Northern Ireland 2125?

the irony of your Strap Line, given your post

absolutely. Here is 10 to get us going, but I am struggling to think of any countries who were not formed or borders shaped by colonialism?

1. United States
2. Canada
3. Brazil
4. India
5. Pakistan
6. Nigeria
7. South Africa
8. Indonesia
9. Australia
10. Mexico

it is amazing how quickly this descends into republicans telling us we are ‘most backward imbeciles in Europe’, planters, colonisers, really Irish, we should go home, etc, etc. and avoid dealing with the original question.
I get it that you are hurting that ni still exists. In 1921 it was meant to disappear in 5 years. We’ve had endless predictions about our disappearance ever since. Gerry said we’d be away by 2016. It’s starting to sound a bit like those fundamentalist Christian’s telling us the date of the second coming.
my goodness you even have the regions majority now and you can’t nudge up the figures. It keeps slipping from your figures. Those pesky moderate catholics who have become unionist and those pesky nationalists that support the ni football team and those pesky shinners who are now saying Northern Ireland should continue.
I understand it’s depressing for you, but no need for the insults

I personally don’t support the Ireland rugby team, although I have some grammar school Protestant friends who do support them.
I have sat down at times intending to try and support them but by the time we reach the kickoff, and I have watched flags used and listened to anthem, I have swung my allegiance.

absolutely, there will be family sitting in my house supporting the Ireland rugby team, while I am there mildly supporting the opposition.
Complicated it certainly is.

Just on that point I worked hard for many years to try to get the national anthem dropped from Northern Ireland football matches. I have given up - the majority of the Northern Ireland supporters do not want it but unfortunately the grey suits of the Ifa have zero courage and giveaway to the extremists on both sides from outside football.

I would be interested in your opinion of whether anything could be done that would enable you to feel that this was your team and you wanted to support it.

and tbh my interest was in supporting the large number of catholics who play for the team and the increasing number of moderate Catholics who support the team - I think it may be understandably a step too far for people like you?
and I completely support the right of people to support whatever team they wish - that seems a very basic right to me

I will be heading home once I finish my lunch

Here it is in full
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗮𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗢𝗰𝗰𝘂𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱
𝙄𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘽𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙂𝙖𝙚𝙡𝙨: 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙄𝙣𝙫𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙤𝙤𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙐𝙡𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧’𝙨 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙄𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙩𝙮

Long before the myth of Ireland as an eternal Gaelic land took root, the island was home to distinct and ancient peoples, notably the Cruthin and the Ulaid. These were the true indigenous inhabitants of the northern part of the island, with strong cultural and kinship ties to parts of what we now call western Scotland and northern Britain. Their language, identity, and traditions predated the Gaelic era entirely.

That all changed with the arrival of the Gaels, a wave of Iron Age settlers from the Northern Galacian region of the Iberian Peninsula, which in today's terms is Northern Spain and Portugal and later from what became Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Far from being a peaceful cultural exchange, their arrival marked a brutal and sustained conquest. These were not enlightened settlers or cultural missionaries. They were tribal warriors, expanding violently and forcibly assimilating or expelling native peoples as they pushed across the island.

In Ulster, the Cruthin and Ulaid were among the first to feel the weight of this Gaelic incursion. Pushed from their lands, many were forced to flee eastward, across the narrow sea to what is now western Scotland and northern England. These displaced peoples didn’t disappear. In time, many of their descendants would return to Ireland, ironically, as part of the Ulster Plantation, not as conquerors but as settlers reconnecting with the land of their ancestors.

Yet today, a convenient myth has taken root in much of Irish nationalist and republican thinking, the idea that Gaels are the original, native Irish, and that all others are “foreigners” or “planters.” It is an idea rooted more in political convenience than historical fact. The Gaels themselves were invaders. They imposed their language, customs, and political structures on a land that already had its own rich culture and indigenous people. If colonisation is defined by the displacement of native peoples and the imposition of a dominant culture, then Gaelic expansion in Ireland fits that bill to a tee.

An Ancient Connection: Ulster and Britain

What the romantic Gaelic nationalist version of history fails to grasp is the depth of the connection between Ulster and the wider British Isles, going back long before the modern United Kingdom came into being. The Irish Sea was never a barrier. It was a bridge.

The early peoples of Ulster, like the Cruthin and Ulaid, had kinship and cultural links with the people of western Scotland, northern England, and beyond. These connections were not forged in colonial boardrooms or modern treaties, but in shared ancestry, migration, trade, and alliance, long before the Gaels ever set foot on the island.

Over time, that connection has only deepened. Whether through the Plantation of Ulster, the development of industrial cities like Belfast, or the shared sacrifice in wars under the British Crown, Ulster’s place in the British family of nations has been long-standing, organic, and hard-earned.

It is not a product of conquest but of continuity, the reclaiming of ties that were never truly broken, despite centuries of displacement, war, and political revisionism.

The Real Revisionists

Today, those who shout loudest about colonisation often overlook the fact that Ireland was colonised long before any English soldier ever set foot here, not by foreign empires but by Gaels who displaced older populations. The first invaders were not the Normans, or the English, or the Scots. The first invaders were the Gaels.

The term Gael itself translated from the Roman name of Gall or Gaul means foreign invader.