Loyalist foolishness

[SevenRivers]

It has about as much relevance as the Battle of the Boyne - the Protestants don't seem too keen to leave that in the past.

 

If Protestants can't claim close links to the populations they came from in the rest of the UK, it weakens their claim that Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK.

 

I'm guessing most Protestants or Loyalist Northern Irish were born in Northern Ireland unless there has been some great migration of Protestants to Northern Ireland in living memory.

 

The only thing that matters now is the right of self determination of the people. If there is enough people want to reunify the island, it will eventually happen. So long as the majority want to stay part of the UK, it will remain so.

[janie48]

 

Nobody blamed the ordinary Englishman. Why would they? The English lower clasess werent exactly having an easy time of it in the mid 19th century either

 

Thats so true!

 

I'm sure i posted on here earlier today.

[altus]

I'm guessing most Protestants or Loyalist Northern Irish were born in Northern Ireland unless there has been some great migration of Protestants to Northern Ireland in living memory.

Ignoring the past means that poor decisions will be made which will increase the risk of civil unrest - stopping flying the union flag on a public building for instance. It might also result in a decision that loyalists marching through catholic areas is simply being provocative and should be banned or the police in Northern Ireland continuing to be almost entirely composed of loyalists and biased against/distrusted by the Catholics.

 

The only thing that matters now is the right of self determination of the people. If there is enough people want to reunify the island, it will eventually happen. So long as the majority want to stay part of the UK, it will remain so.

You're right that the situation will remain the same until the majority in the north want to change it. (Assuming some sort of fudge isn't created again - after all, the majority of the population of the island wanted independence from the UK during 1916-22.)

[SevenRivers]

Ignoring the past means that poor decisions will be made which will increase the risk of civil unrest - stopping flying the union flag on a public building for instance. It might also result in a decision that loyalists marching through catholic areas is simply being provocative and should be banned or the police in Northern Ireland continuing to be almost entirely composed of loyalists and biased against/distrusted by the Catholics.

I wouldn't argue with any of that, all very sensible. Some have suggested Protestants should "bugger off back to Glasgow" or something on those lines, my point was they are not from Glasgow, they are born and bred Northern Irish, unless as I say, they have arrived sometime in living memory.

 

You're right that the situation will remain the same until the majority in the north want to change it. (Assuming some sort of fudge isn't created again - after all, the majority of the population of the island wanted independence from the UK during 1916-22.)

There was a referendum back in the 70s (a Border Poll), the majority voted to stay in the UK. Uncomfortable I know for the Republican sympathisers. The people who say the island should be reunified come what may are basically wanting to ride roughshot over democracy, and all that would do is create another bunch of terrorists with bombs going off in Dublin instead of London.

[donkey]

 

 

There was a referendum back in the 70s (a Border Poll), the majority voted to stay in the UK. Uncomfortable I know for the Republican sympathisers. The people who say the island should be reunified come what may are basically wanting to ride roughshot over democracy, and all that would do is create another bunch of terrorists with bombs going off in Dublin instead of London.

 

What many Unionists incorrectly call Ulster - three of the counties of Ulster remain in the Irish Republic - is a political creation whose border was deliberately drawn in such a way as to ensure a Unionist majority (gerrymandering). In light of this fact, it is hardly suprising that the referendum to which you refer produced those results. Had it been conducted throughout the whole of Ireland, or even the whole of Ulster, there would have been a different outcome.

 

However, I think the people in the Republic of Ireland have had a lucky escape in not getting what they wished for. Otherwise it would be they who were paying the price of the colonising of a catholic region by fundamentalist protestant puritans who specifically defined themselves through their hatred of catholicism.

 

Personally, I think it is right that the UK stays in control and continues to bear the financial and political reponsibility for defusing the powder keg which its successive governments very deliberately created and maintained.

 

Unfortunately, no matter whether Northern Ireland is under the political control of Ireland, the UK or self government, the residents there will continue to have to live with the inevitable historical consequences of a sectarian colonisation designed to permanently subjugate the people who were there already. Because it didn't really work out that way.

 

If the loyalist extremists would only realise that their best shot at subjugating the fenians has failed - and they are unlikely to achieve it now by donning pantomime costumes, banging drums and setting fire to their own neighbourhoods - a major obstacle to progress will have been removed.

 

As for the recent rioting, far from being ominous, I take it as a hopeful sign that elected unionist representatives are increasingly willing to renounce their unofficial loyalist street veto by sending in security forces to face down the orange bully boys.