United Ireland

[kotori]

This is from today's RTÉ News Update.

TRIMBLE REPEATS CALL FOR UNITED IRELAND POLL
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David Trimble has again urged the British government to hold a referendum on a united Ireland in conjunction with next year's Assembly elections in the North.

The North's First Minister told journalists at Westminster today that a "border poll" would reassure Unionists that the operation of the Good Friday Agreement was "not a process being driven by the paramilitaries with the threat of violence."

He added a poll would show it was not a process heading in the wrong direction and would put an end to "Republicans winding up Unionists, unsettling them and keeping them off balance."

The Taoiseach has described the call for a border poll as a "zany
proposal". Answering questions in the Dáil Bertie Ahern said that having a plebiscite before a review of the Good Friday Agreement was not envisaged when the pact was being negotiated.

Mr Ahern went on to say that holding such a poll at the same time as next year's Assembly elections, as suggested by the Ulster Unionist leader, would be a disaster.

David Trimble first made the suggestion at the AGM of the Ulster Unionist Council on 9 March. At the same meeting Mr Trimble branded the Republic of Ireland a pathetic sectarian, mono-ethnic, mono-cultural state.
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This is a curious idea. What would be asked, exactly? Should the border between N.I. (the other Kingdom United with Great Britain)and the Republic stay or go? I don't really understand how paramilitary groups (on either side) have been "using" the settlement--they've mostly been against it.

His characterisation of the Republic as "pathetic sectarian, mono-ethnic, mono-cultural" is pretty thought provoking. Until the last ten years, population steadily declined due to emigration. Only now for the first time (excluding invasion and plantation) have the Irish dealt with people from other countries trying to get in. If the Republic is predominantly R.C. and very little British, this has to do with the flight of the old Anglo-Irish Ascendancy in the years after partition. The very source of most of the problems the Good Friday Agreement has set out to solve.

 

[freescorfr]

Good luck, Kotori. If women baffle me, then the N. Ireland politics run a close second.

More seriously, it appears to me as if all that can go wrong in human relations goes wrong there - and the corollary of that is that you've some of the bestest human souls on earth on both sides of the border.

I just wish some on the more extreme wings of both sides could become adult enough to find a solution which could be a model for all the other divided communities in the world, where centuries of injustice and suffering have left wounds which need miracles to heal.

As a Glasgow Catholic, I feel that the protestants are the most bigotted of the two sides. I'm not sure whether this is sheer prejudice or fairly accurate.

'twas on a dreary New Years Eve as the shades of night came down,
A lorry load of fenian men approached a border town

Ah. The innocence of my youth.

Bluespoke, where do you stand? Were you a Glagow Proddy?

 

[bluespoke]

Bluespoke, where do you stand? Were you a Glagow Proddy?

But of course dear boy. Just been checking the bears are winning 4-0.

I'm just sitting on my thumbs.

In less than a generation the population in the North will be more Catholic than Protestant.

They'll be no need for a poll except, that strangely, there are Catholics who vote Unionist.

I suspect that it will all be settled by then or another full scale IRA war could break out.

As far as bigotry is concerned I think the Protestants in the North may just shade it.

 

[kotori]

In less than a generation the population in the North will be more Catholic than Protestant.

Well that of course has always been the fear hasn't it? Inter-faith marriage, emigration, etc. That's what put the border where it is, and kept it for the last 80-years.

And yes, there are I'm sure many RC in the north who would miss the British welfare state, and many in the Republic who wouldn't like the prospect of trying to incorporate the Six Counties--not that it would compare with German reunification, but in an Irish context, similar.

 

[bluespoke]

Well that of course has always been the fear hasn't it? Inter-faith marriage, emigration, etc. That's what put the border where it is, and kept it for the last 80-years.

I don't regard it as a fear, I think this time it will be a fact. If the population of the North reaches a majority of Catholics and they vote for Union with the South, there is no party in the UK that is going to dumb enough to try and stop it or to support the minority.

It will happen if, as I said before, a substantial number of Catholics stop voting Unionist.

 

[Jimi]

Home Rule - for ALL..

I don't regard it as a fear, I think this time it will be a fact. If the population of the North reaches a majority of Catholics and they vote for Union with the South, there is no party in the UK that is going to dumb enough to try and stop it or to support the minority.

It will happen if, as I said before, a substantial number of Catholics stop voting Unionist.

If Unionist meant "Irish Conservative" and not "hang on to Lizzie's skirts at all costs", it might work - but until the time when an O'Donell or Walsh is in Trimble's spot... As most of us in Canada with Celtic ties dream - it'd be nice to see "The Troubles" dead and gone. I wish the Bostonian bunch were as logical (sigh)

The way that the economy is growing in the Republic, even the Shankhill yobbos will be begging for entry in 25 years. Not that any sane Fianna Gael or Fianna Fall Government'd be silly enough to have them... (yobbos, that is).

Russia will be a full-blown Democracy before Ulster is a safe and workable society, IMHO. And that is sad.

 

[kotori]

Re: Home Rule - for ALL..

Not that any sane Fianna Gael or Fianna Fall Government'd be silly enough to have them... (yobbos, that is).

There isn't a punter alive (and some that aren't) that Fianna Fáil wouldn't enrole.

 

[bluespoke]

Re: Re: Home Rule - for ALL..

There isn't a punter alive (and some that aren't) that Fianna Fáil wouldn't enrole.

And that includes your AV and all his relatives

 

[kotori]

Re: Re: Re: Home Rule - for ALL..

And that includes your AV and all his relatives

Baaaaaaaaa. But you know I'm behind Rurai Quinn and Irish Labour

 

[bluespoke]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Home Rule - for ALL..

Baaaaaaaaa. But you know I'm behind Rurai Quinn and Irish Labour

And more power to your elbow!

 

[Myrrdin]

Re: Re: Home Rule - for ALL..

There isn't a punter alive (and some that aren't) that Fianna Fáil wouldn't enrole.

Irish polling motto.

"Vote early, vote often."

 

[Jimi]

Scots,Taffs & Micks... Jaysus!

Indeed, now we bring the Southern Celts in... from the "hollow hills" - and it REALLY gets fractious...

Put two Celts in one room - it's an argument - add another, and it's a royal piss-up.

May I make it a foursome, and we can get thoroughly sloshed?

 

[Silverluna]

Then there's just me who isn't Protstant...or Cath. I'm Celtic Pagan....but I still wish that Ireland would be United....or atleast peace would be established for their holidays....

Afterall....aren't the Cath. and prot. holiday celebrations virtually the same concept?