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Northern Ireland- a failure 99 years on?

[Deleted User]

Is there another way of looking at it?
It’s still very, very divided, and actually seems to be getting more polarized over the last five years. It’s economy is woeful, very heavily dependent on the public sector.
Unionists are making plans to celebrate its centenary, but there seems to be very little to be happy with, certainly far less than the Republic or the rest of the UK.
No point in arguing about a border poll on this thread, but is there any possible way of looking at NI as a social, political and economic failure?

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BonnieSituation

blanch152 wrote: »

I can't believe we have somebody defending the Ireland of the 1930s as a good thing. De Valera was an absolute disaster for the country. Like all exclusionary nationalists he did more damage to his own people than to anyone else.

I hate when I agree with you on non-Dublin GAA or anti-FF matters.

blanch152

FrancieBrady wrote: »

When you see what resulted from it, it was a social disaster for those affected but the results paved the way for what we have now. Double edged sword really.
If the FG party had it's way we'd be still paying Land Annuities and having our ports used by the British War machine like we have allowed the US use Shannon and we would have, without doubt, had to leave the EU with them as we would be still umbilically attached.

I can't believe we have somebody defending the Ireland of the 1930s as a good thing. De Valera was an absolute disaster for the country. Like all exclusionary nationalists he did more damage to his own people than to anyone else.

FrancieBrady

Fritzbox wrote: »

Do you think mothers and babies had a better time in the 1850s? Have you seen the emigration figures for the 1850s (or choose any other decade afterwards)?

There was still a lot back then that hankered for a return to the days of Empire control, not so many left now but they're still about.
Colonisation can lead to generational inferiority complexes.

Fritzbox

blanch152 wrote: »

1950s Ireland somewhat of a mess? Just look at the Mother and Baby Home's report if you think that just somewhat of a mess. Just look at the emigration statistics if you think that was just somewhat of a mess.

The current government must be a huge success if the government of DeValera only created somewhat of a mess.

Do you think mothers and babies had a better time in the 1850s? Have you seen the emigration figures for the 1850s (or choose any other decade afterwards)?

FrancieBrady

blanch152 wrote: »

That was a complete and utter disaster. The Economic War is in a toss-up with the FF Bank Guarantee of 2008 for the worst economic decision ever made in this country.

When you see what resulted from it, it was a social disaster for those affected but the results paved the way for what we have now. Double edged sword really.
If the FG party had it's way we'd be still paying Land Annuities and having our ports used by the British War machine like we have allowed the US use Shannon and we would have, without doubt, had to leave the EU with them as we would be still umbilically attached.

blanch152

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Somewhat of a mess of the Economic War blanch

That was a complete and utter disaster. The Economic War is in a toss-up with the FF Bank Guarantee of 2008 for the worst economic decision ever made in this country.

FrancieBrady

blanch152 wrote: »

1950s Ireland somewhat of a mess? Just look at the Mother and Baby Home's report if you think that just somewhat of a mess. Just look at the emigration statistics if you think that was just somewhat of a mess.

The current government must be a huge success if the government of DeValera only created somewhat of a mess.

Somewhat of a mess of the Economic War blanch

blanch152

FrancieBrady wrote: »

There is difference between full or partial sovereignty and 'doffing the hat' at the expense of your farmers and citizenry. Cosgrave's fearful deference has echo's right down the line to the John Bruton 's and Neale Richmond's as we know.

DeValera and Lemass may have created somewhat of a mess, but the British backed off eventually as their business was hurting too, enough for them to pressure for a resolution. We made a one off payment and ended Land Annuities, got back the Treaty Ports(which ensured we could be neutral in the war incidentally) and were still able to impose tariffs on British goods in order to develop Irish business and industry. The British lifted all tariffs and restrictions on Irish imports to Britain. We then got on with building the country we now have with probably one of our best Taoiseach's emerging in terms of developing the economy.

1950s Ireland somewhat of a mess? Just look at the Mother and Baby Home's report if you think that just somewhat of a mess. Just look at the emigration statistics if you think that was just somewhat of a mess.

The current government must be a huge success if the government of DeValera only created somewhat of a mess.

FrancieBrady

blanch152 wrote: »

Sovereignty is overrated. The UK is learning that slowly as a result of Brexit.

We don't have a fully sovereign country, we have correctly shared our sovereignty with many other countries in Europe for a higher objective and greater prosperity and wellbeing for our citizens.

There is difference between full or partial sovereignty and 'doffing the hat' at the expense of your farmers and citizenry. Cosgrave's fearful deference has echo's right down the line to the John Bruton 's and Neale Richmond's as we know.

