What should the voting age be?

[gaelic cowboy]

@ Horetore

The famine cannot be overestimated the shame of survival was so deep no one talked about it, even between family members it was blanked totally.

This leads us to my great grandfather born just after being raised in a family who lived through it, he was lucky as he was born just after but it is likely many relatives died and maybe even brother and sisters. None of this would have been talked about openly but the ruins of houses would have been everywhere to see creating a strong image for a young child.

We now have a situation where an entire society has a deep mental scar no one talks about but they also have the vote, I think you can guess where I going here

The liberalisation of property specifically of farmland ownership means his son my grandfather is raised in a relatively stable enviroment compared to any previous generation.

The infant seeds of globalisation like steamships and the telegraph allow emigrants to the USA and OZ to actually follow actual current events and even set the agenda the odd time.

For the first time London has to actually consider international implications in it's rule here and it is becoming harder to ignore the wider world more and more everyday.

The remittances home help to lift plenty of farmers sons into low level civil service jobs through proper schooling enter the Irish Parlimentary Party on the back of the Land League.

The anti-conscription movement radicalised the people and they basically rejected the IPP for Sinn Fein who incidently had reinvented themselves from Dual Monarchists to Republicans.

WW1 smashes Victorian society and bleeds white Ireland's protestant ascendancy and lastly it killed the moderate nationalist dream of Home Rule in the horror of the trenches.

My grand uncle never came home from France that was a particularly strong coffin nail in my view, his brother my Grandfather then decided to hell with this lets kick em out

None of these things in and of themselves lead to independence but taken together and driven into the enemy at the right time it can and was pretty fatal.