Loyalist mobs attacking Alliance Party offices and homes.

lugha wrote: »

It is pretty telling that only 25% of NI folk identified themselves as "Irish" (as opposed to Northern Irish). After all, we are routinely told my nationalists here that the border is invisible and is only a line on a map (totally unlike any other international border!).

If there is no border there is no Northern Ireland (from an identity perspective at any rate). The census results seem to throw considerable doubt on the oft made claim that a minor nudge will tip those in NI who favour a united Ireland into a majority.

"Horrible Northern Irish weather today wasn't there?"

If that sentence sounds normal, Northern Irish identity exists.

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

"Horrible Northern Irish weather today wasn't there?"

If that sentence sounds normal, Northern Irish identity exists.

I don't doubt it exists. Presumably many nationalists opted for this. But why, if they could have described themselves as Irish?

gallag wrote: »

One point here, people keep pointing that this is democracy, it's not, it's party politics, the people did not vote on this issue and all the power lay with the smallest party, sixty percent of the people may have wanted the flag to stay but it was down to the alliance party no matter what. The alliance party were not voted in on a promise to remove the flag, the people had no say. It could have worked the other way if alliance voted to keep the flag but more than fifty percent wanted it gone.

Now Sinn fien are pushing for the word "royal" removed from the hospital, no home coming parades for royal Irish solders and naming Childerns play parks after an IRA man that killed 13 innocent men for being protestant. If anyone tries naming a play park around my area after a UVF man for the deed of killing innocent Catholics I would be ****ing disgusted and my children would never see it.

Which IRA man?

gurramok wrote: »

Seen as you both love propagating your survey

Not a survey, a census. There is a considerable difference.

Can you explain why only 25% of NI folk described themselves as Irish?

Seaneh wrote: »

I think more importantly, well over 50% chose not to identify themselves are British.

Hardly, seeing as how "British only" trounced "Irish only" by 40% - 25%.

I cannot see how someone who seriously pro-united Ireland and who insists that the border is invisible to them would identify themselves as Northern Irish rather than Irish. I'm afraid your UI dream is a few decades away yet.

Sound of Silence wrote: »

They way it seems to be interpreted by some posters:

Irish - 25%
British - 40%
Northern Irish British - 21%
British and Irish - 4%
British and Northern Irish - 4%

Not me. Precisely the opposite in fact.

I assume that the bulk of people who identify themselves as Northern Irish are from the nationalist side. And that rather undermines the assumption that all "nationalists" want a united Ireland

lugha wrote: »

Well this is quite at odds with what most nationalists say. They are at pains to emphasise that Irish is Irish. Derry is as Irish as Kerry, Down as Donegal. I think you are the first UI supporter I’ve come across to swim against this tide.

Personally I think a sizable chunk of this Northern Irish cohort are nationalists who will have no truck with Britain as far as identify goes but when it comes to is, won’t opt for a united Ireland either. Looks like we have a new tribe.

I don't imagine that you've met many Northern Nationalists beyond those on the forum.

On the issue of identity, many of our Anglo-Irish posters here on this forum make great pains to portray themselves as wholly Irish, but often they view themselves through the veil of a British identity. Whether it be in Religious or Political beliefs, this portion of their identity can often inform their lives to some degree. In the area of personal identity, there tends to be few absolutes, and Northern Ireland is no exception.

Whilst I certainly wouldn't identify myself as Northern Irish in the census, I wouldn't deny that the Northern Irish aspect of my identity will have informed my Political beliefs and interests; aspects of my character which will have set me aside from Southerners in some way.

What puzzles me, however, is that a poster like yourself, who claims to detest every possible manifestation of Nationalism, would make the issue of National Identity or tribalism the ultimate crux of his argument for Union with Great Britain. I would assume that someone who favours Political apathy and objectivism would transcend something as illusory as cultural identity.

lugha wrote: »

Not a survey, a census. There is a considerable difference.

Can you explain why only 25% of NI folk described themselves as Irish?

Most likely because we're constantly being treated like a completely foreign country by an uncomfortably large percentage of the population of the Republic. There are people in this very thread referring to people from Northern Ireland as not Irish. Anyone born in the north is as Irish as anyone born in the south but to listen to some people on here you'd swear there was never a single island of Ireland and the north was glued on by William of Orange himself.

Sound of Silence wrote: »

What puzzles me, however, is that a poster like yourself, who claims to detest every possible manifestation of Nationalism, would make the issue of National Identity or tribalism the ultimate crux of his argument for Union with Great Britain. I would assume that someone who favours Political apathy and objectivism would transcend something as illusory as cultural identity.

No great mystery here. There are many republican atheists who view religion as at best nonsense and at worst dangerous nonsense, exactly as I view nationalism, but recognise that it is a central element in Northern Irish affairs and discuss it as such.

And I do not argue for union with GB. Where on earth are you getting that from??

Promac wrote: »

Most likely because we're constantly being treated like a completely foreign country by an uncomfortably large percentage of the population of the Republic.

That might explain it if the census asked how you felt Southerners identified you or if one of them filled out the census for you. But of course people were free to choose whichever box they wanted to tick.

Promac wrote: »

There are people in this very thread referring to people from Northern Ireland as not Irish. Anyone born in the north is as Irish as anyone born in the south …

So in your first sentence you complain that Southerners don’t respect those who identify themselves as Irish with no distinction between Northern and Southern Irish.

And then you go on to assert that anyone born on the island is Irish, wilfully disrespecting the 40% who choose not to identify themselves as Irish!

This kind of double-think is close to ubiquitous amongst nationalists, but they don’t often display it in one paragraph.

Promac wrote: »

but to listen to some people on here you'd swear there was never a single island of Ireland and the north was glued on by William of Orange himself.

It certainly was a single island, but it was never really a single, autonomous political entity (other than under British rule). It may one day be united, but it will never be reunited. Anyway, that’d drifting a bit far from the OP.