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Northern Ireland 2125?

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,791 ✭✭✭Francis McM


    In that referendum in 1973 there was one vote per person. Did not matter if they owned property or not, what religion, what sex, what political beliefs if any.

    Same as any referendum in N.I. (or here in the Republic) now. So why dismiss the results from 1973? Is it because you think votes from the PUL community are not worth as much as from the CNR community?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Maybe to move this along:

    Let's say a hypothetical UI arrives.

    What is it Unionists (@downcow) and others want expressed in our constitution regarding identity?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,438 ✭✭✭✭markodaly


    We are not talking about constitutional aspects of identity as protected under the GFA. We are talking about the law of the land.
    If you commit a murder, what court system will you be under? Will the PSNI or the Gardai arrest you.

    This isn't hard, but for you it might be.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,221 ✭✭✭Fionn1952


    I'd dismiss ANY referendum from over 50 years ago with regards to it's relevance today because things bloody change, Francis. I can dismiss it's relevance without even addressing the questions around it that were relevant at the time.

    The question is why are you trying to squeeze a 50 year old vote into a discussion about the future? By your logic, contraception, divorce and abortion were all settled issues here and should never have been discussed again.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Well I did ask, has any one ever been arrested and charged under this 'law' of nationality.

    If a taxi driver in Cornwall calls downcow 'Irish', will he do time?

    I don't live in NI or UK, can I be extradited to face charges?



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,791 ✭✭✭Francis McM


    FrancieBrady seems to dismiss the referendum (does not really matter the year, because even in that referendum in 1973 there was one vote per person. Did not matter if they owned property or not, what religion, what sex, what political beliefs if any.), because the PUL community won.

    Why else would he dismiss the results from 1973? Clearly he thinks the votes from the PUL community then were not worth as much as votes from the CNR community. The majority of the electorate ( not just voters on the day) voted to stay in the UK. He and other SF supporters thinks there was "no alternative" to the pIRA bombing campaign. If he and other Republicans accepted the democratic wishes then there would have been no more pIRA bombing campaign.

    Why would he and they treat people from the PUL community as equals in a U.I. when they would not accept their democratic wishes in 1973 and not only that but say there was no alternative to the "armed struggle"?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,195 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    What sort of gobbledy-gook nonsense is this?

    We withdrew our territorial claim and acknowledged and accepted British rule in Northern Ireland. British rules and law applies, no hiatus/transition phase nonsense, and British law is clear.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,195 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    You can call anyone anything you like, but if the law says you are born British, then you are born British.

    No problem with anyone identifying as a national of Endor, but under the British Nationality Act, if you are born in Northern Ireland, you are British.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Just for clarity here.

    The majority who voted where the people partition was created four. The ultimate gerrymander. Slice off 6 counties where Unionists have an overwhelming majority, allow them, unfettered, to construct a bigoted one party state for 50 years. Do not allow the minority community to be wholly represented - then hold a referendum in the middle of the flames that the place inevitably went up in because of Unionist misrule and British collusion?

    The referendum signified nothing and led to no change whatsoever whether I recognise it's results or not.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,195 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    Does that mean that if in a future border poll, the majority who vote and the majority who vote no are the people partition was created for (and I will return to that), you won't accept the legitimacy of that vote?



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    And the British accepted the identity rights of all those living in NI and enshrined them in legislation.
    And what's more they observe the rights enshrined in the GFA not those in the old dictatorial law.

    Which do you observe?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,195 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    I have told you already, when people are born in Northern Ireland, they are born British, at any time after that, in accordance with the GFA, they can assert their right given at birth to be identified as Irish. Having a right at birth does not equate to exercising a right at birth.

    The default is British, in accordance with the law, until the alternative identity is asserted.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Francis has accused me of not accepting the legitimacy of the vote.

    My problem with the vote is it's relevance not it's legitimacy.

    Nobody credible refers to it's significance or relevance because of the very prominent boycott.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady



    That's good to know.

    As I said, I don't observe British law, anyone born on the island of Ireland is Irish IMO and can identify as they wish.

    So in a UI, what is your proposal for a law?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,195 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    When you tell me your proposal for harmonising social welfare rates (something I asked you for about four years ago), I will get back to you on that.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    I told you, I don't have one. I will leave that to the experts in the field sure in the knowledge that things like that can be done with planning, transition periods etc.

    Identity rights have been addressed in the GFA that both governments and those political parties who signed up to it are happy with. @downcow has claimed the GFA protects him as well.

    I don't propose anything different in a UI.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 12,424 ✭✭✭✭downcow


    this is the bit many are struggling with. The term British is not restricted to Britain.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,985 ✭✭✭csirl


    To bring this thread back on track and away from citizenship legalities.

    By 2125, a united Ireland will have been in place for a number of decades. The place will be fully integrated as a single country. People will celebrate Scots/Ulster heritage in a positive way - similar to how viking heritage is celebrated in Dublin, Wexford, Waterford etc.

    The country will be peaceful and prosperous. By then, there will be very few practising catholics or protestants - so people will struggle to see what the fuss was in the 20th century. Very few will identify as British - the vast majority, including those of scots/ulster heritage, will identify with the Ireland that exists at that time.

    The Orange Order wont exist - the natural progression towards inclusiveness and tolerance will see it wither away - though some history enthusiats, including people from a non-unionist background, will dress up as orangemen every July as part of historic reinactments - but focusing on the marching/playing music rather than hatred. Crowds from all communities will attend these events.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,882 ✭✭✭standardg60


    For further clarity, the other 26 was no paradise either, a Rome controlled sh1thole that caused untold damage to plenty of it's people and was entirely sectarian. Downcow's reticence today is totally understandable if a little ignorant but why you think your completely one sided views are helpful when you're not even from NI is anyone's guess.

