how a relatively few ‘inconsequential’ decisions have radically changed the course of history…
(Originally published in the Western People on 2024-11-05 and before the election result was known!)
2024 USA General Election Official Voter Information Guide
Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone had the numerical superiority, with the English army pinned between his Gaelic forces and their besieged Spanish allies in Kinsale town. Lord Mountjoy had seriously weakened the last area of English power around Dublin (known as ‘the Pale’), by gathering as many men as he could muster from loyal garrisons, in his rush to confront the Spanish troops who had landed on the south coast on 2 October 1601. A defeat of Mountjoy’s men would have had catastrophic consequences for English rule in Ireland. With the Pale and ultimately Dublin city left in a desperately weakened state to face an onslaught of the resurgent Irish, the Crown’s remaining allies in Ireland would likely have found their reasons to change sides and O’Neill would probably have been crowned King of Ireland — but for ill-fortune.
There are multiple reasons why Mountjoy was able to defeat O’Neill, thereby ushering in the destruction of the Gaelic order and paving the way for the complete conquest of Ireland by the English crown. By their landing on the Cork coast, the Spanish army forced O’Neill to reluctantly march to their aid from his Ulster stronghold, in the depths of winter. On his arrival, he abandoned a strong defensive position on high ground for a weaker one and his exhausted forces were caught redeploying out of battle formation when the English successfully routed them. O’Neill lacked the guidance of his charismatic father-in-law, Hugh Maguire, who had been killed in a skirmish a year earlier, leaving the Earl with ‘a depression of mind’ according to the Irish annals, making the already cautious leader, perhaps now rudderless and indecisive when the moment came to matter.
I have often wondered if Hugh Maguire had not brazenly rode out on a scouting mission on a fateful night and gotten himself killed in a needless struggle, would his guidance have seen his son-in-law crowned king, thereby dramatically changing Irish and English history and thus that of the world? By such momentary lucky decisions does the universe unfold.
Historians love to speak of a zeitgeist or particular mood of an era, a spirit of revolution or coming together of social movements which sweeps through nations and leads to overturning of the old order and the birth of the new. Thus is born the French Revolution, the USA superpower, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union or even Irish independence. Yet, major turning points of history have often spun on a coin-flip and generations of history unfolded in radically different ways as a result — especially in elections.
Enda Kenny was Taoiseach from 2011 to 2017 during Ireland’s exit from its traumatic post-2008 economic crisis. This involved the EU effectively saving the State from bankruptcy with a €67.5bn loan, but then strongarming the Irish people to cover all the financial losses of failed Irish banks. As a compliant Irish Prime Minister unwilling to offend his European peers, Kenny was adamant in ensuring all bondholders (mainly European banks) would be repaid, thus resulting in severely curtailed public services, increased taxes with slashed capital expenditure and building programmes. We see the consequences today with an extreme shortage of housing, overstretched health services and lack of public infrastructure. Essentially five million Irish people were forced to bail out the European banking system to "avoid bank contagion" and Kenny insisted it was a moral duty for Ireland to repay every single cent owed. Would a less conservative and more courageous statesman have threatened to burn the bondholders and done an Iceland on it? What would Ireland look like today if we had?
Yet Enda Kenny almost wasn’t available to be chosen as Taoiseach. In the 2002 election in his native county Mayo constituency, on the second-last count Kenny overtook his Fine Gael colleague Jim Higgins by only 87 votes and survived to be elected, while Higgins lost his seat. Rumours swirled in the tense Castlebar count centre but in the end, those 87 ‘lucky’ votes changed Irish history (and maybe why we have no houses in Ireland).
If the British Prime Minister hadn’t shocked the world by calling the Brexit referendum the UK wouldn’t have voted narrowly to leave the EU by 52% to 48%. David Cameron’s decision to gamble on his political future saw the unprecedented leaving of the European Union by a member state, with consequences still unravelling for the UK and Ireland, and an alienated Northern Ireland potentially rejoining the bloc though Irish reunification.
In a déjà-vu moment harking back to the Brexit referendum of the previous June, I remember waking up on November 6, to hear of Donald Trump’s predicted victory in the 2016 US election and not able to take it in until I had copious amounts of coffee. He had defied the pollsters by winning in the three ‘rust-belt’ states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by 0.2%, 0.7% and 0.7% of the votes cast respectively. Hillary Clinton’s over-confident campaign had neglected these key swing states. These 77,744 ‘lucky’ ballots in a country of 323 million ushered in a tumultuous four years of Trump’s government, which ‘caused’ 400,000 avoidable deaths due to COVID and culminated in the January 6th attack on the Capital building in 2021, leaving a polarised nation and damaged institutions in its wake.[1]
There was much talk of ‘the People have spoken’ and ‘rejected MAGA extremism’ in Joe Biden’s 2020 victory over Donald Trump.[2] In reality (and especially in an America where only seven ‘swing-states’ effectively decide this election) a sliver of people who mattered chose him over Trump. As with Kenny, Trump or Brexit before him, Biden’s success was down to a relatively few people and only for luck almost never happened. These are not the grand societal sweeps of people voting in unison but a few tiny accidents of unintended consequences.
The same will be true of the American election on Tuesday when a relatively few people will again decide the result. No matter what the final vote is, one in two Americans will disagree – often vehemently – with the new President-elect. The two possible election outcomes will be starkly different in consequence – both in the paths not travelled by the country in the years ahead, as much as those policies and plans which will be enacted. It will not only effect the American people but also profoundly influence the outcome of the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as future events which can’t even be imagined right now all over the world.
By such tiny margins, luck plays an outsized role in how history unfolds – just ask Jim Higgins or Hillary Clinton (by the way – keep an eye on Pennsylvania — who wins there likely wins it all I believe).
.
[1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/new-revelations-emerge-on-how-donald-trump-killed-400000-coronavirus-pandemic/
[2] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/kerry-washington-ava-duvernay-eva-longoria-and-more-celebrate-projected-joe-biden-victory-its-a-moment-folks-4084805/