"British policy down the centuries has effected the lives of every country they have ever ruled over, usually adversely."

Yes I dare say it has, but most would disagree with your opinion regarding "usually adversely" - as others have ignored it I will say again - if that was indeed the case there never would have been a Commonwealth, having shaken off what you seem to view as the brutal tyranny of British Rule by bloody rebellion they would naturally enough would want absolutely nothing to do with their former rulers - But that was not the case was it?

Largest democracy on the planet is? INDIA - not even an entity when the Europeans first arrived to trade, just a group of separate Kingdoms. Now who was it that gave them democracy and rule of law and order? The British knew that they were going to have to leave India shortly after the end of the First World War, here as in Ireland two distinct religious groupings came to the fore - now unlike Ireland they didn't undertake to advance their cause by violence, all three parties talked, neither of the two religious groups trusted the other and they elected for partition and two countries were formed India and Pakistan (East and West). It was only then after the British left that horrendous violence flared fuelled by religious hatred, mistrust and intolerance.

The Home Rule Bill of 1914 was the declaration of intent on the part of the British Government that it would grant self-government to Ireland - it was then to be up to the pro-independence group to talk to the pro-union group and come up with a compromise that would work. The British Government's declaration of intent that they would support that effort was signalled by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Unfortunately the 1916 rising hardened attitudes all round both Nationalist and Unionist. What happened after the Treaty that saw the creation of the Irish Free State was a tiny civil war that the newly formed Irish Government could contain, fight and win. Had the massive pro-union support base in the North been forced into an independent Ireland the newly created country would have been destroyed. That was the reality that Michael Collins & Co recognised and Eamon de Valera DID NOT. The Irish civil war demonstrated clearly to those in the North that they had chosen wisely and had done the right thing.

Support for armed struggle in Ireland has always been extremely weak.
The rising in 1916 had to be kept secret from the men who were in charge of the IRB and the IVF as they would have prevented it from happening - participation amounted to 0.004% of the Irish population.

The War of independence only managed to excite the interest and participation of 0.04% of the Irish population - hardly massive by any stretch of the imagination.

The civil war that followed attracted participation by 3.33% of the population so incensed were they at the partition - basically they could have cared less - they had to deal with life, loss of markets, and the "dog-in-the-manger" destruction of property and essential infra-structure wrought by the IRA in the death throws of their idiotic and completely unnecessary conflict.

Mourn the loss of Empire? Don't be ridiculous, I lived through the transition of many countries to independence all of them peacefully.

"It has destroyed existing cultures and manipulated economies to suit the Empire's interests rather than those of the people they ruled."

Examples please Jom. Give you a couple Hawaiian culture was all but totally destroyed by American Missionaries, elsewhere in the Pacific Islands missionaries from the British Missionary Society recorded the native languages, created written word where none existed and translated the Bible into those native languages.