999 wrote: »

No, the real question is why was the majority of the population then dependent on the potato crop for survival?

Population was 8m then, imagine what Ireland would be like now if the famine had never happened.

It's not hard. Just extrapolate the yellow line from 1840. We'd have a population of 15-30M. Dublin would still be a metropolis in the top ten in Europe.

ulster wrote: »

Or just go back and nail that tosser who invited the Normans in.

We'd have been invaded at some other point. Proximity to GB is the big problem. Stick us out in the middle of the Atlantic a la Iceland, and we'd have had a chance.

storker

murpho999 wrote: »

No, the real question is why was the majority of the population then dependent on the potato crop for survival?

At the end of the day, you will pay the price if you're a fussy eater.

YFlyer

mikhail wrote: »

It's not hard. Just extrapolate the yellow line from 1840. We'd have a population of 15-30M. Dublin would still be a metropolis in the top ten in Europe.


We'd have been invaded at some other point. Proximity to GB is the big problem. Stick us out in the middle of the Atlantic a la Iceland, and we'd have had a chance.

Where did you source that graph?

YFlyer

mikhail wrote: »

It's not hard. Just extrapolate the yellow line from 1840. We'd have a population of 15-30M. Dublin would still be a metropolis in the top ten in Europe.


We'd have been invaded at some other point. Proximity to GB is the big problem. Stick us out in the middle of the Atlantic a la Iceland, and we'd have had a chance.

Anyone know why sharp decline in around 1340for England and Ireland but not for Scotland and Wales?

andy125

Go back when bitcoin was 400-500 euro and invest all our money into it, become richest country in the world.

Has the plus side that I haven't gone back far enough to effect if I will be born.

mikhail

YFlyer wrote: »

Where did you source that graph?

Found it on reddit a couple of years ago. Dunno how reliable the data is, but it fits with what I know, and there are regular censuses since at least the early 1800s anyway.

Concerned2

Not make Irish mandatory in school

Fr Tod Umptious

I'd make sure the Reformation took hold in Ireland and we ditched the old religion in favour of the new.

Things would have been an awful lot better off had we embraced the reformation.

YFlyer

mikhail wrote: »

Found it on reddit a couple of years ago. Dunno how reliable the data is, but it fits with what I know, and there are regular censuses since at least the early 1800s anyway.

Thanks. Was there any theories or facts why Ireland population went down and England shot up from around 1840?

ShatterAlan

murpho999 wrote: »

No, the real question is why was the majority of the population then dependent on the potato crop for survival?

Population was 8m then, imagine what Ireland would be like now if the famine had never happened.

Well the Netherlands is half the size of Ireland with a population of 17 million and they seem to be doing just fine.

The population density of Ireland is 77 per square km. Belgium is 5 times that at 376 per sq. km. Again they don't seem to be tripping over themselves.

mikhail

YFlyer wrote: »

Thanks. Was there any theories or facts why Ireland population went down and England shot up from around 1840?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29
Deaths from the famine coupled with the near complete failure to industrialise on the island meaning that the flight to the cities bypassed Dublin (not industrialised) and Belfast (sectarian) and the resulting culture of emigration saw our population growth and more siphoned off to the UK, US, Australia, etc.

Industrialisation saw massive population growth in most places.

cameramonkey

A few GPMGs on the beach at Baginbun where Ireland was lost and won.

Church on Tuesday

Convince Eoin Mc Neill to never send his countermanding order.

Would it have made much difference? most likely not; the rising may have lasted another couple of weeks at best, but it would have been fascinating to see a nationwide insurrection which could possibly gain some international support the longer it went on.

Taking Dublin Castle when it was there for the taking would have been massively symbolic internationally too.

cdeb

Ubbquittious wrote: »

I'd go back to 2008 and stop the bank bailout from happening

You'd have to go back a lot further than 2008 to stop that happening in fairness.

Ash.J.Williams

TheValeyard wrote: »

Kick Strongbow in the nuts and stop him becoming friends with Henry II

Probably the most impactful change you could make . Then again strongbow was one foreign cnt amongst a few Irish cnts, all the Irish kings were utter ****

elperello

YFlyer wrote: »

Anyone know why sharp decline in around 1340for England and Ireland but not for Scotland and Wales?

Black Death.

It was the Covid of the time only worse.

It affected cities more than rural areas about 25% of the population of London died according to estimates.

ShatterAlan

mickdw wrote: »

I think the irish history books in schools distort the reality of the famine.
All i ever learned in school was that the potatos failed and there was nothing to eat.
There was no mention of the british loading up boat loads of pigs and cattle and shipping them out of the poorest parts of ireland to England and leaving the people here with nothing.

+1


There was plenty of food in the country to feed the population. It wasn't just potatoes. There was corn, wheat, barley, oats. If you could survive on a diet of potatoes and milk then surely you could survive on a diet of porridge and bread.


This was all plundered by the brits.

cdeb

elperello wrote: »

Black Death.

It was the Covid of the time only worse.

It affected cities more than rural areas about 25% of the population of London died according to estimates.

It affected Wales and Scotland as well though.

