If the UK asked Ireland to rejoin the Union, how would you vote?

DarkyHughes wrote: »

fair play man, I wont ask for (if you were the Armagh sniper give me a wink) but nice one for defending the Republic.

All other states in this island are illegal under international law. The only legit government in this island who can make laws is the Dail of the all Irish Republic whose power currently lies with the IRA Army Council & the only forces who can legally enforce those laws are the Irish Republican Police & the Irish Republican Army.

The Irish Republic is a Democratic Socialist state & a multi-party state system which believes in real representative democracy based at the lowest level, civil rights & civil liberties, equality for all & does not discriminate against anybody based on gender, religion, sexual preference, skin color, race etc(unlike some illegal states on this island)...the government will make sure no little boys or girls or families go hungry & will do their best to ensure every citizen has a good standard of living. Workers will control the means of their own production.

Yeah well done for defending the Republic. Those fûckers in Warrington, Birmingham, enniskillen and Omagh must have been really threatening for you to defend against.

And the rest of your post is utter utter bullshît.

Henry Sidney wrote: »

Y...........................
And the rest of your post is utter utter bullshît.

You seem angry Henry. Whats the problem?

Nodin wrote: »

You seem angry Henry. Whats the problem?

I'd rather not say to someone who advocates having people taken for a "good kicking " for having a different opinion to them...

Henry Sidney wrote: »

I'd rather not say to someone who advocates having people taken for a "good kicking " for having a different opinion to them...

Jaysus henry, you take everything a bit seriously. Relax and tell us whats wrong with ye.

pedro1234 wrote: »

If you actually bothered to read the thread you'd see why I asked this question, instead of just mouthing off before listening to what I had to say.

why Pedro, mouthing off you say, that isnt very nice of you now:D. can I not have an opinion too. speaking of mouthing off though theres more chance of Megan Fox giving me head later on and a threesome with her mate than this sh1t ever happening. just sayin. I shall leave you all to it so. have fun.

Of course the point is rather moot anyway; aren't we all one big happy European Union Family? :P

pedro1234 wrote: »

The Niall Boylan radio show.

I think it ended up around 81% when the poll was closed, but it was as high as 87% at one stage. Still, massive figure and took me by surprise.

I very much doubt that it reflects reality.Probably was a made up figure in order to get more comments from his listeners.

Brrrrrrr.....

Jawgap wrote: »

Oh no!!! Confounded by a Wikipedia article that references a book published a quarter of a century ago.

Tell you what - you stick with Wikipedia and that offshoot of the (largely discredited) Grand Narrative you've cited.

I'll stick with the more recent archaeological and cultural history scholarship.

Deal?

You're still wrong. Get over it. People are wrong sometimes.

You've learned the difference between 'nation' and 'nation state'.

You can thank me some other time.

Jawgap wrote: »

Not really.

Nation refers to people with, among other factors, a shared culture. Obviously nations of people did not suddenly arise in the early 19th Century as you claimed. Nations of people have been around for centuries.

Did you know the Irish Constitution refers to the Irish Nation?

Article 3 (1)

It is the firm will of the Irish Nation, in harmony and friendship, to unite all the people who share the territory of the island of Ireland..

Karl Stein wrote: »

Some would have you believe British rule of Ireland was halcyon days of yore.



I'd largely agree with that but I'd remind you that small nations who gain independence from former world colonial powers often find themselves in turmoil or subject to brutal regimes - as bad as it was (and it wasn't all bad) it could have been far worse.

We're still a relatively young country and all-in-all we're not doing too bad. We often find ourselves at the upper end of quality of life surveys in all manner of publications.

I think we underestimate how old our democracy is though. We've actually one of very few European countries that have had unbroken democracy (under different states) throughout the entire 20th century.

When you go back to the 19th century we were still very democratic by standards of the time. The downside was that women didn't have any vote until 1919 and then only if over 30 and a landowner until 1928!
Shockingly enough, that was progressive for that era!

We had democracy theories throughou most of the 19th century as part of the UK too.

The original Irish parliament was hardly what you'd call democratic though. Long, long periods without universal suffrage and deep sectarianism. Very much an 'occupying administration' more than a parliament. It also hardly ever even bothered to convene despite its fine building on College Green.

Modern Ireland and the modern UK really have a lot more of a normal relationship and many more things in common than Ireland and Britain in the past which was very much a colonisiser and colony situation at first and then a dysfunctional province vs capitol relationship and then after independence serious bitterness.

