Why I'll say no to a united ireland

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170527#Comment_122170527

So, because people were trying to kill the police it was alright and 'professional' to shoot innocent people in the street and knowingly use lethal weapons against children even when you knew and had been told they could kill? And not only that, this honourable government wehitewashed and attempted to cover it all up and reward those involved or not prosecute any of them, bar 4.

That is what you are saying here.

Suckler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170540#Comment_122170540

Edit: Because some individuals are simpletons.

The British Army/RUC/UDR etc. etc. "They had no alternative……."

'Silence'

Michelle O'Neill - "At that time there was no alternative"

DC/ F MCM and their dishonest ilk - "Disgraceful comment…rabble rabble rabble"

Sound familiar?

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170540#Comment_122170540

There were many thousands of children ( people aged under 18 ) who threw petrol bombs and other lethal missiles at police during riots : how do you propose the police should have defended themselves? As suckler says, they had no alternative but to defend themselves, seeing as the IRA was ambushing them / attacking them almost every day sometimes. If people did not want to be hit by a plastic bullet they generally should not have been rioting, or been in a position where petrol bombers / rioters were using them as human shields. The vast majority of the population did not riot or throw petrol bombs, and kept well away from same wherever possible.

Did it every strike you to blame the people who designed and planted almost all of the 19,000 bombs during the troubles, or those who rioted / threw petrol bombs and other missiles etc? Instead you blame those who did not want to be the victims of such violence.

Suckler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170677#Comment_122170677

As suckler says, they had no alternative but to defend themselves, seeing as the IRA was ambushing them / attacking them

Your comprehension levels are again outstandingly lacking to say the least. But who is surprised.

Miniegg

If a UI Ireland happened, which as you say could lead to dissatisfied Unionists -imagine republicans citizens, in an attempt to finally get the "Brits out", went and burned Unionist families out of their homes, knowing the guards would turn a blind eye.

Imagine the Irish army get called onto the streets because of this lawlessness, but instead of calming things down by enforcing the rule of law, decide to go into a Unionist neighborhood and open fire on innocent men and women going about their day, killing indiscriminately.

Imagine if terrified Unionists protesting this travesty, were again fired upon by the Irish army, murdering a dozen more. Where would they turn?

Imagine the Irish government covered this up and refused to prosecute the soldiers, that the Irish Army promoted them, and put it out in the papers that the victims deserved it because they were Loyalist terrorists, which you knew not the be true.

Imagine the Irish government and army then colluded with the IRA and INLA to kill even more innocent Unionists, squeezing them from all sides? It would be a pretty grim future, right?

Well...maybe not to @Francis McM and @downcow

If a UI happens, and disaffected Unionists go out and join a terror group and riot and plant bombs (as you both constantly threaten), does that mean the Irish army can come in and do the above to your innocent Unionists friends and neighbors, and you lads will take it on the chin because "all other countries in the world do that", or "well, there were Loyalist terrorists around, what can else should we expect".

Would you be on here saying "well they killed us sure, but the Irish army were great peace keepers in Chad".

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170677#Comment_122170677

Did it every strike you to blame the people who designed and planted almost all of the 19,000 bombs 

Did those children plant any bombs?

What you are saying is that it is alright for a 'professional army' backed to the hilt by their superiors and government to open fire indiscriminately.

You have revealed yourself. If it's the British government/army = anything goes, you will defend it and try pathetically to dilute the magnitude of state sponsored violence.

I'm out of this conversation.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170706#Comment_122170706

Did those children plant any bombs, asks you, referring to the 19,000 bombs during the troubles? Who knows, the IRA were not very good at keeping records, were they? They could not even find the bodies of some of those it "disappeared"?

We do know that on thousands of occasions that children (people aged under 18) were inolved in throwing missiles, petrol bombs etc at the security forces. If not rubber / plastic bullets, how do you think police or security forces should have defended themselves against crowds of such people, some of whom wanted to kill / injure?

I bet you will not answer these questions either.

Suckler

Again the depths of depravity being permitted here to excuse and justify the actions of atrocities perpetrated by one side is sickeningly stupid.

Choochtown

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170696#Comment_122170696

I think you forgot about the hundreds of Unionists who would be violently arrested without any evidence of a crime and then locked away without a trial. Many of them being tortured (sorry "interrogated") with the full authorisation of the Irish government.

downcow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168160#Comment_122168160

they are not in your country

downcow

Plastic batton rounds were an absolute necessity. Your own police use them.
How would you propose protecting innocent people duty violent riots?

downcow

Riots in Britain never reached the intensity of riots in ni.

downcow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170696#Comment_122170696

it was all the fault of the big bad brits and our poor wee innocent Irish were petrified

Miniegg

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172064#Comment_122172064

Tbh, only terrified people I see are the hardcore Unionists types who hide behind hollow supremacism and sectarianism because they are terrified that what they did will come back at them. Don't worry - it won't, the world isn't as full of c*nts as you think it is.

