Why I'll say no to a united ireland

droidman123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043057#Comment_122043057

I still dont know what you are going on about

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043082#Comment_122043082

It was you who wrote "Putins army are citizens of russia,the nazi,s were citizens of germany". I did not mention them, you did.

droidman123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043071#Comment_122043071

Get ready for a barrage of what the ira did and other things completely irrelevent to the point you made

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043080#Comment_122043080

I think if you look up your history books you will find the "native" population (your adjective, not mine) "objected" long before the half century was up : and things like the internment of IRA -which happened both during WW2 and the IRA border campaign of 1956-62 - occurred on BOTH sides of the border long before Bloody Sunday. Why do you think internment of IRA was deemed necessary by BOTH governments in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s?

Fionn1952

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043094#Comment_122043094

And then copy/pasted 20 more times afterwards, throw in an insinuation that we're the same poster and a few points on how great the Brits were.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043108#Comment_122043108

How does any of that excuse what the British allowed happen in NI?

You want to talk ad nauseum about offended Unionists, but mention offended Irish people you dismiss them.
Tough, there has been a new game in town for sometime called equality and parity of esteem.
You or Unionists don’t have a veto anymore.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043148#Comment_122043148

There were lots of very offended Irish people as well as offended British people. I never dismissed them. Your point being?

And by the way, no state was perfect anywhere in the world 50 or 70 years ago. Show me a state that was. Not even this state was. But at least we interned the IRA in the 40's, 50s and 60s. And when DeValera executed some IRA in prison in the 1940s there was no outcry. Are you blaming the British for allowing DeValera to execute the IRA in the 1940s?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043164#Comment_122043164

Allowing a sectarian, one party state (they changed the voting system) to operate for 50 years under the noses of a supposedly ‘‘democratic’ country was not normal.
NI’s obvious (read Hansard and government papers, they knew what was going on) abnormality eventually led to it going up in flames.
You want offended Unionists satisfied well then all the offensive British commemoration have to come down too…simple as that.

Or, an agreed way is found to allow people to remember with respect and there is acceptance that there are two narratives and experiences of the partition experiment.

IdrisRinatovLinfieldFC

It's too dangerous for NI and ROI to unite. The unionists in NI will go berserk and this will set off the Troubles again. And Dublin won't be able to handle it on their own.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043208#Comment_122043208

Loyalists were never able to mount a violent campaign without the help of the British security forces- UDR RUC B-Specials, BA etc.
They won’t have that and they will be easily contained and monitored.
Despite much rumblings over the Protocol localised violence will probably be the height of it. Moderate Unionists have already agreed to constitutional change if a majority decide on it in the GFA

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043266#Comment_122043266

Are you insinuating that the reason Republicans were able to kill many more people than the Loyalists did is because of help from the "Free state" - be it Haughey and the arms trial, smuggling of arms, safe houses, training facilities etc? Or loyalists are not as clever as republicans so could not mount a terrorist campaign? Funny logic that.

The British forces clamped down and jailed thousands from both communities in N.I., and suffered casulties from both communities. If there was a U.I, loyalists would not join the Gardai. Do you really think the Garda riot squad would contain so many loyalists as there are, especially after a few Gardai were shot in the back / their family cars bombed?

And you have not answered the question: Are you blaming the British for allowing DeValera to execute the IRA in the 1940s?

Do you think he and the Irish state should not have?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043311#Comment_122043311

Rubbish, The British ignored a sectarian one party statelet operating under their noses for 50 years until it went up in flames then shot people who had no connection to paramilitaries on their own streets when they objected. They then shored up that sectarian statelet until they were forced to end the Unionist veto with the AIA almost 30 years after they could have done it.

This is factual history and no amount of you singing their praises or pointing elsewhere changes those facts.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043350#Comment_122043350

Do you ever get fed up copying and pasting the same stuff about the one party state ( although there were elections) or the one party state here FFG? And it "going up in flames" etc.

What do you think of our one party state here as you call it , FFG, - at least we interned the IRA in the 40's, 50s and 60s. And when DeValera executed some IRA in prison in the 1940s there was no outcry. If / when your SF gets in it will end the one party state of FFG I suppose.

You have not answered the question: Are you blaming the British for allowing DeValera to execute the IRA in the 1940s?

Do you think he and the Irish state should not have?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043366#Comment_122043366

We did not gerrymander constituencies or deny people a vote in order to keep one party in power. Know your own history.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043405#Comment_122043405

Stop diverting. You have not answered the question: Are you blaming the British for allowing DeValera to execute the IRA in the 1940s?

Do you think he and the Irish state should not have?

Fionn1952

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043366#Comment_122043366

Do you ever get fed up copying and pasting the same stuff

Holy feck, I think my internet just exploded from irony overload.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043422#Comment_122043422

Open a thread on this. It has zero to do with the current conversation about how you allow equal commemoration in a society were terror was visited on the other community by both sides, the British and those who identify as British and the Irish.

