What does Veeky Forums think of Ireland and Northern Ireland and whether it should or shouldn't unite?

What does Veeky Forums think of Ireland and Northern Ireland and whether it should or shouldn't unite?
I know very few opinions from people who don't live here.

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gas the taigs desu

You from here as well lad? County Antrim from a Protestant background myself. Don't hold many ill feelings towards Catholics other than those ones that love the IRA etc.

too many lives were lost for people to really love the ira anymore

You are very wrong there. There's a lot of love for the IRA still. St Paddy's Day in Belfast there are a lot of pro-IRA chants etc, even on some student nights out you'll hear sectarian chanting.
All in all a load of shite desu senpai

maybe I'm lucky to live near sensible people :^)

out of curiosity are you posting from NI or are you mainland UK or wut?

There is no good reason for an independent Ireland to not be united, but it's probably too late now anyway. The modern Irishman probably doesn't even care anymore.

Having just listened to 6 hours of Irish rebel music I'm pretty well convinced that we need a united Ireland.

t. non-Irish American

This shit wouldn't have happened if Carson and the Ulster Volunteers didn't go full retard with that Covenant and armed themselves to resist Home Rule.

...

Just leave it, Unionists and Nationalists are both babies with victim complexes, it's Serb tier

If it wasn't for the IRA terrorizing the North during the Troubles (especially in Belfast), then it would be no problem. I'm no expert, but the Northern Irish probably have their own national identity because of the almost century long divide and hatred for the IRA.

Yes, it should be united, there's no good reason not to. The partition of Ireland was objectively a disaster.

If it wasn't for the IRA unification may have happened by now on it's own, but their horrid campaign has meant that opinions are that divided it's unlikely to happen in our lifetime.

I'm from Britain, if Northern Ireland wants to stay part of the UK that's fine with me. As long as it's their decision and it isn't forced on them, self-determination and all that.

But assuming there is a hypothetical referendum on the issue in the future and they vote to join the rest of Ireland I'm also fine with that.

My personal opinion is that I'd rather they stayed with the UK (I actually wouldn't mind re-integrating the Republic of Ireland back into the UK) but as I said above it has to be up to them and I'll support their decision either way assuming it's a free and fair referendum.

I'm a bit of an autist for tidy borders so i'm 100% for a unified Ireland.

lol

Northern Ireland is the way it is because people in those counties want to be part of Britain. Thanks to the peace process there's now even a mechanism that practically guarantees that when the majority wants to be part of Ireland it will start happening. It also looks like a demographic inevitability at this point.

Ireland will be united, under the rule of Britain.

If they unite, there will be one less corporate tax haven.

Therefore, they should not unite.

Goldman Sachs get out

Irish Republican in the north here. I come from a strongly nationalist family, my father and uncles were in the PIRA in the 70's. It's hard to understand if you didn't grow up in the conditions they did, under the jackboot of sectarian administration and British domination, a daily exercise in humiliation and discrimiation against your people. We live in a majority catholic Nationalist county, showcasing the arbitrary impostiiton of the border that divided Ireland, there is no partition in our hearts and as far as I am concerned we will never give up our desire to see the nation reunited as it was

under the rule of the superior English people?

This, it should have united back in the 20s or 30s there's been to much rabble rousing shit from the likes of paisley for it to happen now.

It's now a shithole neither Ireland or rest of UK want

You'll always have England to hide your loot mate

Laughing irl right now

Honestly I'd like a United Ireland just to annoy the fucking Unionists.

There is not a single more easily triggered bunch of faggots on the planet than Northern Irish Unionists.

The issue is that the Irish government would have had to be secular if the North was a part and that never was in the cards.

wew
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the IRA were not terrorists like the UVA or ISIS are. The IRA had clear and achievable political goals of self-governance. Other than mostly targeted killings of the military occupation and the UVA the only bombed places where there weren't people (Manchester and Canary Wharf and all that garbage) or in response to some new UVA atrocity. Ian Paisley not only fucked up Northern Ireland. He fucked up the UK to this day, and his bullshit even spread to America via Graham. One day a hundred years from now the North will join the South in economic union anyway, so it's all pointless. Just so stupid. But the stupider ones are definitely the protestants.

My opinion is based on living in Belfast for a year and seeing retarded UVA faggots flying confederate flags and Nazi flags. And when I asked what they thought the Confederate flag meant they just said it looked like the Union Jack.

>whether it should or shouldn't unite?

Polling shows that only about 20% of Northern Irish would like to reunite. To me that settles the issue completely. No.

Go ahead, there's a lot of things people take for granted today that's pretty laughable

Just fucking unify. It's confusing and nobody gives a shit about the whole "fuck you I like the British" and "fuck you I hate the British" shenanigans.