If anything like that did happen in a UI, im sure you would agree it'd be a pathetic group of assholes that would try to defend it.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172064#Comment_122172064

And you never answered their question. Would it be remotely tenable to justify what he\she lays out by saying 'sure the British and other governments did it, why can't we?'

You snookered yourself here by revealing too much.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172045#Comment_122172045

I think not firing lethal weapons at them would be a start.

In another post you claim the Irish police also used rubber bullets, when was that? Even if it is true, it’s wrong and shouldn’t have happened. When “the Brits” did it they were wrong, when anyone else used them it was also wrong. See how easy a point that is.

I see you’re no longer arguing that the British army were on a mission of peace. I consider the point conceded if you aren’t going to argue it.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172472#Comment_122172472

The Irish security forces used more than just rubber bullets against their opponent / terrorists sometimes eg they shot Republican terrorist Dessie O'Hare, and killed the passenger in his car Martin Bryan,

https://westcorkpeople.ie/columnists/capturing-the-border-fox/

Of course the British army were there to help keep the peace. A few hundred thousand people served in the security forces in N. ireland: the vast majority never killed or injured anyone. No proof any of them designed, made or planted any of the 19,000 bombs. It was mostly the pIRA who done that.

Despite all this even the British did not take out the leaders of the terrorists, such was their abidance by rule of law.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173116#Comment_122173116

If they were there to 'keep the peace' why was the Unionist Veto not removed in '68/69? John Hume after the Anglo Irish Agreement:

The fundamental change that has taken place as a result of the Anglo-Irish Agreement is a change that is deeply and fully understood by every Unionist. It is that their exclusive hold on pawer has gone and it is not coming back. Their veto on British policy which they have always had, and which goes to the heart of our problem here.- has gone and is not coming back.
Their loss is uncomfortable for their leaders, for while they held that privileged position, they never had to be Politicians or exercise the art of politics. which is the art of representing one's own view while accommodating others with fairness.
2
For traditional Unionism in Northern Ireland, other points of view have never actually existed. To this day, as they trumpet
about the proposals that they have placed before the British Government about the future of Northern Ireland-the future of us all-the insult doesn't seem to have occurred to them.

Not only have they not presented these proposals to those of us who represent other views-views which must be
accommodated if we are to have a future they haven't even published them for the information of their own followers.

They are still oligarchs. The faithful will line up when the drums beat. The other points of view, to which Up service is publicly paid, don't really count.

Note the bit in bold and what Hume thought was the problem.

Anyone who watched Nolan on BBC last night would have heard Paul Givan of the DUP hankering for those days of Unionist supremacy. They would have heard him bang the Orange drum tribally. It was actually pointed out to him by Nolan and others that his concern was not for Health and people but to play the Orange V Green card, again.

Anyone watching the DUP would see them STILL doing deals for NI in secret with the compliance of the British.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173436#Comment_122173436

Hume was of the opinion "a solution to the age-old problem could only be found with agreement from the Protestants". During the troubles he argued "their numbers gave them a veto and they could not be forced into any new arrangement against their will." That is one of the reasons he was so against the sectarian pIRA campaign, and he troed to get them to stop a number of times.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40026341.html

Irish History

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972703#Comment_121972703

Who told you taxes will be higher?

The south has been running a surplus of billions for years, and Ireland north and south will be better off reunified according to the Irish Government.

Irish History

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121990223#Comment_121990223

There is no nationality such as "northern" Irish - one is either Irish or a foreigner in Ireland.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173566#Comment_122173566

The concept of nationhood being routed in geography is an old idea of the nineteenth century. It is more than outdated nowadays.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173529#Comment_122173529

So you just sidestepped the issue to talk about something else.

As somebody else said to downcow when he deflected - that signifies the point made is conceded as you have now done, i.e. conceded on the point he made.

Their veto on British policy which they have always had, and which goes to the heart of our problem here.- has gone and is not coming back

Why, if the British were here to 'keep the peace' did they not tackle the 'core problem' in 68/69 or before that?
They tried to shore up the Unionists for a few decades of chaos and mayhem then conceded the point themselves in the Anglo Irish Agreement and ended the Unionist Veto.

Irish History

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121991284#Comment_121991284

Nonsense - where in the Irish constitution does it refer to counties Derry, Down, Armagh, Antrim, Fermanagh and Tyrone as a foreign country? No part of Ireland is foreign to itself - it is you foreign ethnic British Unionists (census) who are foreign to Ireland. Ireland is the country you foreign ethnic British Unionists as a people are planted in on stolen Irish land.

