Irish Wales

After a rousing game of Avalon Hill's Britannia, we found ourselves with a unique-looking board. The Irish had managed to conquer all of Wales! This unusual turn of events was caused in part by an ambitious Roman conquest.

My question for those in the know is whether or not this is possible, and if so, what the effects might be?

I know the Irish did some aggressive settling in the 3-500s. Could they have been aggressive enough to displace the Welsh? Perhaps they all go to Cornwall and Brittany?
 
After a rousing game of Avalon Hill's Britannia, we found ourselves with a unique-looking board. The Irish had managed to conquer all of Wales! This unusual turn of events was caused in part by an ambitious Roman conquest.

My question for those in the know is whether or not this is possible, and if so, what the effects might be?

I know the Irish did some aggressive settling in the 3-500s. Could they have been aggressive enough to displace the Welsh? Perhaps they all go to Cornwall and Brittany?
No. Not enough Irish, too many Welsh for this to happen. The Irish were fond of the common pirate raids, but that was about it. Also, there is no large, powerful Irish kingdom to attempt such a thing. You're not going to have some chief from Leinster or wherever take Gwynedd, Dyded, Gwent, Glamorgan, Powys, and all the other cantrefs all by himself.
 
They came close, but never really found the area suitable compared to Caledonia. The Britons just put up too strong a fight, and when that didn't work, they brought in the Saxons to fight for them (boy, did that get out of hand). Maybe move Justinian's Plague a century back, you could depopulate Britain enough that the Irish could settle with impunity.
 
Even if the Irish had conquered Wales, they wouldn't have been able to displace the Welsh. Too many Welshmen and too few Irish settlers for that. And the new Irish rulers would want some nice tributes from the Welsh.
 
They came close, but never really found the area suitable compared to Caledonia. The Britons just put up too strong a fight, and when that didn't work, they brought in the Saxons to fight for them (boy, did that get out of hand). Maybe move Justinian's Plague a century back, you could depopulate Britain enough that the Irish could settle with impunity.

While this technically almost counts, that POD is from a time when the concept of "Irish" and "Welsh" were just forming. History wouldn't remember that as an Irish conquest of Wales, it would remember it as a Welsh invasion of Wales, same as the Scots came from Ireland, and you couldn't hope for any sort of meaningful political union from this scenario.
 
While this technically almost counts, that POD is from a time when the concept of "Irish" and "Welsh" were just forming. History wouldn't remember that as an Irish conquest of Wales, it would remember it as a Welsh invasion of Wales, same as the Scots came from Ireland, and you couldn't hope for any sort of meaningful political union from this scenario.
Uhh, I think you're getting it wrong. Scots were Gaels just the same as Irish, but the Welsh were in no way the same, they were Britons. They had been different from the Irish for god knows how long already and already had a grudge because of the Gaelic pirates coming in from Ireland.
 
Ireland can't do it, not yet anyway.

Now give it a few hundred years, with an Irish unification and some very violent Saxon invasions of Wales to depopulate it.
You could maybe have the Irish gaining some client states in Cymru, a few ambitious princes and what-not.
 
Uhh, I think you're getting it wrong. Scots were Gaels just the same as Irish, but the Welsh were in no way the same, they were Britons. They had been different from the Irish for god knows how long already and already had a grudge because of the Gaelic pirates coming in from Ireland.

I know that. What I meant to say is that in this scenario, the end result surely is the Welsh ethnic group becoming indistinguishably intermingled with the migrating Irish, in the same way that the Picts as an ethnic group essentially disappeared, and we would know *Wales by whatever name we used for the migrating Irish (probably not Diasi, I reckon) meaning that by the present day we will have little to no concept of a non-Gaelic Welsh ethnicity, and the history books will refer to the *Welsh migrating to *Wales, the country which bears their name. My point was to compare to Scotland - you would be very hard-pressed to find a history book which stated "the Irish conquered and annexed Scotland" because they instead say "the Scots migrated to Scotland and took over". That was my point.
 

