Fair to say that you wouldn't in either case. Although Widdecombe when younger might have been worth a punt.
Attachment 535
Fair to say that you wouldn't in either case. Although Widdecombe when younger might have been worth a punt.
Attachment 535
Another perspective might be that Britain had an empire at that point and losing your oldest colony doesn't look great, so some measure of authority had to be preserved. And not just over the colonial subjects; over the workers at home too, during a period of some instability.
Oddly enough, I don't think they cared. Our empire had just increased massively post-1918 and we were hopelessly over-stretched in terms of manpower. The Irish Home Rule thing had been rumbling on in the background for 50 years at that stage and Britain had no stomach for dealing with it. It had been obvious Ireland was going to have to have some form of self-determination for ages. The only question was how.
In terms of the attitudes, it comes down to race. Whatever the issues, Ireland was a white 'colony' and thus regarded completely differently to the various non-white colonies. It's a common mistake to think they'd have been seen similarly. People at the time simply wouldn't have seen it that way.