Ireland
From Turtledove
Ireland is the third largest island in Europe. Politically, the Republic of Ireland covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, covering the remainder in the north-east.
Historically, Ireland was ruled by the British (and the English before them) for many centuries, a situation the Irish constantly resisted.
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[edit] Ireland in Ruled Britannia
When Spain conquered England in 1588, Ireland was liberated. The Irish had steadfastly remained Catholic despite the persecutions of that religion by the Protestan King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth. Because of this, the Irish fared well under the militantly Catholic Hapsburg empire.
The Irish were invited to send troops to help occupy England and enforce the rule of Queen Isabella and King Albert. Irish troops were known for their brutality in their enforcement of the Spanish order, no doubt as revenge for the oppressive rule of the English to which they had been subjected.
When Isabella and Albert were expelled from England in 1598, and Elizabeth was returned to the throne, English plans were drawn up to conquer and occupy Ireland almost immediately.
[edit] Ireland in Southern Victory
During the Great War, Ireland, led by General Michael Collins, rose up in an attempt to expel the hated British from their land. The uprising was heavily supported by both the United States and Germany, who had recognized the free and independent Republic of Eire by 1916. At the end of the war, defeated Entente powers were forced to grant diplomatic recognition to the Republic. The United Kingdom nonetheless clandestinely supported the Protestant loyalists in an early 1920s rebellion against the new Republic. This was defeated with the help of both the US Navy -- in the form of the USS Remembrance shelling and bombing Belfast -- and the German Fleet.
At the beginning of the Second Great War the British invaded and occupied Ireland. They were warmly welcomed in the Protestant areas on North Ireland, but elsewhere the Irish immediately rose up and began a spirited underground campaign against their hated enemy. They were once again supported in their campaign by the Germans, but not by the United States until 1943, when the US Navy started to supply guns and ammunition to the Irish Rebels as they had in 1916.
The net result of Ireland's stormy Twentieth Century history was to make internal Irish politics the hostage of international power struggles and wars, with the island's two religious-ethnic communities - the majority Catholics and the minority Protestants - ranging themselves firmly and passionately on opposite sides in every worldwide conflict.
At the end of the Second Great War, Ireland - with the British occupiers expelled - found itself in a situation similar to that of its American patron after the conquest of the Confederacy: i.e., with military control of the territory, but far from establishing a unified nation, and rather needing to stand constant guard over a large sullen and rebellious population.
[edit] Ireland in In High Places
In an alternate where the Great Black Deaths killed 4 in 5 Europeans, Ireland never unified, remaining a group of warring kingdoms into the 21st Century.
[edit] Ireland in Worldwar
Ireland was one of the lesser not-empires that were not annexed by the Race following the Peace of Cairo.
