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Certainly Ireland probably has more in common with Scandinavia than say Bulgaria but when it comes to amounts of genius the UK and especially Scotland have surpassed it by a long way, even as a lad from Southern England I am often reminded by northerners and Scots that they were basically the ones who lead the technological revolution and gave us railways, television and telephones.
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I'm not denying that and yes the Scots at that time were definitely very innovative but at that time the Irish were heavily discriminated against and had a difficult time even surviving. Many Irish existed on tiny plots of land provided by Protestant Landlords and most did not get an education. You make it sound like the Irish were deficient without acknowledging that under British rule the Irish were not given opportunities and were treated incredibly poorly by the British. They were mostly cannon fodder and their best families were decimated and many of the great Irish Gaelic families did not survive. Anyway if you know the history of Ireland it is fairly obvious why they were not as successful as the English and Scots. It shouldn't be necessary to educate people on these subjects. The Irish in Ireland were treated as lesser beings under British rule and even at the height of the famine when people were starving there was plenty of food in Ireland but it was exported to Britain.
https://www.historyireland.com/food-...eland-1846-47/The second failure of the potato crop in 1846 left many people without access to their usual supply of food. The Whig government’s decision not to intervene in the market place but to use public works as the main means of providing relief was disastrous. In many instances, the wages paid on the relief works proved to be too low to purchase food in a period of ‘famine’ prices, forestalling and hoarding. At the same time, large amounts of food continued to leave Ireland and it was not until the following spring that food imports became substantial. Consequently, during the winter, there was a ‘starvation gap’. The size of that gap is best measured, not in calorific values or in terms of the volume of food exported, but in the amount of excess mortality and suffering during those months. Whilst official mortality statistics were not kept, the local Irish constabulary provided an unofficial estimate that 400,000 people had died due to a lack of food in the winter of 1846-47.
The belief that the British government had abandoned the Irish destitute to market forces was not confined to nationalists such as John Mitchel. The Earl of Clarendon, who had succeeded Bessborough as Lord Lieutenant, confided to the Prime Minister at the end of 1847 that:
No-one could now venture to dispute the fact that Ireland had been sacrificed to the London corn-dealers because you were a member for the City, and that no distress would have occurred if the exportation of Irish grain had been prohibited.
So while all this technological revolution was going on in parts of Britain the Irish were having a tough time surviving. The vast majority of Irish were lucky if they could attend a hedge school at the time.
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The Scots did not face the same discrimination that the Irish did and neither did the Welsh. It is not comparable to what occurred in Ireland and any impartial person would acknowledge this.
Just the fact that the Irish were Catholic should be enough to explain some of this. Catholics as you know faced a lot more discrimination in the Anglo world.
Ireland is one of the western countries that had a huge drop in population while other countries have had steady increases.
This was just during the famine years alone.
https://www.dfa.ie/irish-embassy/usa...after-effects/It is estimated that the Famine caused about 1 million deaths between 1845 and 1851 either from starvation or hunger-related disease. A further 1 million Irish people emigrated. This meant that Ireland lost a quarter of its population during those terrible years. The Famine’s impact was most severe in the west of Ireland where some counties lost more than 50 per cent of their population.
The Famine’s immediate impact in terms of mortality and population loss is clear. The Famine's longer-term economic and political effects require some interpretation. The most consequential of these was mass emigration from Ireland, which persisted for decades after Black ’47. Indeed, it is only in recent decades that Ireland has experienced net immigration. This massive outflow of people had serious economic and social consequences.
While not a race to the bottom I think people that know history would admit the Irish were treated the worse out of the Scots and Welsh.
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Even looking at this basic answer from AI it is pretty easy to pick out who might have had the least favourable relationship under the UK.
The Irish experienced a complex and often troubled relationship with Britain. The English colonization of Ireland, beginning in the 12th century, had significant political, social, and economic implications for the Irish people. The Penal Laws, introduced in the late 17th century, imposed severe restrictions on Catholics in Ireland, leading to discrimination and the erosion of their rights. The Great Famine of the 1840s, exacerbated by British policies, resulted in widespread suffering and mass emigration. These historical events have contributed to a legacy of tension between Ireland and Britain.
The Scots also had a complex relationship with England and later Britain. Scotland and England were separate kingdoms until the Act of Union in 1707, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. Prior to the Union, Scotland experienced periods of conflict with England, such as the Wars of Scottish Independence. Following the Union, Scotland retained some separate legal and educational systems, but there were instances of economic and political marginalization. However, it is worth noting that Scotland also enjoyed certain benefits from its association with the British Empire.
The Welsh, like the Scots, were incorporated into the Kingdom of England through the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535 and 1542. Historically, the Welsh experienced periods of subjugation and cultural suppression, particularly during the medieval era. The Welsh language and cultural practices were often discouraged or suppressed. However, Wales also benefited from industrialization during the 18th and 19th centuries, and the Welsh identity and language have experienced a revitalization in modern times.
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There is no difference at all culturally, nor is there between all westerners, people that say there is for no beneficial reason, just in peoples' heads
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