DeValera and Lemass may have created somewhat of a mess, but the British backed off eventually as their business was hurting too, enough for them to pressure for a resolution. We made a one off payment and ended Land Annuities, got back the Treaty Ports(which ensured we could be neutral in the war incidentally) and were still able to impose tariffs on British goods in order to develop Irish business and industry. The British lifted all tariffs and restrictions on Irish imports to Britain. We then got on with building the country we now have with probably one of our best Taoiseach's emerging in terms of developing the economy.

blanch152

FrancieBrady wrote: »

DeValera, Lemass etc didn't have much choice if they wanted to develop the modern fully sovereign country we now have. It was indeed a ****show but hard to see any other way out.
It's interesting that the opposition (Cosgrave) where in favour and actually were doffing the hat on Land Annuities to the British.

FG, who have never fully lost that deferential quality. The Coveney wing seem to be stronger in that regard which is perhaps why the party backroom boys and girls didn't want him as leader?

Sovereignty is overrated. The UK is learning that slowly as a result of Brexit.

We don't have a fully sovereign country, we have correctly shared our sovereignty with many other countries in Europe for a higher objective and greater prosperity and wellbeing for our citizens.

FrancieBrady

blanch152 wrote: »

To be fair, that was before Fianna Fail came to power, turned the country into an economic wasteland during the 1930s and sent half the population abroad.

DeValera, Lemass etc didn't have much choice if they wanted to develop the modern fully sovereign country we now have. It was indeed a ****show but hard to see any other way out.
It's interesting that the opposition (Cosgrave) where in favour and actually were doffing the hat on Land Annuities to the British.

FG, who have never fully lost that deferential quality. The Coveney wing seem to be stronger in that regard which is perhaps why the party backroom boys and girls didn't want him as leader?

grayzer75

blanch152 wrote: »

To be fair, that was before Fianna Fail came to power, turned the country into an economic wasteland during the 1930s and sent half the population abroad.

Some things never change, they did the same just over a decade ago.

blanch152

Sunny Disposition wrote: »

Sometimes I think it's hard for people in the North to accept that the South isn't dominated by a religious divide. Protestants have been accepted fine down here, largely because of apathy, not because of generosity or anything like that. It's the same in England tbh, very, very few people cared what you were when I went over decades ago and it's always been the same since. Northerners grow up with a religious divide, and sometimes sort of want to superimpose that on their perceptions of other places.

That analysis shows how far the two countries and cultures have diverged.

blanch152

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Far from being 'decimated' Protestants retained their position of privilege in the South

In 1926 Protestants in the Irish Free State accounted for 7.5% of total male employment, but 36% of civil engineers, 37.9% of solicitors, and 45.8% of chartered accountants.

twitter.com/jlpobrien

So the next time you revert to your persecution narrative you might remember that it is complete bullshit.

To be fair, that was before Fianna Fail came to power, turned the country into an economic wasteland during the 1930s and sent half the population abroad.

[Deleted User]

Sometimes I think it's hard for people in the North to accept that the South isn't dominated by a religious divide. Protestants have been accepted fine down here, largely because of apathy, not because of generosity or anything like that. It's the same in England tbh, very, very few people cared what you were when I went over decades ago and it's always been the same since. Northerners grow up with a religious divide, and sometimes sort of want to superimpose that on their perceptions of other places.

jm08

downcow wrote: »

This is nonsense as evidence. We all know there was an Anglican elite around Dublin and the likes, who were supportive of the state and their privileged position within it.
Protestants included a number of large landowners and they held a disproportionate number of high-status jobs. The affluence and social status of some Protestants left them fairly unaffected or less affected by the discrimination in employment, education and housing.

Article 44 of the 1937 Irish Constitution was discriminatory against Protestants – declaring that ‘the State recognizes the special position of the Roman Catholic Church as the guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens’.

Read this and stop denying the undeniable
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newsletter.co.uk/news/how-protestants-were-all-ethnically-cleansed-south-1140005%3famp

Well, since the Anglican/Protestant elite nearly owned everything and were large employers - for example, Guinness, Gouldings, Player Wills, Jacobs - they were disciminating against protestants. But of course that isn't true - because for example Guinness, it was the 60s before they started employing catholics in anything other than very menial jobs. Guinness (through the Iveagh Trust) also provided housing and health care for the people of Dublin (are you claiming now that protestants were discriminated against here).

You bang on about the Irish Constitution being discriminatory. Why not take a look at your own Head of State being head of the Anglican Church and can't marry a catholic (they can marry a muslim though), not to mention Tony Blair having to wait to become a catholic until after he was out of office and then to keep very quite about it.

