What would Ireland be like now if the famine never happened?

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo · 13-10-2013 08:10PM #1

If the British had helped us out would we have stayed in the union?

What would our population be? Would our sports teams be much better? Would the troubles never have happened?

We had a population of over 8 million.

What I do know is that Conan O'Brien would be presenting The Late Late Show, Wayne Rooney would be playing up front for us as team captain, JFK would have been our best Taoiseach and the Gallagher Brothers would be well renowned trad musicians. :pac:

So many questions, can the intelligent people of AH's answer?

Mr. CooL ICE · 13-10-2013 08:12PM

We'd have to find something else to complain about.

Also, all surnames with the "O" prefix would have it removed.

Amirani · 13-10-2013 08:14PM

I think I've heard it said before that we'd be the most densely populated country in the EU had the famine never happened.

snickers · 13-10-2013 08:15PM

Helped us out ? how about if they the british had not been plundering our country of the rest of its food supplies we might of been ok on our own.

FreshKnickers · 13-10-2013 08:15PM

Makes me wonder how different the aul U S of A would be too...

Podgerz · 13-10-2013 08:16PM

No no; Conan would not be presenting the Late Late ; he would just be co-hosting the Graham Norton Show in the BBC

On a serious note we would have had one hell of a soccer team

Sunnyisland · 13-10-2013 08:18PM

We be the biggest exporters of potatoes in the world...

Amirani · 13-10-2013 08:21PM

Podgerz wrote: »

No no; Conan would not be presenting the Late Late ; he would just be co-hosting the Graham Norton Show in the BBC

On a serious note we would have had one hell of a soccer team

Not necessarily. Our youth football structures would probably still be equally as crap, which is far more important in terms of producing good players than population size.

stefan idiot jones · 13-10-2013 08:21PM

The Chinese would be complaining about our one child policy.

RedXIV · 13-10-2013 08:22PM

we'd be screwed on international relations, the whole "ah sure my granny was 1/8th Irish" wouldn't exist anymore

mojesius · 13-10-2013 08:25PM

Lucky charms wouldn't exist.

Podgerz · 13-10-2013 08:26PM

NiallSparky wrote: »

Not necessarily. Our youth football structures would probably still be equally as crap, which is far more important in terms of producing good players than population size.

A yea but you know potatoes, increased populations, youth football structures, that whole link there

DoozerT6 · 13-10-2013 08:26PM

We'd be fecked for tourists. No famine =no mass emigration=no 6th generation Americans coming over to see the shack the ancestors lived in before they shipped out to Boston.

Conmaicne Mara · 13-10-2013 08:30PM

Fatter?

mattjack · 13-10-2013 08:32PM

snickers wrote: »

Helped us out ? how about if they the british had not been plundering our country of the rest of its food supplies we might of been ok on our own.

When I get my time machine going I'ma gonna open a Super Macs back in 1840s Ireland.

Lapin · 13-10-2013 08:34PM

We wouldn't be much different than we are now, with the probable exception of having larger urban centres.

We never had the natural resources to sustain an industrial revolution on the scale of Britain and Europe, and only a small amount of fertile land capable of supporting large families.

I reckon emigration on a mass scale was still inevitable. Even before the Great Famine of the 1840s emigration was commonplace in Ireland.

Mardy Bum · 13-10-2013 08:35PM

DoozerT6 wrote: »

We'd be fecked for tourists. No famine =no mass emigration=no 6th generation Americans coming over to see the shack the ancestors lived in before they shipped out to Boston.

We wouldn't be as reliant on this if we had a larger population.

fryup · 13-10-2013 08:35PM

if it was 8 million population at the time of the famine then today it would be...what 20 million??.. maybe more??

any mathematicians out there give a more accurate estimate

Filibuster · 13-10-2013 08:36PM

Probably would have invented Chocolate Taytos in the 1970's

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo · 13-10-2013 08:38PM

*waits patiently for a response from Wibbs*

Sleepy · 13-10-2013 08:40PM

Lapin wrote: »

We wouldn't be much different than we are now, with the probable exception of having larger urban centres.

We never had the natural resources to sustain an industrial revolution on the scale of Britain and Europe, and only a small amount of fertile land capable of supporting large families.

I reckon emigration on a mass scale was still inevitable. Even before the Great Famine of the 1840s emigration was commonplace in Ireland.

And let's face it, we're still at it and have been for all bar a couple of years during the celtic tiger.

rustedtrumpet · 13-10-2013 08:51PM

Robots

wolfpawnat · 13-10-2013 08:56PM

We'd have kicked British arse in 1916!!!!

If it did happen but our other food sources were kept here, we would have been fine, Britain would have lost food revenue.

If it never happened, we still would have had mass immigration in times of financial crisis, perhaps the numbers would be even larger than they were.

Saab Ed · 13-10-2013 08:58PM

Dublin would have even more Mayo guards and teachers to ride each others cousins in Coppers.

CrabRevolution · 13-10-2013 09:02PM

Maybe more chance of a greater number of us speaking Irish, the great hunger really accelerated it's decline.

wolfpawnat · 13-10-2013 09:06PM

CrabRevolution wrote: »

Maybe more chance of a greater number of us speaking Irish, the great hunger really accelerated it's decline.

We'd probably be like most other European countries. It would probably still be the first language, but fluent in English too. 50/50 between the two languages even. That would be great.

Legs.Eleven · 13-10-2013 09:07PM

Those statues of famine victims down by the Liffey in Dublin wouldn't be there.

Shout Dust · 13-10-2013 09:08PM

fryup wrote: »

if it was 8 million population at the time of the famine then today it would be...what 20 million??.. maybe more??

any mathematicians out there give a more accurate estimate

There was something published a while back, saying if it wasn't for emigration and the famine we'd be at around 22-30 million, we had a similar population to England at one stage.

I'd say we'd be somewhere 12-15 million if it wasn't for the famine, be somewhere between Belgium and Holland. If we became a free country before the colonial era ended, I think we'd have been harsh enough masters

jill_valentine · 13-10-2013 09:13PM

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Those statues of famine victims down by the Liffey in Dublin wouldn't be there.

Good. They've scared the jaysus out of me on more than one tipsy occasion. :mad:

Aineoil · 13-10-2013 09:13PM

"If the Famine didn't happen, there could be 12 million people living in Ireland and eight million could be native Irish speakers."

Eamon O Cuiv

downonthefarm · 13-10-2013 09:17PM

there was no famine to begin with it was just them bloody civil servants making a balls of it again

What would Ireland be like now if the famine never happened?

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