Has Irish Independence Been A Success?

Terrontress

Does anyone think that the UK will have done a lot better without the 26 counties than it would have done, had it been politically forced to keep them?

Looking at the drain on the UK that is Northern Ireland, I'd say they have.

Offloading of some part of Ireland during the 20th Century was inevitable and this must be kept in mind when comparing the current situation for health, infrastructure, education in the UK when compared with the Irish equivalent.

Had there been no Irish independence at all, we may have had the same levels of public services as those in England but they may have been a lot poorer than either state now enjoys.

Terrontress

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

What is the point of this question?

We were a 3rd world colony when they left and now we're richer than them...

Look at houses of over 100 years old in areas of Irish cities. Speak to Irish people who have come from large farms handed down through the generation. Take a look at the great Irish literature throughout the ages.

Ireland was never a third world colony.

ballsymchugh

Terrontress wrote: »

Look at houses of over 100 years old in areas of Irish cities. Speak to Irish people who have come from large farms handed down through the generation. Take a look at the great Irish literature throughout the ages.

Ireland was never a third world colony.

yes, most of those houses that are over 100 years old belonged to british civil servants. large farms that were handed down through generations belonged to planters. the irish people who lived on those farms were largely tenants before the land league.
as for ireland having to depend on foreign investment, lets be real. there is only one country left in this world that thinks they can survive by themselves. that's north korea, and their stupid juche ideals. look how far they've come in the past few years..

Terrontress

ballsymchugh wrote: »

yes, most of those houses that are over 100 years old belonged to british civil servants. large farms that were handed down through generations belonged to planters. the irish people who lived on those farms were largely tenants before the land league.

What do you mean by "British Civil Servants"? Those taken from England to work in Ireland or those Irish who got a job in the government of the day? And would the combined neighbourhoods of Ranelagh, Rathgar, Rathmines, Sandymount, Clontarf, Donnybrook, Ballsbridge, Terenure, Rathfarnham, to use those areas I'm most familiar with as examples, have been populated solely by these civil servants?

There is no point playing the victim card. There has always been a comfortable, indigenous Irish middle class.

ballsymchugh

Terrontress wrote: »

What do you mean by "British Civil Servants"? Those taken from England to work in Ireland or those Irish who got a job in the government of the day? And would the combined neighbourhoods of Ranelagh, Rathgar, Rathmines, Sandymount, Clontarf, Donnybrook, Ballsbridge, Terenure, Rathfarnham, to use those areas I'm most familiar with as examples, have been populated solely by these civil servants?

There is no point playing the victim card. There has always been a comfortable, indigenous Irish middle class.

yes, there always has been a comfortable irish middle class, and i apologise, i did generalise way too much there (visions of places like merrion square came to mind) but the comfortable irish middle class today is in majority today, nothing like what it was under british rule. it's not playing the victim card, it's just the way things were.

Terrontress

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Terrontress

ballsymchugh wrote: »

yes, there always has been a comfortable irish middle class, and i apologise, i did generalise way too much there (visions of places like merrion square came to mind) but the comfortable irish middle class today is in majority today, nothing like what it was under british rule. it's not playing the victim card, it's just the way things were.

Life for the working classes in the large English population centres was not much fun either. I think the Irish working and sub-working classes had more in common with their English equivalents than with the Irish middle class.

And again, go to Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool and, just like Ireland, the comfortable middle classes are in the majority now and life is better than in that same period that British rule existed in Ireland.

So I think it's overly simplistic to say that the English conspired to make the lives of the Irish awful. As with any system of the time, there were those who prospered and those who were downtrodden.

dkin

ballsymchugh wrote: »

yes, there always has been a comfortable irish middle class, and i apologise, i did generalise way too much there (visions of places like merrion square came to mind) but the comfortable irish middle class today is in majority today, nothing like what it was under british rule. it's not playing the victim card, it's just the way things were.

But under British rule were we that much inferior to the Britons whose middle class is only recently in majority as well, in fact most people would have been working class in Briton especially so in Edwardian times. Times were very different in those days and have improved much for the better primarily I would say due to technological advances more than social changes.

Ireland currently has a similar gap between rich and poor as Briton for instance both of which are unacceptably high.

asdasd

3rd world colonies can have a middle class. In fact they all did.

Ireland was never a third world colony.

Ireland was one of the poorest places in the world in the 1840's, a fact then blamed by the British Establishment on Irish inate racial characteristics, rather than ( say) English policy in Ireland. It is now one of the richest countries in the World.