FrancieBrady

downcow wrote: »

This is nonsense as evidence. We all know there was an Anglican elite around Dublin and the likes, who were supportive of the state and their privileged position within it.
Protestants included a number of large landowners and they held a disproportionate number of high-status jobs. The affluence and social status of some Protestants left them fairly unaffected or less affected by the discrimination in employment, education and housing.

Article 44 of the 1937 Irish Constitution was discriminatory against Protestants – declaring that ‘the State recognizes the special position of the Roman Catholic Church as the guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens’.

Read this and stop denying the undeniable
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newsletter.co.uk/news/how-protestants-were-all-ethnically-cleansed-south-1140005%3famp

This has all been discussed with you before and you were presented with the same data and the same writings on the subject and here you are back posting the same stuff again.

Junkyard Tom

downcow wrote: »

We all know there was an Anglican elite around Dublin and the likes, who were supportive of the state and their privileged position within it. Protestants included a number of large landowners and they held a disproportionate number of high-status jobs. The affluence and social status of some Protestants left them fairly unaffected or less affected by the discrimination in employment, education and housing.

Ehh so you're agreeing with the facts then? That there most certainly was not extreme discrimination against Protestants because if there had been these Protestants would not be overrepresented in the professions several years after the War Of Independence.

Protestants retained control of the commanding heights of the southern Irish economy, in banking, insurance, manufacturing, retail and the building trade. This is largely because no one thought too much about taking it from them. Had that happened the author would have had more to complain about. Despite what the author intimates, there were never more than ineffectual efforts at questioning this sectarian system of ownership, control and discrimination, which lasted into the 1960s.

historyireland.com

The historian RB McDowell declared in 1997 that, in relation to the 1919-23 period, “hardships sustained by the southern loyalists were on the whole not excessively severe nor long-lasting”.

This persecution complex you have is really founded on nothing.

Fionn1952

downcow wrote: »

This is nonsense as evidence. We all know there was an Anglican elite around Dublin and the likes, who were supportive of the state and their privileged position within it.
Protestants included a number of large landowners and they held a disproportionate number of high-status jobs. The affluence and social status of some Protestants left them fairly unaffected or less affected by the discrimination in employment, education and housing.

Article 44 of the 1937 Irish Constitution was discriminatory against Protestants – declaring that ‘the State recognizes the special position of the Roman Catholic Church as the guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens’.

Read this and stop denying the undeniable
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newsletter.co.uk/news/how-protestants-were-all-ethnically-cleansed-south-1140005%3famp

How seriously would you take a book review published in An Phoblacht Downcow? Your source is about as unbiased and credible.

As an aside, the review mentions previous works which have a differing conclusion based on different sources, so it certainly isn't a case of denying the undeniable, it is a disputed narrative as per your own link.

The product of a Masters thesis also doesn't imply the most in depth of research. For example, David Fitzpatrick who it sets out to rebute carried out his research as a PhD student and continued it into postdoctoral work, a much higher level of academic scrutiny. His PhD research was described as, 'a model of objectivity'.

That being said, I've read plenty on Brian Kenneway, and while I don't know much about his academic credentials, he certainly did plenty to try and reform the nastier end of the Orange Order, so I'm not writing as a sleight on the man, and I haven't read the book in question so I couldn't argue against any specific points made (as I don't know what they are).

My point is purely that to say any deviation from your, 'Protestants were mercilessly ethnically cleansed from the Irish State' is not a case of denying the undeniable, it is by literally an academically disputed narrative, particularly when your own post acknowledges a large proportion of the Protestant community were in privileged positions and isolated from any issues.

A discussion on the treatment of working class Protestants would certainly have some salient points, but it would have to include a degree of acknowledgement that a significant portion of the decline of the Irish Protestant population was based on their own desire to move to avoid any sort of, 'Rome Rule' rather than acts of sectarianism carried out against them. As usual, the truth will be somewhere in the middle of the two narratives.

A quick Google and the first result I found was the following; https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/buried-lives-review-are-the-protestants-of-southern-ireland-really-under-siege-1.2981232%3fmode=amp

Perhaps not as undeniable as you'd imply. As per the article linked above, 'Rendering to God and Caesar, which almost entirely contradicts Bury’s thesis, does not feature in the bibliography.'

downcow

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Far from being 'decimated' Protestants retained their position of privilege in the South

In 1926 Protestants in the Irish Free State accounted for 7.5% of total male employment, but 36% of civil engineers, 37.9% of solicitors, and 45.8% of chartered accountants.

twitter.com/jlpobrien

So the next time you revert to your persecution narrative you might remember that it is complete bullshit.

This is nonsense as evidence. We all know there was an Anglican elite around Dublin and the likes, who were supportive of the state and their privileged position within it.
Protestants included a number of large landowners and they held a disproportionate number of high-status jobs. The affluence and social status of some Protestants left them fairly unaffected or less affected by the discrimination in employment, education and housing.

