"an Irish fighting family" I love that, I'm picturing a victorian stable owner breeding some Irish "yes, I've a fine male specimen with six knuckles that I can't wait to blood in this weekend's meet" Anyway, I think the aggressive, warring Englishman is a total myth. We've a far far more peaceful history than just about anyone on the continent, and we have our island status to thank for that; thus post norman invasion we had next to no repelling to do, though admittedly we did spend 300 years terrorising France, and we weren't especially nice to the Irish. However empire came not through being good at fighting, but by being well organised, clever, good diplomats and excellent at commerce. As for winning two world wars, first one was a land stalemate, we effectively starved Germany into submission with the naval blockade, and the second one was won by Mother Russia.