How can we integrate Unionism into a possible United Ireland?

Kaiden Happy Mouthpiece asked was there an apology for killing of Protestants not unionists. I believe the Provos issues an apology to those killed who were not in the security forces. Also, you have been told before that the demographic least likely to be killed during the conflict was Protestant civilians but I guess you'll ignore that.. again.

As for unionists, do you believe that if a BA/RUC/UDR man was killed in a gunbattle with the IRA that the unionist community should receive an apology for it?

I have never unequivocally called for an independent Northern Ireland, I have offered it as one potential solution, particularly where it was under specific oversight from the EU with regard to human rights.

As for the federal solution, that is a completely different proposition. It has certainly flushed out the recalcitrant exclusionary nationalists on here who refuse to consider any compromise.

You are missing the point. Tom says the ira HAVE apologised for killing protestants. He has now qualified that to be protestants that we’re not in the security forces. I am calling his nonsense out and asking for the link.

Apologies I misunderstood as you quoted my post which didn’t contain such a request.

I'm not avoiding anything. https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/ira160702.htm There's the link to the IRA apology - take from it what you will.

Like the stats and scholarly writing around Peregrinus's post, the apology from the IRA for killing civilians was posted here before. You just ignore proof and links, disappear for a while and keep on with the myths when you get back.

Oh, for crying out loud.

Your first mistake is to assume that, because NI was characterised by its leadership as "a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people", the Free State was the mirror image, a Catholic country for a Catholic people. It was not, in that way.

Your second mistake is to dispense with tiresome realities such as research, facts, evidence and rely instead on what "the dogs in the street" know. The dogs in your street may "know" this, but only because they are operating out of the same combination of prejudiced assumptions about a Catholic country for a Catholic people and selective anecdotal evidence about what they recall their fathers saying that you are. The actual facts on the economic situation of Protestants and Catholics in the Free State are as I have stated.

I don't wish to malign your revered father, so I think it's probably the case that your recollection of what he told you is not correct. It is absolutely not the case that a knowledge of Irish was required for joining the guards in 1922/23; it would have been a very small force indeed if such a requirement had been imposed. Ditto the civil service. What is true is that ex-RIC men were treated with a degree of reserve in the guards. Not because they regarded themselves as British rather than Irish - they largely did not. Irish protestants and/or unionists identifying themselves as British and not Irish is a relatively modern phenomenon. And not because they were Protestants - the lower ranks of the force were largely Catholic, although the senior ranks were in practice reserved largely for Protestants. The reason was that, because of the role it played in the War of Independence, the RIC was seen as having been an active part of the Crown forces, and the loyalty of its members to Ireland was suspect. That didn't mean that RIC members couldn't join - they could, and quite a few did - but it did mean it wasn't always an easy relationship. And, in so far as the perception of the attitudes of RIC members had any truth, it might explain why many didn't apply to join. Did your father actually apply to join the Guards? Or did he assume that he would not be accepted? Or did he, in fact, not wish to join?

(The same view was not taken of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, an unarmed force that had largely stood on the sidelines in the War of Independence - they were integrated wholesale into the guards, Catholic and Protestant alike, unless they chose to retire, which relatively few did.)

As for Ne Temere "not working mathematically", go back and reread what I wrote earlier. The issue is not whether there was "equal pressure" to bring up children in each parent's denomination; it is that, if parents are equally open to bringing them up in either denomination, for reasons of practicality and convenience they mostly end up bringing them up in the larger denomination.

I will take it apart line by line if you wish, but to suggest that this is an apology for their campaign against the unionist community is utter nonsense.

eg their opening statement “…it was never our intention to kill or injure non combatants” - they couldnt really say anything more insulting, less true or more disingenuous. Need I start a list?

so are we accepting that no such unequivocal ira apology exists and maybe we don’t have to rehearse this myth every few months?

To help you work through your sectarian blindness that leads you to believe that that link constitutes an unequivocal apology, here’s something you can do.

reread it and assume it is an apology from the BA to their victims. I’ll help you get started.

“30th January 1972 marks the anniversary of an army operation in Londonderry which resulted in people being killed and many more injured. 

While it was not our intention to injure or kill non-combatants, the reality is that on this and on a number of other occasions, that was the consequence of our actions.

etc, etc, etc”

I can see that being accepted by the catholic community as a wholesome apology and true remorse - or else not!

I don’t need to reply to your comment on ‘catholic country, fionn has done so adequately (not the words I would have used, but all the same, adequate)