As for owc (our wee country) - it seems to be lost on you that you foreign ethnic British Unionists are a minority in 30 of Ireland's 32 counties, therefore a majority in just 2 of the occupied 6 counties of Ireland, and a majority in just 2 in Ulster's 9 counties. You foreign ethnic British Unionists do not speak for so-called northern" Ireland - you do not speak for Ulster - you do not speak for any part of Ireland.

And who told you so-called northern Ireland is a country? Even the land-grabbing brits do not call the occupied 6 counties of Ireland a "country". The UK's submission to the 2007 United Nations Conference on the Standardisation of Geographical Names defines the UK as being made up of two countries (England and Scotland), one principality (Wales) and one 6 county region (Northern Ireland) - which is in 9 county Ulster, which is obviously in Ireland.

Not long ago in Britain, Joanna Cherry MP said - "I am delighted to hear that the Home Secretary accepts that the need for regional variation in Northern Ireland is mirrored by a similar need in Scotland, although I would underline that Scotland is a nation, not a region." https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-12-03/debates/590C6F0F-F478-4D57-B016-15AB4939BB41/ImmigrationSystem#contribution-F211119A-0A9B-49C1-B5BD-F9CA533CE2AE:~:text=I%20am%20delighted%20to%20hear%20that%20the%20Home%20Secretary%20accepts%20that%20the%20need%20for%20regional%20variation%20in%20Northern%20Ireland%20is%20mirrored%20by%20a%20similar%20need%20in%20Scotland%2C%20although%20I%20would%20underline%20that%20Scotland%20is%20a%20nation

Dav010

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173547#Comment_122173547

You think an Irish Government would say otherwise?

Why do I think taxes would need to be raised in the South? Because after the UK are finished celebrating handing the 6 counties back, they are not likely to be too enthusiastic about continuing to pay the billions currently required to run a country where two thirds of all employees are public servants. That of course leaves us to foot the bill. Though there may be a surplus, we still owe billions, and would need billions more on top of what we have to replace UK subsidies to run NI.

Irish History

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173660#Comment_122173660

Again - who told you we would have to pay taxes to reunify our country - the Irish Gov say we do not.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173748#Comment_122173748

Do you have a link to that Government statement?

The Government owned and funded research agency - ESRI - says that we will have to pay more taxes.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173660#Comment_122173660

You are correct and I agree. The cost of N.I. would be €400 billion, according to a study recently by Fitzgerald etc. That is €400,000,000,000.00

So that rules that out, even if most of the people in N.I. wanted it, which of course they do not. And a lot would be very opposed to it, to put it mildly.

Do not forget as it is Ireland's national debt remains one of the highest in the world at €42,000 per capita, the Department of Finance's report on public debt shows. Only Japan, Belgium and Italy have higher levels of borrowings per person in the whole world. I do not know why anyone would want to add to the over €200 billion Ireland currently owes, just for the trouble of a U.I., which would make Brexit look like a walk in the park by comparison.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173752#Comment_122173752

Seems that who runs the ESRI dictates the tone of it's reports. When Fitzgerald was there, his anti-UI stance influenced research. Now he isn't there anymore the ESRI tone changes.

However, Mr McGuinness at the ESRI said the authors have presented “a static” analysis on the size of the Northern subvention that is unrealistic in terms of the way unity would unfold.

“This mini-industry of estimating subvention, which seems to assume it is a constant that will apply immediately following a border poll, really makes no sense in terms of the reality of how a transition around constitutional change has to happen and has to be managed and planned for,” Mr McGuinness said.

He said the IIEA analysis ignores “fundamental facts” that subvention exists because the Northern economy has very low productivity, but that “low productivity is not set in stone and can be changed with proper policy and investment”. 

Mr McGuinness said economists have long recognised that low productivity in the North had been getting worse over time. But policies and investments would seek to reverse the decline in the North’s productivity and reduce the subvention, he said.

Francis McM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173791#Comment_122173791

His job was to look at the finances of it, and to leave emotion out of it. You claim he is "anti-UI" and your implication is that he was unprofessional. I think that is very unfair against a professional doing his job. He is not a politician.

I think he took a not unfair look at the figures. If anything, his estimate on the cost of a U.I. is on the low side, for the following reasons among others:

(a) As he said himself, his figures were based on data some years old, and the cost almost certainly has increased with inflation and everything else.

(b) Also, I do not think he is quantifying the economic cost of a new terrorism or tit for tat campaign of violence, if there were 800,000 disgruntled people who did not want to be part of the state. We know the economic cost of the IRA campaign was astronomical - not just in the physical damage the 19,000 bombs caused but also damage to the economy through lost tourism, increased security, loss of investment through foreign industrialists being kidnapped and murdered etc.

(C) It is a while since I read his report, but I'm not sure he is accepting fully the cost of the national debt of the UK being split up if N.Ireland or Scotland or England or Wales left. It would be unfair to leave ALL of the debt on the other 2 or 3 if 1 or 2 left. Scotland was told it would take with it its share of UK national debt if it became independent.