I think a more interesting question is how many are comfortable with the union?

Poll's mean very little outside of a national plebiscite. There is no doubt that Ireland and indeed all of Europe have bought hook line and sinker into the discourse of Liberal capitalism, the material concerns of todays economy is the biggest turnoff for those who vote for Irish Natonalist parties in regards to the National question. The Irish economy is still of course in a bad position, however it would be foolish to imagine this translates into a loyalty towards the British union. Irish nationalism is not dead no matter what unionists will tell you

>Yes, it should be united, there's no good reason not to.

So "they don't want to be part of Ireland" is not a good reason in your opinion?

Yeah but 99% of Ireland wants to unite and since it concerns both of them I believe this actually settles it. Unionists only actually make up 15-20% of the whole population, so fuck them as this is not the Victorian era anymore.
Anybody who disagrees is just a contrarian idiot.

And what about all Ireland that had been treated as a single political unit for more than 300 years at that point? Where is the legitimacy of imposing arbitrary borders around a powerful national minority in order to artifically engineer a majority state literally overnight? Derry and Tyrone were and still are both majority Catholic Nationalist counties, where was the democracy when hundreds of thousands of Irish nationalists were forced inside the Protestant orange state?

So, what, you want Ireland to conquer them by force? And you think this is justified because they want to? And anyone who questions this is a "contrarian idiot?" Am I missing the sarcasm on your post?

>And what about all Ireland that had been treated as a single political unit for more than 300 years at that point?

What about it? "The borders used to be different" is not an argument for anything.

>Derry and Tyrone were and still are both majority Catholic Nationalist counties, where was the democracy when hundreds of thousands of Irish nationalists were forced inside the Protestant orange state?

Actually, a majority of NI Catholics are against reunification also.

There WAS no border. Ireland was partitioned, that is the issue

>There WAS no border.

So the Irish ruled the whole world?

see
I am a northern catholic. The specific point I was making in regards to Tyrone and Derry at the time of partition in 1922, they were majority politically Irish Nationalist. See the 1918 general election. They were included inside the protestant Orange state for the simple reason they could absorb these counties without considerable ethnic challenge to unionist domination and they could benefit from it's agricultural value. They didn't absorb the rest of Ulsters counties for that reason that Irish Nationalists would pose too great of a demographic threat to its place in the union

Irish republican music is GOAT, so yeah Ireland should be united.

26+6 = 1 and all that.

Are you being willfully ignorant? Surely you can understand why the people of any nation today would find issue with a privledged minority making a unilateral decision against the majority. Would it be legitimate for London declare itself a separate state of the islamic caliphate if the people of london decided it so against the will of the rest of the British people?

And that's interesting historical trivia, but that doesn't change the fact that they don't want to reunite now. I know there are still plenty of Irish nationalists, but at this point they are a shrinking minority. If that were to change

>Speak English
>Never properly unified
>A lot of their early industry was put there by the British
>Only unified because of a dislike for the English
>Only cultural difference is stupid accents and their hate for the English

"Ireland"

Literally the English word for what they should call Éire

The only people the Irish hate more than each other is the English, the day they get Northern Ireland back is the day they start hating each other again.

Meme country desu

Last I checked they left because the brits were too incompetent to kept them fed and instead kept sperging out about how starvation will fix irelands economy.

Rather than a fanciful example, how about a real one? Was it legitimate for Ireland to declare itself independent of the UK?

The IRA were terrorists, they committed acts of terror. Whether you agree with their goals or hate their arguably more retarded opposition is irrelevant.

Friendly reminder that Ireland has only ever been a self governing island nation for a total of 2 days in 1922. Ireland "reuniting" is simply a meme, it's only been united for a long amount of time under British rule. Nationalists will lie to you and say "muh...muh high kings!" even though there wasn't ONE high king - including Brian Boru - who ever united Ireland.

The republic wanting NI is as much of a geographical landgrab as British settlers going there in the first place.

This is not merely "trivia", this is the foundation of ethno-nationalist conflict in Ireland today and to dismiss that is is ignore the complexity of the issue. You are under the false pretense that in this exact in time if someone does not for reunification tomrrow it automatically makes them loyal to the British union,the same as the Protestant Loyalist/unionist population. Irish national identity is not shrinking, by extension the nationalism assocaited has shrank no more than it has over the last few centuries. To believe this is the end of history and its no longer an issue is to ignore historical reality how Irish nationalism has asserted itself continually against the odds since the time of Wolftone and arguably before

>Oh jaysus paddy, morag and the 18 kids are starving
>Maybe we could get food from all that water surrounding us?
>Are ye fecking stupid seamus? How we gonna get food from the sea?