Both places have changed beyond recognition over the later half of the 20th century and I think we really do have a very close, much more equal and respectful relationship.

Things weren't good under British rule here in the 19th century. That's precisely why it ended.

I think the Republic of Ireland and the UK are better off just growing the new found friendship and not trying to merge.

If we were going to have a federal UK with Ireland in it, it's over a hundred years too late and there's not much point in talking about it in hindsight.

It's a bit like arguing that the Americans shouldn't have declared independence and that if the British had been more reasonable to the colonies they might have stayed on board.

Too many people confuse nice, normal, friendly, liberal, multicultural progressive, present day Britain and its ancestor structures which were a pretty aggressive and often quite brutal colonial power that just largely wanted all your stuff as cheaply as possibly to prop up its central economy.

You can't really compare the two. Present day Britain is nothing like the Britain of the past and that's really not a bad thing.

You can't really have anything but a subservient relationship with a colonial monarchy unless you're a member of its upper classes in the home nation. It's a totally outmoded and undemocratic means of government.

Comparing the Scottish situation now with the Irish situation over a hundred years ago isn't really possible.

Jawgap wrote: »

That doesn't mean a thing.

Look up and read O'Tuama's (UCC) analysis on Bunreacht na hEireann to see how it actually fits what I've been saying about the nation as a 19th C construct and how the Constitution was a product of that thinking.

And it might worth noting that the Constitution was not a product of the people - it was Dev's view on the Irish identity, brought forward from his notions about the Gaelic order......plus less than a third of the population actually voted for it.

Everything's a construct though if you strip it back.

The modern British Monarchy's image for example and a lot of the pomp and ceremony was designed very deliberately to boost national pride and confidence during and after WWII and as the empire dissolved away.

The current Queen has been a bit like a national mammy / cheerleader figure and very deliberately portrayed that way.

The idea of nation states is very much 19th century and 20th thing though. Before that you're into a period of empire and local power largely.

The USSR being the last European empire, shows how long that mentality lasted. Putin still seems to be in that mode of thinking.

He clearly sees the EU and NATO as an "empire" when they're actually federations of nation states with common economic or security needs and with a very different agenda to an empire but he's not really seeing the difference.

Jawgap wrote: »

That doesn't mean a thing.

Yes it does, it means this:

nation

noun

a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.

the nation as a 19th C construct

Again you're confusing 'nation' with 'nation state'.

Without the concept of aggregates of people identifying as of that aggregate we wouldn't even have words to describe the Athenians, Romans, Spartans, Celts, Britons etc.

Jawgap wrote: »

I'm not. As I've said the nation state dates back to the mid 17th C and the Peace of Wesphalian

You said the concept of a nation came about in the early 19th Century.

Originally Posted by Jawgap

the history of the 'nation' ... only arose in the early 19th Century

That's demonstrably wrong. This is going off topic so let's drop it.

jank wrote: »

Maybe, just maybe through experience and discipline the brits are better at running things then Irish people. You do not think its strange that we fought a war of independence against one Union for less than 60 years later to join another Union that has been the saviour of this country. No matter what way one cuts it, we are better off when we have a strong German or British guiding hand, where then we can decide on the small details. Giving us total control over all national matters free from British or European influence, well we have made a mess of it time after time. Think Ireland from 1921 to 1978 pre EEC. Nobody could honestly say it was a success. We have grown over the past 30 years but still have massive inherent flaws.

Well firstly the UK hasn't been an awful lot more successful than we have in the last 40 years. Both countries attain broadly similar standards of living and Ireland actually surpasses the UK on quite a few matrixes, even after the recession.

The post WWII period here was grim and there was a conservative theocratic power grab in the middle 20th century which only ended in the 80s really.

That being said, Britain wasn't all liberal, fun and games in the 50s and 60s either. They managed to arrest and basically torture gay people including famous war heros like Alan Turing who was basically driven to suicide and only got a posthumous apology a couple of years ago.

Modern Ireland and Modern Britain are much nicer, much more humane and open places than they've never been at any stage in history.

Also Britain had huge emigration to the "colonies" like Canada and Australia in particular during the 20th century but they don't tend to classify it as a national tragedy like we do.
Roughly 154,000 Britons emigrate every year actually giving it one of the highest emigration rates in Europe.