    Partition was a failure for everyone north and south, we would have all benefitted from the balance of views.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,882 ✭✭✭standardg60


    You're not getting off lightly either, you weren't 'born' British because you were born in NI, you were raised that way. You were influenced, you didn't come up with it yourself, nor was your view that the ROI is your no.1 enemy. That is just silly.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Never denied.
    The ordinary Irish person suffered regardless of religion with the compliance of the state. There was nothing sectarian about it, ordinary people were oppressed by their own church with the collusion of the 2 parties that power swapped between.

    Bur that power has been taken away and nobody here is going to give it back.
    The faith has survived with some but they will never have that influence again.

    Belligerent Unionism want their veto and suprematist power back. It’s all there in the ‘satellite to the motherland’ ‘homeland’ chat.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 28,418 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    The Act says that you shall be a British citizen. I keep pointing out, and you keep ignoring, the fact that being British and being a British citizen are not the same thing. But the GFA does expressly distinguish between them (and, on the Irish side, Bunreacht also distinguishes between being part of the nation and being a citizen — and always has, since 1937; this isn't something that was invented for the purposes of the GFA).

    When Emma de Souza challenged her treatment by the British government in the courts on the basis that she had never identified as British and the imposition of British citizenship on her was therefore a violation of the GFA, the British government defended the case by pointing to this distinction, and the courts upheld them.

    So this is a long-standing, well-settled distinction.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,873 ✭✭✭ittakestwo


    Under the BAC if born in the UK you are born a "british citizen". Are you purposely leaving out the word citizen to try and pretend everyone born in the UK will have a national identity of British? Citizenship and national identities are two completely different things. Citizenship refers to what jurisdiction you have membership to. Most sovereign jurisdictions give membership to anyone born within its territory. There is nothing unusual with the UK doing this. RoI is unusual inthat it allows everyone born in Ireland which it doesn't have full jurisdiction to, to be born an irish citizen.

    I think everyone knows that in 2025 part of Ireland is within the UK. But what this tread is about is how long will the UK have territory in Ireland.

    I would say 15 to 25 years.

    Post edited by ittakestwo on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,873 ✭✭✭ittakestwo


    northern ireland maybe a state or a jurisdiction but it aint a country.

    To be a country you either have to be sovereign or be a unique nation of people within a territory. So NI is either part of the sovereign country of UK or part of the country of Ireland with Patrick as its nations patron saint.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 28,418 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    While there is no state called "Britain" or "Great Britain", the adjective "British" is widely used for things that relate to the United Kingdom, including in legal and official contexts — the British government, the British army, British Dependent Territory, the British ambassador, British citizens. There isn't any other adjective that I can think of that could easily replace it. UKish? Ukonian?

    (See also: "American" for things that relate only to the United States of America, rather than to the entire geographical entity.)

    Fun fact: Between 1948 and 1981 the citizenship status was officially "Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies", which was almost always abbreviated to "CUKC". (Stop sniggering, ye blaggards at the back!) In 1981 there was a complete rejigging of UK citizenship law, part of which involved dividing this category into two new ones:

    • One class of citizenship for people born in the UK itself, or whose father or father's father was born there ("British citizen") [Broadened, in relation to anyone born after 1 January 1983, to cover a parent or grandparent of either sex]
    • Another class for people whose birth or descent was connected with a British colony rather than with the UK itself ("British Dependent Territories Citizen")

    This wasn't done just to get rid of the slightly unfortunate acronym. They were anticipating the return to China of Hong Kong, where there were several million CUKCs with no British descent whatsoever. They did't want them all to come to the UK, so they needed a class of citizenship for them that didn't confer any right of abode in the UK.

    Post edited by Peregrinus on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 28,418 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    It's a matter to be decided when the time comes. But a likely scenario is:

    • No change at all to current Irish citizenship law. It already applies uniformly to the whole island. It works perfectly well for the 26 counties, so there's no reason why it wouldn't work for the 6 counties, when incorporated into the Republic.
    • Anyone who has British citizenship at the time of unification by virtue of their birth in or connection with NI continues to have British citizenship (unless they renounce it, of course).

    There remains the question of what happens to people born after unification who are born in, or have a connection with, NI — are they to have British citizenship? That's a matter for the British government but, in the context of any poll on unification, assurances as to what the position will be are certain to be sought and likely to be given .

    At a minimum, of course, the first generation of children born to NI-linked British citizens would be entitled to British citizenship by descent, under the ordinary rules. But it's possible that more extensive citizenship rights would be promised — e.g. more remote descendants would be British citizens, or would have the right to register as British citizens, provided they were born in NI. But questions like this won't be answered until there's actually going to be a border poll.

    Post edited by Peregrinus on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    To highlight the lunacy of the argument it has to be said that in 2125 there'd be those here telling Ukrainians that they are Russians, because Russian law says they are.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,195 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    If being born a British citizen is not so important, and identity is everything and citizenship is nothing, we wouldn't need to offer Irish citizenship to those in the North.

    Going to leave it there before thread goes way off.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,292 ✭✭✭✭FrancieBrady


    Citizenship of anywhere is only as important as suits you at a given time. You can change 'citizenship' and there are legal constructs to allow that.
    You cannot change the place of your birth which in this debate is 'Ireland'. The only place in these two jurisdictions - Northern Ireland and Ireland - is Ireland.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,195 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    In accordance with both international law and the law of the relevant jurisdiction, the place of birth for those born in Northern Ireland is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

    You can believe what you want.



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