>"Ireland"
>Literally the English word for what they should call Éire
Bro,when using English, we use the Anglized names, be it Ireland, Russia, Japan, China or Germany.

The Irish have been fighting the English since well before the famine

They've been wanting independence since well before the famine too


Even if the English had stopped the famine completely (which they tried to do) the Irish would find something to complain about

The point is most of your people speak English, this still hasn't changed even with the Govt trying to revive the ass backwards language on suicide watch/its death bed

I have no dog in this fight. I'm a non-religious American with no Irish or English blood, and about evenly split Catholic and Protestant ancestors. But honestly, it sounds like you're just in denial about your countrymen not agreeing with you. You don't get to decide for them.

Do anti-partition fags just ignore that the Ulster Covenant existed? Or that before and after the Irish war of independence, tens of hundreds of protestants in the republic were killed on the basis of their religion? The scale of the protestant hatred in the republic completely outweighs any Irish faggot going on about the "oppressive" B specials

I think the republic should be made part of the UK again.

The Republic's first president was a Protestant, while none of the Prime Ministers of the old Northern Irish government were Catholic, and none of the First Ministers of the new government have been Catholic

Coastal settlements actually faired reasonably well during the Famine period, precisely because they were more able to get fish.

There was no way to fish inland, since there was no wood to make rods or boats out of

Albeit most of the hatred came from those of the anti-treaty side, which probably explains why the first prime minister was protestant

Actually, the Unionists at the turn-of-the-20th century were deathly afraid of secularism. You forget that amongst the Irish republicanism movement, there was a strong element against the Catholic Church and in having any form of state-sponsored religion. The evangelicals amongst the Orangemen didn't want a secular Ireland either.

It should unite, but it won't because...
>The British pound (which is always in fluctuation) is presently slightly stronger than the Euro (which is in perpetual fluctuation as well). Therefore reunification will reduce Northern Ireland to the economic third-world status it already is.
>Non-practicing, non-believing Protestants are scared that non-practicing, non-believing Catholics will drive them from their homes in revenge for past atrocities despite, it being the current year, religion's irrelevancy outside the soccer stadium
>Their Scottish ancestors conquered the land 400 years ago, and since they've now lived there for a long time, they shouldn't be driven out of Ireland (a request no serious person ever had the shamelessness to suggest)
>Everyone should have the right to self-autonomy, except for the Irish Catholics living in the North at the time of partition, who should be segregated and disenfranchised as much as possible. As the saying goes, "A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People".
>Loyalist support of Israel is born of a mutual love for the preservation of civilization, while Republican support of Palestine is from a mutual existence of being smelly, dumb, barbarian scum
So relax Unionists, no social progress will ever be made; unless Corbyn moves into Downing Street, at which point you could kiss Scotland, Wales, the Royal Navy, the Monarchy, secularism, and any demonstrations of national pride goodbye as well

Okay, how about Kosovo? The cradle of the Serbian nation, it was only in the last two centurys with mass emigration of albanian's across the border with the aid of the Ottoman empire that it became demographically majority albanian. It has now decalred itself an independent state, after it has ethnically cleansed most of its Serb inhabitants and its cultural legacy (the mass destruction of Orthdox churches and built heritage), those serbs who are still there live under the domination and repression of its Albanian ruler. Would you expect the Serb people to accept this?

In response to your question was it legitimate for Ireland to decalre independence, Ireland was the first colonial subject of the British empire. Ireland was only forced into the UK after the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798 to secure british rule, there was no democracy for the Irish nation to decide its own destiny.

I wish we didn't treat the Irish like shit, imagine a united British isles. the Map would look amazing.

You are one threating the issue as a monolith, it's a complex issue and there are many contentious positions on all sides. You admit yourself you are a neophyte and have no experience as to the problem of Ireland. I don't ignore the reality today as to the poltiical will of the overall majority towards peace in the north (that is what everyone is invested in, not the national question and certainly not the Union). That does erase the Nationalist ideologies from either communities though, so long as the Irish national identity continues, so will its will to poltical nationalism as we have seen throughout history. You seem to think there is a defeatism here around the national question, if that were true, it would not be an issue

>It should unite,

Why?

What surprises me is the amount of Protestants amongst the IRA. Protestants were at the forefront of Irish nationalism.

>The issue is that the Irish government would have had to be secular if the North was a part and that never was in the cards.
What a load of shite

>You are one threating the issue as a monolith,

Well it is in the sense that it's a yes or no question.