Article 44 of the 1937 Irish Constitution was discriminatory against Protestants – declaring that ‘the State recognizes the special position of the Roman Catholic Church as the guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens’.

Read this and stop denying the undeniable
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newsletter.co.uk/news/how-protestants-were-all-ethnically-cleansed-south-1140005%3famp

Junkyard Tom

downcow wrote: »

my community in the south were decimated

Far from being 'decimated' Protestants retained their position of privilege in the South

In 1926 Protestants in the Irish Free State accounted for 7.5% of total male employment, but 36% of civil engineers, 37.9% of solicitors, and 45.8% of chartered accountants.

twitter.com/jlpobrien

So the next time you revert to your persecution narrative you might remember that it is complete bullshit.

FrancieBrady

Lucy8080 wrote: »

Do you mean "make them an offer that you know they will refuse?" Real politik!

Is your statement:

They also played it cool on Brexit (almost like they let Unionist walk into a trap set by Conservatives), and once that trap was strung they engaged in the Brexit debate about the border.

right or wrong, in light of what was presented to you?

Lucy8080

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Your inability to accept your statement was wrong is evident.
Arlene woyld have rejected anything from the south...still is, on more than Brexit sadly.

Do you mean "make them an offer that you know they will refuse?" Real politik!

FrancieBrady

Lucy8080 wrote: »

Is that Kenny's vision that Arlene would have no truck with? As mentioned above?

Your inability to accept your statement was wrong is evident.
Arlene woyld have rejected anything from the south...still is, on more than Brexit sadly.

Lucy8080

FrancieBrady wrote: »

And the Irish government would have gotten played had Kenny stayed on his 'no special status' course.

Thankfully, the government were convinced otherwise.

Who gets the credit for that is moot now. But I think it has been amply demonstrated that SF and the SDLP were far from silent or 'cool' on what was needed, even if you didn't or didn't want to hear them. This statement is false therefore:

Is that Kenny's vision that Arlene would have no truck with? As mentioned above?

Lucy8080

jm08 wrote: »

We know it was a disadvantage for the UK. But it was also a headache for the EU and not as you claimed an asset:

If your opposite number is at a dis-advantage (as you acknowledge) their dis-advantage is an asset for you to have leverage in negotiations. Don't you think?

jm08

Lucy8080 wrote: »

It was a disadvantage for London trying to negotiate a U.K. wide Brexit. There is an economic border in the Irish sea.

Even Loyalists are criticising the D.U.P., and whilst complaining about their "lot" post Brexit, they certainly cannot blame Dublin , jeez they can't even blame the N.I. electorate.

We know it was a disadvantage for the UK. But it was also a headache for the EU and not as you claimed an asset:

If there were no S.F. (T.D.s ) at the time, the G.F.A. would still have been a problem (for Britain) and an asset (for Europe) in the negotiations.

Lucy8080

jm08 wrote: »

It didn't matter who was in Government, NI was a problem for UK and EU. Can you not see how much easier negotiations would have been if there was no border on the island of Ireland?

edit: my point is that having a border on the island of Ireland was not an advantage in negotiations for the EU with the UK.

It was a disadvantage for London trying to negotiate a U.K. wide Brexit. There is an economic border in the Irish sea.

Even Loyalists are criticising the D.U.P., and whilst complaining about their "lot" post Brexit, they certainly cannot blame Dublin , jeez they can't even blame the N.I. electorate.

FrancieBrady

Lucy8080 wrote: »

Do you see the contradiction in the above?

Arlene says get lost / the Tories say" if only we had Kenny!" These two were in Government together. N.I. is an afterthought , and the D.U.P. got played.

And the Irish government would have gotten played had Kenny stayed on his 'no special status' course.

Thankfully, the government were convinced otherwise.

Who gets the credit for that is moot now. But I think it has been amply demonstrated that SF and the SDLP were far from silent or 'cool' on what was needed, even if you didn't or didn't want to hear them. This statement is false therefore:

Lucy8080 wrote:

They also played it cool on Brexit (almost like they let Unionist walk into a trap set by Conservatives), and once that trap was strung they engaged in the Brexit debate about the border.

jm08

Lucy8080 wrote: »

Do you see the contradiction in the above?

Arlene says get lost / the Tories say" if only we had Kenny!" These two were in Government together. N.I. is an afterthought , and the D.U.P. got played.

It didn't matter who was in Government, NI was a problem for UK and EU. Can you not see how much easier negotiations would have been if there was no border on the island of Ireland?

edit: my point is that having a border on the island of Ireland was not an advantage in negotiations for the EU with the UK.