How can we integrate Unionism into a possible United Ireland?

Oh dear, now that is cheap desperation stakes.

Travellers and Roma minorities are discriminated against across Europe including your own piece of the high moral ground.

So you present data about a different group who are not just discriminated against in Ireland but across Europe, and I am 'whatabouting'?

Some neck, I'll give you that.

I don't 'constantly' do any such thing Fred.

European research has found that a 'minority' that is also discriminated against across Europe is discriminated against here. The reasons for which are complex and not in any way similar to the situation Unionists would find themselves in, in a new UI.

Who is being 'disingenuous' here?

Perhaps have a read of the latest addition to the Slugger website, and you will see that discrimination is a thing EVERYWHERE. There is nothing unique about us.

Racism and a tale of two cities… – Slugger O'Toole (sluggerotoole.com)

Which bit of 'Perhaps have a read of the latest addition to the Slugger website, and you will see that discrimination is a thing EVERYWHERE.' did you have trouble understanding?

Have you assumed I was denying there is discrimination here as there is EVERYWHERE Fred, old chap?

There is discrimination here Fred. But there is also some where you come from too...any qualms about that? Want to move away?

Don't dig that hole any deeper.

Downcow, how do you feel about being put in the same category as travellers? Would you say that's a fair comparison?

Didn't the IRA already do that?

I didn’t notice anyone one putting me in the same category. Rather, if I recall correctly, someone pointed out that it may be of concern to protestants to note that the most discriminated group in Europe is a minority in roi. That’s very concerning and should be embarrassing to residents of roi, yet a few on here are simply saying ‘oh you discriminate as well, you just aren’t as good at it as the Irish’.

How many times have been schooled on this now DC? Four, maybe five times? Yet here you are again repeating utter bullshit.

Don’t worry about schooling me.

here is what I said

“Don’t think so. If there was an unequivocal apology by the IRA for murdering those from my community, then my local SF MP is off message as he is refusing to even admit the killing was wrong.”

why don’t you just point us to where the IRA made an “unequivocal apology for murdering those from my community”?

So I think i hear you saying that - ‘as long as we don’t use exactly the same method of discrimination as you, then we are innocent’ ?

Couple of thoughts:

1. I'm not sure that how Protestants were treated a hundred years ago in the Free State would be a terribly helpful indicator of how Protestants would be treated today in a united Ireland. I think how Protestants are in fact treated today in Ireland would be a much more meaningful indicator.
2. Obviously I haven't read the book. but the details that appear in the Newsletter article don't fill me with confidence. The claim is made that the Ne Temere decree was a "driving factor" in the decline of the Protestant population, because it helped ensure that the children of mixed marriages were brought up as Catholics. In fact the Ne Temere decree probably helped to sustain the Protestant population. Its main object was not to regulate how the children of mixed marriages would be reared, but to prevent mixed marriages from happening in the first place, and in this it was remarkably successful; in the period 1920-1970 Ireland had a strikingly low rate of Protestant/Catholic marriages. And this helped to sustain the Protestant community because the single biggest threat to the survival of minority communities is intermarriage. I don't know whether Bury explores all this in his book, but the Newsletter article certainly doesn't suggest that he does.

It's not remotely like that.

Think this through. It may be helpful to consider the experience of the Methodist community in the Republic, which has declined to near zero. Or the Presbyterians, ditto. This isn't because of intermarriage with Catholics, which virtually never happened; it's because of intermarriage with Anglicans.

Obviously, there was never any rule saying that the children of Anglican/Methodist or Anglican/Presbyterian marriages should be raised as Anglicans, but this is overwhelmingly what happened. Assuming a mutually respectful relationship between the two traditions and between the two spouses in the marriage, the couple will be equally open to raising their children in either tradition. But it practice it's easier/more convenient to raise them in the Anglican tradition — the Anglican church is likely to be nearer than the Presbyterian/Methodist church, simply because there are far more Anglican churches. Likewise Anglican schools. Anglican parishes tend to be larger in attendance/participation, because Methodist districts and Presbyterian congregations are geographically much larger, and therefore less socially connected. Etc, etc. So the overwhelming majority of children of Anglican/Methodist and Anglican/Presbyterian marriages ended up, as adults, identifying as Anglicans. It was also far more common for the Methodist/Presbyterian spouse to become an Anglican than vice versa. But very little of this happened as between the minority Protestant community and the majority Catholic community because intermarriage between those communities was vanishingly rare.

This isn't just an Irish thing - the impact of intermarriage on minority communities is a very well-recognised phenomenon worldwide. Minority communities which survive long-term tend to be those which don't practice intermarriage very much - e.g. Jews.

So, yeah, in so far as it discouraged intermarriage (which is very far) Ne Temere played a significant role in sustaining the Protestant demographic in the Republic. You might object to it for other good reasons, but not for this reason.