What do you propose as legislation on these issues. You need to forget your personal offence because the other side is equal and equally offended.

IdrisRinatovLinfieldFC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043266#Comment_122043266

Never underestimate the Loyalist UDA and UVF, man. The British army had a real hard time containing the bloodshed between Loyalists and Nationalists. Remember what happened recently, when the British flag was removed from the Belfast City Council? Unionists didn't take it lightly at all.

Besides even if things are like you are suggesting, given a chance to vote at a unification referendum, I would vote no. NI has a lot more sovereignty within the UK than it would if it were to join ROI. They just shouldn't allow another Stormont crisis.

Fionn1952

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043663#Comment_122043663

They did the square root of **** all bar wrecking their own estates and a handful of people protesting at City Hall.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043663#Comment_122043663

What happened re the flag?

What happened re The Protocol?

Nothing. And both passed into law and operation. The most belligerent Unionist party caving in along the way.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122041961#Comment_122041961

This is bizarre. Utterly bizarre. The suggestion that 74 recruits from East Belfast were Irish speakers is unsurprising. Why the compulsion to construct unevidenced and entirely speculative explanations as to why it might be incorrect? Why bizarre claim that "74 out of 200,000 is a very insignificant amount", when 74 represents Irish speakers recruited from East Belfast, while 200,000 is the total who served from all parts of Ireland?

Belfast grew hugely over the nineteenth century. This was largely driven by inward migration from the surrounding region. The surrounding region contained signficant Irish-speaking communities - in Louth, in Antrim, and of course in Donegal. So, naturally, Irish-speakers were migrating into Belfast.

We know from the 1911 Census that there were more than 5,000 Irish speakers in Down and Antrim. Of these, about 1,200 lived in the Antrim Gaeltacht areas; of the rest, if they were distributed evenly throughout the population, about half would have lived in and around Belfast. But, in fact, because Belfast attracted migrants while Gaeltacht areas were declining in population, it's likely that more than half did. We also know, by comparing the 1911 and 1901 census returns, that the number of Irish speakers in Belfast has more than doubled over ten years, and that the median age cohort for Irish speakers was 18-30. Both of these things tend to confirm the migration hypothesis.

So, yeah, the suggestion that Irish speakers were common in Belfast, and were among those recruited into the British forces in 1914 is completely unsurprising. On the contrary, it would be surprising if this were not the case.

So why is Francis so unreasonably spooked by it?

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122045167#Comment_122045167

Not just Francis, the vitriol from the TUV was also bizarre. She was treated as if she was one of those soldiers and had deserted.

The DUP are totally insecure in their identity but the TUV are a class apart. The bastion of their Britishness cannot be breached from within. 😁

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043663#Comment_122043663

NI has zero sovereignty within the UK. That's kind of the whole point of the Act of Union.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122045272#Comment_122045272

To a lot of these posters, 'sovereignty' seems to mean Unionists getting their way or having their veto restored.

Does @downcow believe that is what a 'devolved NI' within a UI will be one wonders?

Peregrinus

I think there's no doubt that unionists would have vastly more influence at national level in a united Ireland than they have now at national level within the UK. This is a point which is constantly being made by, of all people, John Taylor.

If we assume that a devolved NI within a united Ireland would have similar GFA-type structures, mandatory coalition arrangements, requirements for cross-community consent, etc, it's entirely possible that unionists in an NI would find they could act more effectively at national level, where they would be unconstrained by such structures, than at devolved level.

IdrisRinatovLinfieldFC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122045272#Comment_122045272

And that's why laws that apply in NI, don't apply to England, Scotland and Wales.

There were laws that were changed during the crisis in the Stormont by Westminster taking advantage of this crisis. Had it not been for the crisis, NI would still keep its "I do it my way" attitude.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122045550#Comment_122045550

Westminster basically bypassed Unionist misuse of the Petition Of Concern mechanism which has become the new Unionist veto.

That's not sovereignty that's just arrogant supremacism and abuse of the systems.

Peregrinus

If NI were sovereign, it would still be in the EU (NI did, after all, vote to remain) and, of course, it would have laws that differ from the UK's laws.

Plus, of course, it would not be part of the UK. You can't be (a) a constituent part of the UK and (b) sovereign. It's a contradiction in terms.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122048096#Comment_122048096

Northern Ireland has limited sovereignty, but not zero sovereignty.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122048523#Comment_122048523

Unless you're using some non-standard, engineered-for-the-purpose definition of "sovereignty", Northern Ireland has zero sovereignty.

The sub-national units of sovereign states do not have sovereignty. If they had sovereignty, they'd be sovereign states themselves.

If the UK is sovereign (and, spoiler alert, it is) then its sub-national units are not sovereign. Sovereign power is supreme; it's not confered by or dependent on some greater authority above it. The various devolved administrations in the UK only have such powers as the UK grants them; those are, by definition, not sovereign powers.