Thats the empirical evidence. The rest is flim flam. Ireland had the magdelene laundries ( one institution), England has Jersey, Islington, the Kincora boys shcool and others - underreported.

Infrastructure is getting to be the same - but obviously countries with established public wealth will have an easier time of it. We dont have a tube because it was built in London first ( with some Irish tax money, no doubt). Empires had more money. I dont think it was spent on the working classes - since this was before the welfare state - but it was spent on capital improvements.

Other claims by the OP are spurious. If we find oil we will be way better off than if we were in the UK, as we would own it. The scottish have seen little of their oil bonanza, and the difference in oil revenues between a country( the UK) of 60 M and a country of 6M (Scotland) is, clearly, ten fold. So thats a red- herring.

These kind of arguments used to bug me as a kid in the Eighties, some reactionary idiot would call up a radio station and demand we hand Ireland back to the UK. Back then Ireland had 50% the GDP of the UK. Not now.

Now that a recession has hit Ireland, they are squirming our from the woodwork, from behind the prince charles monograph, to whine the same old rubbish once again.

ballsymchugh

Terrontress wrote: »

Life for the working classes in the large English population centres was not much fun either. I think the Irish working and sub-working classes had more in common with their English equivalents than with the Irish middle class.

And again, go to Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool and, just like Ireland, the comfortable middle classes are in the majority now and life is better than in that same period that British rule existed in Ireland.

So I think it's overly simplistic to say that the English conspired to make the lives of the Irish awful. As with any system of the time, there were those who prospered and those who were downtrodden.

i'm not saying that the british conspired to make the lives of the irish awful, i'm saying that since independence the middle class of this country has grown and it's been at a rate much faster than england itself.
i've worked in working class britain for the past 7 years (in what is meant to be the prosperous south east), now work in working class ireland. i wouldn't agree that the comfortable middle class are in the ascendancy in the uk. the working and sub-working are still the majority, and will be for a hell of a long time yet.

asdasd

Ireland currently has a similar gap between rich and poor as Briton for instance both of which are unacceptably high.

This is a bit off-topic but it has always bugged me:

I read articles like that with incredulity. I have no problem with the idea that the gap between rich and poor might be increasing, just with the statistical artifact of measuring poverty as 60% of median income. This tells us nothing about the "rich" and the poor, but the poor and the nearly poor on median income. In fact if the top 10% get richer it doesnt affect that statistic at all. It merely tells us what happens when the median income earner ( not middle class, note, but middle income) pulls away from the social welfare classes.

Its a bit like worrying about poverty in 19th century if the better off peasants pull ahead of the farm workers, but not caring if the Aristocrats get richer. Utterly bogus statistics.

ballsymchugh

dkin wrote: »

But under British rule were we that much inferior to the Britons whose middle class is only recently in majority as well, in fact most people would have been working class in Briton especially so in Edwardian times. Times were very different in those days and have improved much for the better primarily I would say due to technological advances more than social changes.

Ireland currently has a similar gap between rich and poor as Briton for instance both of which are unacceptably high.

i would say we were, most irish working class under british rule were country based, spoke a language that was seen as inferior, and followed a religion that got them nowhere. the only way that they could get somewhere was to learn english. i don't want to go back that far, but to support the religion thing you only have to think of the penal laws that screwed up any chance of an irish catholic peasant advancing their lives.

i think we should all check this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9GQIO1BR0U

dkin

asdasd wrote: »

This is a bit off-topic but it has always bugged me:

I read articles like that with incredulity. I have no problem with the idea that the gap between rich and poor might be increasing, just with the statistical artifact of measuring poverty as 60% of median income. This tells us nothing about the "rich" and the poor, but the poor and the nearly poor on median income. In fact if the top 10% get richer it doesnt affect that statistic at all. It merely tells us what happens when the median income earner ( not middle class, note, but middle income) pulls away from the social welfare classes.

Its a bit like worrying about poverty in 19th century if the better off peasants pull ahead of the farm workers, but not caring if the Aristocrats get richer. Utterly bogus statistics.

Not too sure I follow you there the graph I linked to clearly shows "Average incomes of richest 10%, multiple of average income of poorest 10%." So for Ireland the richest 10% have approximately 8.7 times as much income as the poorest 10%. There is no definition of poverty as 60% of median salary that I could find.

asdasd

It was in a parenthesis:

(The OECD defines poor as someone living in a household with less than half the median income, adjusted for family size)

i admit the graph was the top 10% vs the bottom 10%, a more accurate reading.

