Northern Ireland 2125?

Gives out about people talking about 'history', falls back on 'history' himself. 😀

A 'stay in the UK' opinion, in the absence of any plan for a UI is not the same as a 'pro UK' opinion.

You are reading too much into current polling in other words.

The poll that will matter will be the one after a White Paper/Plan is produced by the Irish government.

See what happened Scottish Independence opinion polling after the White Paper was presented - 32% in favour went to 50% and beyond for a time, prompting the British and indeed Ulster Unionists to panic and get to Scotland to try to persuade and make promises…false promises as it turned out, but that's another debate.
It should be noted the British have said they will leave it to 'the people of Ireland to decide their fate, without outside impediment.'

So they won't be coming to try to persuade as Gordon Brown and others did in Scotland.

Here it is on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKFwyFpNQUI/

There are 18 essays by different Protestants in his book AND Ian D'Alton quotes a Protestant Bishop in 1944.

18 Protestants telling a very different story of their lives V your one Protestant, telling a different story to different interviewers at different times as he is co-incidentally selling a different book or comedy routine.

I will let people judge for themselves what is going on, IMO while I like Norton and his career, he is gilding the lily for PR purposes.

Here's another eminent Munster-man whose grandfather signed the Ulster Covenant writing a commendation for another D'Alton book

 “This richly textured, erudite and mischievously subversive book decisively establishes Ian d’Alton as the laureate of southern Irish Protestant history in the modern period . . . an indispensable guide, and a delight to read.” 

 

Roy Foster, Emeritus Professor of Irish History, University of Oxford 

No interest in trying to sell you something to be honest. I am happy it is selling itself.

If you are not familiar with the panic from London and Belfast among Unionists over the Scottish polling figures and the false promises made to persuade that 10% that's your knowledge gap to the fore again. Not for me to do your due diligence.

The problem for the British government is they won't be able to lie the next time there is a poll on Scottish Independence. And there will be a next time,

The problem facing Unionists is the British have already said they will not put impediments in the way of the Irish deciding their fates.

Back to you reading 20+ catholic support for the status quo and confusing that for a 'pro Union' opinion.

If you, again, do your due diligence, and look at all the opinions given in that opinion poll, you will notice that majorities in both jurisdictions favour referendums in the next 10 years.

That is people saying we may favour the status quo or we 'don't know' but we want referendums because we want to see the Plan for a UI.

The only opinion poll that will matter is the one taken after we see that Plan. And that is as close as a change of party leader or a party entering coalition.

Yes, Brown's passionate pleas and economic scaremongering got them over the line.
Polls moved over 5 pts after he rushed to Scotland to give his speech.

After being plucked out of the EU when they didn't want to leave and the problems that caused the English-centric Westminster parliament will have difficulty doing that again.

I notice you sidestepped looking at that opinion in it's totality. Fair enough.

Ian D'Alton who did a fierce scathing attack,

😁

People can judge for themselves if it is 'scathing and fierce or an 'attack' or an honest, backed up review of a book that was criticised by others too for it's myopic point of view.

Here and there, indeed, Bury recognises that there are other stories to be told, other angles to be explored.

In discussing attacks on Protestants in 1921 he notes that they were not the only outsiders targeted: tramps, vagrants and Redmondites were also in the cross hairs of republican guns.

In a long description of the Bandon Valley massacre, in April 1922, his emphasis is on attack and flight, but he does acknowledge that although between 100 and 200 Protestants fled from Cork after the killings, some eventually returned.

While excoriating compulsory Irish and (rightly) demonstrating that most Irish Protestants thought it a nonsense, he mentions, in contrast, that two Anglican archbishops of Dublin, George Otto Simms and Donald Caird, were language enthusiasts.

He admits sometimes that the narrative of almost relentless marginalisation and intolerance is overdramatised.

Bury makes great play of perceived discrimination against Protestants, almost up to the present.

He devotes much space to mixed-marriage child-custody cases, such as Tilson (1950) and Fethard-on-Sea (1957). There is an entire chapter on the proposal for, and subsequent cancellation of, an Orange parade in Dublin in 2000.

He is particularly critical of the Church of Ireland role in that controversy. However, why so much attention is given to this is puzzling; apart from the Border counties, Orangeism in the Republic has about as much relevance to the vast majority of Protestants as a bicycle has for a fish. Freemasonry is probably more significant, yet it is barely mentioned.

In an epilogue Bury examines Protestant reaction to the 1916 rebellion, pointing out that, unsurprisingly, prominent Protestants universally condemned it at the time – and that some still do.

Those opinions may differ in quantum, but they were (and are) found on the Catholic side too. He goes on to criticise the Church of Ireland’s inability to hold services on Easter Sunday 2016 in Dublin city because of the centenary celebrations. Yet, in a bureaucratic world, that was as much about traffic control and “health and safety” issues as anything else.

Full review is here:

Wow aren't you the clever one.
Pluck a sentence out of a point and pretend that was all there was to respond to.

Feck sake, such dis-ingenuous posting.

You cannot even get that bit right. It said "very harsh", not "harsh." In the printed edition of the paper, there was no mention of conflict of interest. Now answer the question:

Do you not think AT THE TIME OF REVIEW that Ian D'Alton should at least have mentioned there was a conflict of interest in him reviewing Robin Bury's book about Irish Protestants 'Buried Lives' in the Irish Times?

( Context : D'Alton reviewed the book without mentioning that he himself, Ian D'Alton had a soft book on southern Protestants coming out a week or two later. Not surprisingly, D'Alton gave Robin Burys book a very harsh review in the Irish Times ( although Bury's book was well received by lots of people, who found it accurate ) while a short time later D'Altons own book got a glowing review in the republican Irish Times ).

 In the printed edition of the paper, there was no mention of conflict of interest.

😁😁 Can you back that up please?

What 'conflict of interest' was there only one invented by you.

When people are asked to review books they are more often than not other fiction writers or writers, expert in the same field as the book is writing about. Several times in the review D'Alton mentioned he is also a Protestant living in Ireland. And he is an acknowledged expert in the same subject matter.

There aren't many reviews of Bury's book but here's another one that takes his myopic view to task;

Bury’s narrative asserts that IRA attacks on individual Protestants during the 1919–23 War of Independence and Civil War were sectarian. Southern Protestant testimony rejecting this perception is ignored, alongside other contrary evidence.

As noted also by D'Alton:

Reasons for departure, but not return, interest Bury.

….

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

This is a fascinating book of interesting contradictions, in need of a proofreader.

Buried lives: the Protestants of southern Ireland – History Ireland