Thande

Donor
I considered this idea myself when I was posed the question of what a plausible Hibernowank would look like (as opposed to those ones by American nutters who don't realise how resource-poor the island of Ireland is). I was thinking that, instead of/as well as Ulster making the colony of Dalriada in Scotland, Leinster could perhaps make a colony centred on Gloucester (or Caerloyw as it was then) and colonise the West Country and southern Wales. Maybe pick up isolated bits and pieces like Anglesey too. The Welsh culture and language would survive in the mountains of north Wales at the very least though (and possibly elsewhere--we're talking about PODs in a period when there's still time for the Welsh to resist the Anglo-Saxons more effectively and hold on to more of Prydain).

As Falastur points out though, this colony could easily become detached from "the Irish" proper and take on a culture of its own with only some residual ties, just as Dalriada did.
 
I considered this idea myself when I was posed the question of what a plausible Hibernowank would look like (as opposed to those ones by American nutters who don't realise how resource-poor the island of Ireland is).

Pretty much just peat, trees and occasional quarries. Its really best for farming and grazing. Perfect for a mediaeval kingdom but not for a modern power.
 
Pretty much just peat, trees and occasional quarries. Its really best for farming and grazing. Perfect for a medieval kingdom but not for a modern power.

Yeah but Ireland isn't even that good for farming, potatoes are the only reason for the population boom, and that requires America to happen :p
 
Yeah but Ireland isn't even that good for farming, potatoes are the only reason for the population boom, and that requires America to happen :p

Its fine for farming. Not great farming obviously, but farming still. And the most obvious use is raising livestock.
 
Yeah but Ireland isn't even that good for farming, potatoes are the only reason for the population boom, and that requires America to happen :p

They can grow turnips pretty well.

And the Scots migrating to Scotland argument... It's more like, the Gaels who were also known then as the Scots migrated to Caledonia and created Scotland. This is how I've always heard it explained in historical conversations.

Anyway, to the OP. It's not impossible but it isn't probable. I think if the Gaels create some more successful colonies in Wales that last just a century or so longer, they would be around long enough to use the Viking raids in the region to their advantage and pull off a similar scenario as what happened in Caledonia OTL.
 

Thande

Donor
The terminology is confusing because "Scot" is just the English (Anglo-Saxon) word for "Gael". It's like thinking "the French" and "les francaises" are two separate groups. (At the time, that is; obviously the terms are wholly distinct nowadays, just like 'England' and 'Angeln').
 
The terminology is confusing because "Scot" is just the English (Anglo-Saxon) word for "Gael". It's like thinking "the French" and "les francaises" are two separate groups. (At the time, that is; obviously the terms are wholly distinct nowadays, just like 'England' and 'Angeln').

It's actully the Anglicised version of the word Scotti, which the Romans used to refer to Ireland and Scotland sometimes. Scottia Major and Scottia Minor respectively. Though this may have occurred after the Scotti tribe migrated to western Scotland.
Sorry, you were right, I was just nitpicking.
 
So Irish Wales will still be called Wales (that word simply means foreigner, and was applied to many peoples) but would now genetically and culturally(?) be a mix of Brythonic and Irish? Does that make any real difference? Were the Welsh that different culturally from the Irish?
 
So Irish Wales will still be called Wales (that word simply means foreigner, and was applied to many peoples) but would now genetically and culturally(?) be a mix of Brythonic and Irish? Does that make any real difference? Were the Welsh that different culturally from the Irish?

That's kind of like asking whether the areas nominally part of the Fifty Commandries free of direct Han Dynasty rule were all that different culturally from contemporary peoples in the Ryukyus and the Pre-Unification Japanese Home Islands; it's the sort of thing that opens up a whole can of worms of political arguements.
 
So Irish Wales will still be called Wales (that word simply means foreigner, and was applied to many peoples) but would now genetically and culturally(?) be a mix of Brythonic and Irish? Does that make any real difference? Were the Welsh that different culturally from the Irish?

Yes, they were pretty different. To an extent. But then all dark ages peoples were very similar in some ways. Big debate as said.

As to will they be called Welsh...Could be. You could put Greeks in Wales and the English might still call them Welsh.
 
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