I wonder what adjusting for family size means, anway? And does any of this take into account housing costs.

Bock the Robber

asdasd wrote: »

some reactionary idiot would call up a radio station and demand we hand Ireland back to the UK. Back then Ireland had 50% the GDP of the UK. Not now.

Now that a recession has hit Ireland, they are squirming our from the woodwork, from behind the prince charles monograph, to whine the same old rubbish once again.

Who's demanding that we hand Ireland back to the UK?

Could you point out where that was said, please?

Mayo Exile

Pictorial proof we must be doing better being independent! RoI can afford to mark it's roads while NI can't it seems!! :D.

(Location is the road running east to west across the border from Clontygora, Co. Armagh into Edentobber, Co. Louth. Took picture today actually).

Bock the Robber

Mayo Exile wrote: »

Pictorial proof we must be doing better being independent! RoI can afford to mark it's roads while NI can't it seems!! :D.

Has it recently been surface dressed?

ballsymchugh

Bock the Robber wrote: »

Has it recently been surface dressed?

maybe the paint was scuffed during all those colourful marches!!

Mayo Exile

Originally posted by Bock the Robber: Has it recently been surface dressed?

Can't tell you actually. First time I've been down that road in a while. It's only a minor road, no 'R' designation (in South). There's quite a few examples around the area where Southern road markings on minor roads end at the border. Speed limit signs in km/h are actually better pointers to border locations these days.

Originally posted by ballsymchugh: maybe the paint was scuffed during all those colourful marches!!

Doubtful in that location, if it's the Orange Order you mean!

Johnny Utah

Terrontress wrote: »

Does anyone think that the UK will have done a lot better without the 26 counties than it would have done, had it been politically forced to keep them?

Looking at the drain on the UK that is Northern Ireland, I'd say they have.

Offloading of some part of Ireland during the 20th Century was inevitable and this must be kept in mind when comparing the current situation for health, infrastructure, education in the UK when compared with the Irish equivalent.

Had there been no Irish independence at all, we may have had the same levels of public services as those in England but they may have been a lot poorer than either state now enjoys.

Britain ceased to be a global superpower after World War I. The Empire has been on the decline ever since. For example, look at the demise of the British motor industry, shipbuilding, mining etc.

Nevertheless, the UK desperately tried to cling onto power in Ireland. Hence, the Home Rule Act, attempts to impose conscription, and the use of the Black and Tans to quell the uprising.

It's hard to say whether the UK would have been better without the North. In the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, Belfast was booming- Harland & Wolf for example. However, after WWII, the British shipbuilding industry went into decline, which obviously had a detrimental effect on the North's economy. The Troubles didn't help either, but imo it's too simplistic to say that getting rid of the North would have been beneficial to Britain. Northern Ireland has enjoyed stability in recent years, so it may prove to be a centre of prosperity for decades to come.


However, I have no doubt that the 26 counties would be the forgotten region of Britain had there been no independence, and we would be a lot poorer today. The 26 counties had little or no industry in comparison to other areas of Britain and Ireland at the time. Coincidence?

I honestly believe that this trend would have continued had we never achieved independence.

Terrontress wrote: »

Look at houses of over 100 years old in areas of Irish cities. Speak to Irish people who have come from large farms handed down through the generation. Take a look at the great Irish literature throughout the ages.

Yeah, houses for the landed gentry; houses which were built on land which was taken from the native Irish. The Irish people were then effectively forced to work as slaves in a feudal system, which meant they could never prosper.

Terrontress wrote: »

Ireland was never a third world colony.

Oh really? :rolleyes:

I suppose we never had a famine either.

Terrontress wrote: »

Life for the working classes in the large English population centres was not much fun either. I think the Irish working and sub-working classes had more in common with their English equivalents than with the Irish middle class.

And again, go to Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool and, just like Ireland, the comfortable middle classes are in the majority now and life is better than in that same period that British rule existed in Ireland.

So I think it's overly simplistic to say that the English conspired to make the lives of the Irish awful. As with any system of the time, there were those who prospered and those who were downtrodden.

Where do I start with this?

Penal Laws, Irish Catholics unable to become members of parliament, feudal landlords, absentee landlords, the Irish population ignored and left to die during the famine, suppression of Irish language/culture, etc

Johnny Utah

Mayo Exile wrote: »

Pictorial proof we must be doing better being independent! RoI can afford to mark it's roads while NI can't it seems!! :D.