BBC wrote:

To begin with, in the summer of 1349, Wales was ravaged by the bubonic version of the plague but as winter drove in the pneumonic version erupted in the rural communities. By the time the disease died away it has been estimated that some villages had their population reduced by as much as 80%.

Most of England was rural at that stage, so I don't think the city/country split would account for the graph. Maybe it's just the population in Wales in particular is too small for the 25% drop (or whatever it was) to be seen.

agoodusername

I'd try to save the more rural railway lines, but really I only want it in my own selfish way. We've all seem the maps of the Irish rail network in the 20s, and even though we have struggling lines today, it'd be a great asset to tourism in the West and may have helped in the decline of certain towns over the past fifty years.

elperello

cdeb wrote: »

It affected Wales and Scotland as well though.



Most of England was rural at that stage, so I don't think the city/country split would account for the graph. Maybe it's just the population in Wales in particular is too small for the 25% drop (or whatever it was) to be seen.

That's right it affected all areas but the lower population densities in Wales and Scotland reduce the impact.

Bearing in mind of course that mostly you are dealing with estimates.

murpho999

mikhail wrote: »

It's not hard. Just extrapolate the yellow line from 1840. We'd have a population of 15-30M. Dublin would still be a metropolis in the top ten in Europe.

Hard to take a graph serious that includes Ireland in "British Isles".

Now someone will respond "It's a geographcal term". It is but it's a British one, politically loaded and not recognised by Irish government.

So maybe I'd go back in time and change that term too.

elperello

I forgot to take my trip back in Irish history.

I prefer to concentrate on something that one person could achieve by being in the right place at the right time rather than big picture political interventions.

Something like taking Sonny O'Neill off drinking for the day comes to mind.

Chips Lovell

murpho999 wrote: »

Population was 8m then, imagine what Ireland would be like now if the famine had never happened.

It's a very interesting question and, certainly in recent times, the famine never happening would probably be the biggest potential fork in our history. I don't think it's a given that our population would have remained that high and there was probably a high chance we would have experienced a Scandinavian style mass emigration to America anyway at some point, but a different timing and different circumstances may have left the country a very different place.

ShatterAlan

randd1 wrote: »

Knowing what we know now? Upon the creation of the free state -

- Introduced a science based school curriculum
- Introduced mandatory school leaving age of 16
- Introduced mandatory 2 years national service at 17. The second year would be primarily be for the purpose of skill development and to provide the new state with a labour force for national projects.
- Introduce a planned housing programme.
- Enshrine the current freedoms we have to date (abortion, marriage, divorce, contraception, free healthcare etc)

I'd imagine we'd be in a healthier state as a country.

You'd have been shot for being a communist.

mikhail

murpho999 wrote: »

Hard to take a graph serious that includes Ireland in "British Isles".

Now someone will respond "It's a geographcal term". It is but it's a British one, politically loaded and not recognised by Irish government.

So maybe I'd go back in time and change that term too.

I just can't bring myself to give a flying ****. Maybe we need to reclaim the term: demand that the UK stop referring to themselves as British as they aren't the only nation on the BI.

cdeb

agoodusername wrote: »

I'd try to save the more rural railway lines, but really I only want it in my own selfish way. We've all seem the maps of the Irish rail network in the 20s, and even though we have struggling lines today, it'd be a great asset to tourism in the West and may have helped in the decline of certain towns over the past fifty years.

Cars were always going to kill off rural rail lines. Not just here, but everywhere in Europe. (Especially here, though, as we're an island)

But the tram network in Dublin in particular, that's well worth going back in time to save. We're spending millions effectively rebuilding the same lines now.

(Were there tram networks in other cities as well?)

Ubbquittious

murpho999 wrote: »

Hard to take a graph serious that includes Ireland in "British Isles".

Now someone will respond "It's a geographcal term". It is but it's a British one, politically loaded and not recognised by Irish government.

So maybe I'd go back in time and change that term too.

Bleh. I wouldn't be so sure


That growth spike in England is from them eatin' all our sphuds

timmyntc

cdeb wrote: »

Cars were always going to kill off rural rail lines. Not just here, but everywhere in Europe. (Especially here, though, as we're an island)

But the tram network in Dublin in particular, that's well worth going back in time to save. We're spending millions effectively rebuilding the same lines now.

(Were there tram networks in other cities as well?)

Go back in time and refuse to let people build one-off houses in the countryside (around same time as cars became widespread)

We would have far more sustainable and better communities, urban and rural. And some proper countryside, not bungalow blight

EmmetSpiceland

Concerned2 wrote: »

Not make Irish mandatory in school

I’d have had all schooling taught through Irish.

silliussoddius

O'Neill and O'Donnell getting their sh1t together for Kinsale.

whisky_galore

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

I’d have had all schooling taught through Irish.

So had my mum.
Reciting parrot fashion reams of Irish, didn't have a clue what it meant, then or now.

We used sing songs in irish as a class, didn't have a bulls notion what we were singing about.

Man Vs ManUre

I would go back to last Saturday late afternoon and do the lotto and have €8million by evening time.

Sgt Hartman

ulster wrote: »

Or just go back and nail that tosser who invited the Normans in.

Diarmuid McMurrough was the tosser in question I believe.