(Location is the road running east to west across the border from Clontygora, Co. Armagh into Edentobber, Co. Louth. Took picture today actually).

And if you look closely, you'll notice that the grass is slightly greener in the Republic too!

Terrontress

Johnny Utah wrote: »

And if you look closely, you'll notice that the grass is slightly greener in the Republic too!

And the chocolate tastes better.

anonymous_joe

Johnny Utah wrote: »

Yeah, houses for the landed gentry; houses which were built on land which was taken from the native Irish. The Irish people were then effectively forced to work as slaves in a feudal system, which meant they could never prosper.

Oh really? :rolleyes:

I suppose we never had a famine either.

Where do I start with this?

Penal Laws, Irish Catholics unable to become members of parliament, feudal landlords, absentee landlords, the Irish population ignored and left to die during the famine, suppression of Irish language/culture, etc

Just a note on all this stuff, because it's similar to an argument/discussion I was having with my folks;

A huge amount of all that is basically nothing to do with the Brits. Before you go wild at me for saying that, that's what aristocrats did in most countries to the peasants. We were a hell of a lot fcuking better off than the Russian peasants. Hell, we were probably not much worse off than the poor living in the inhuman squalor of London's slums, or the living hells that made up the Northern industrial cities.

Being a peasant sucked balls everywhere, whether in Ireland, Britain, Russia, Spain, anywhere.

While we suffered a fair bit because of the Brits trying to keep the 'Papists' down, plenty of rebellious regions suffered similar fates.

Victor

I thought you asked "Has Irish Independent Been A Success?" and nearly went on a diatribe about how utterly bad it is.

dkin

However, I have no doubt that the 26 counties would be the forgotten region of Britain had there been no independence, and we would be a lot poorer today. The 26 counties had little or no industry in comparison to other areas of Britain and Ireland at the time. Coincidence?

Have you any evidence to back this up? It's at most a best guess. Ireland was approximately equal to Britain in 1910 on GDP per capita and after independence due to civil war, terrible economic polices etc. we went backward in comparison this is despite Britain having to fight several world wars.

I am not trying to defend the prior acts of British rule in Ireland famine, penal laws etc. These were unacceptable and terrible acts. I'm more interested in the time line from 1910 onwards. Would we have been better off econmomically staying as a part of Britain? 1920-1990 were not exactly times of great prosperity or national development.

asdasd

These were unacceptable and terrible acts. I'm more interested in the time line from 1910 onwards. Would we have been better off econmomically staying as a part of Britain? 1920-1990 were not exactly times of great prosperity or national development.

This is not the question. The econmic war was foolhardy and knocked us back a generation. The question is now would we be any better. The answer is no. We are better in GDP per capita, better than the North, and better than Scotland or Wales.

ballsymchugh

dkin wrote: »

Have you any evidence to back this up? It's at most a best guess. Ireland was approximately equal to Britain in 1910 on GDP per capita and after independence due to civil war, terrible economic polices etc. we went backward in comparison this is despite Britain having to fight several world wars.

I am not trying to defend the prior acts of British rule in Ireland famine, penal laws etc. These were unacceptable and terrible acts. I'm more interested in the time line from 1910 onwards. Would we have been better off econmomically staying as a part of Britain? 1920-1990 were not exactly times of great prosperity or national development.

70 years to get on our own feet isn't too bad is it? compared to various other countries with much better resources.

turgon

Its kind of ironic that this whole thread about Irish independence is really just based on British comparison.

Bock the Robber

turgon wrote: »

Its kind of ironic that this whole thread about Irish independence is really just based on British comparison.

Well spotted. That's because some people have a habit of shouting before their brain is engaged.

dkin

ballsymchugh wrote: »

70 years to get on our own feet isn't too bad is it? compared to various other countries with much better resources.

The only reason we are on our feet is due to the billions that the EU spent on us. This was British, French and German money. If we had stayed part of Britain we would have joined the EU anyway and the British would probably have spent a significant amount propping up the country in the bad pre EU days, money we didn't get as an independent state.
The EU indulges us by allowing us a corporate tax rate that is significantly less than others and allowing us access to their enormous markets, this helps us to attract foreign multinationals. They pay for our farmers in a grossly unfair policy that effectively denies access to EU markets for people in developing countries who are on the breadline and sometimes forced into famine themselves. Our enormous public service is propped up by the ECB who allow unlimited access to their funds.

We are a dependent country and always have been a dependent country far from being on our own two feet.