>Do anti-partition fags just ignore that the Ulster Covenant existed?
I don't ignore that a significant minority in Ireland did not see themselves as part of the Irish nation and that is certainly their right. What I dont recognise is the unilateral action they took forth in using their privledge in British society to impose arbitary borders against the the all-Ireland will just to secure their own ethno-nationalist dominance, from a minority to a majority overnight

youtube.com/watch?v=LmPbC1rYYOA&nohtml5=False

Its not about religion, its about freeing the whole of Ireland from the Brits.

Douglas was a Gaelic Scholar and feverant republican, Irish nationalism has never been soley defined by religion (something which cannot be said for Ulster Unionism)

If anything, the Unionists were worried that once Home Rule was enacted, tariffs would be placed and threaten the industry of the northern counties. The shipbuilding, linen mills, and other businesses were apprehensive toward Home Rulers though the southern counties had a thriving manufacturing base as well.

Did I ever imply I will make a unilateral decision for my people? That was what created the conflict over N.Ireland. I get the impression you think this means Nationalism should logically cease to exist though, a denial of history, identity and reality

Serious question, what is Irish identity and what is it based on? It seems like the same shit as England.

>Do anti-partition fags just ignore that the Ulster Covenant existed?
No I don't think it was legitimate for an armed group to try to change the result of a democratic vote that didn't go their way.

>Or that before and after the Irish war of independence, tens of hundreds of protestants in the republic were killed on the basis of their religion?
bare-faced lie

What is any National identity based on? A common kinship based on many different factors which can be religion, ethnicity, language, culture and also a binding collective narrative of shared experience and history. What's the difference between any of the former yugoslav nations? They share many similarieis including language that may seem arbitrary to yourself aswell

I just don't get it why it matters, I feel the same about the Scot too, there isn't any difference apart from accent and a few meme villages that speak Irish or Scots Gaelic.

Same reason why brits keep insisting they arent part of europe i imagine.

There is a big difference between not liking the EU as a political entity and thinking we're not part of the European continent.

I don't blame you for not understanding, it's exactly the reason why British administration in Ireland has been so disasterious because they have no clue about Ireland and ultimately don't care and don't care to care. Unless you actually lived their identities you cannot truely know. It may seem stupid to you, but to the Orangemen marching for their love of king and country and for Republicans standing up for their culture and right to soveirgnty it is more logical than your outsiders apathy

Im not really sure what EU has to do with what i said.

Well Brits are not claiming in any serious numbers we are not Europeans or part of European civilisation but many are anti Europe as a political aka the EU so I assumed that was what you were referencing.

>"Just as Joshua cleansed the Holy Land of the Caananites, so we will rid this bastion of the true faith of the heathen progeny of Luther and Calvin, until the mantle of mother church covers this blessed isle once more"

-PIRA press release

HAIL MARY!

>Serious question, what is Irish identity
Good question. Irish identity is the national identity belonging to the Island of Ireland and the people who live there. Irish identity, like most nations, is generally based on three factors. Civic values, cultural heritage and geographic origin.

>Civic values
Ireland was heavily influenced by the ideals of the French and American revolutions and that still stands to day. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity are deeply entrenched in our political morality. So far I've never been to a country that takes egalitarianism as seriously, bar maybe Australia. Formalism, class sensibilities and authority are held in contempt here by the vast majority of people. In it's uglier manifestations this leads to an unhealthy dose of "tall poppy" syndrome.

Republicanism, anti-monarchism and anti-imperialism is a huge defining factor of our political atmosphere, and this rather than ethnicity or religion is the main line of separation between the Irish and British "tribes" in Ireland. Self-determination will almost always have the support of Irish people and there is huge sympathy for Catalonia, Scotland, Basqueland, Brittany, Palestine, Tibet, and so on. The major exceptions to this, in my experience, are Kosovo and Russian minorities in the Baltics, which are often seen as artificial and imperialist.

Nationalism is not a dirty word here like it is in Germany or the UK. In fact it is expected, both of native Irishmen and immigrants. Nationalism in Ireland also tends to be inclusive and non-aggressive. Perhaps this is because Irish nationalism is based on ideology rather than Identity politics.

>cultural heritage
The culture and background of the Gaelic Irish, Anglo-Irish, Ulster-Scots, Irish traveller and the borderline defunct Old English (Norman descent) ethnicities. Irish identity usually claims Hiberno-Norse and, Neolithic and other aspects of the history of Ireland too.

>Geographic
The Island of Ireland. Speaks for itself

Maybe if you didn't occupy our country, you wouldn't have to deal with people not liking you there?

Why are you lying on the internet?

>If it wasn't for the IRA terrorizing the North during the Troubles (especially in Belfast), then it would be no problem
Yeah, Catholics should've just stayed as second-class citizens!

>their own national identity
Even in the heart of the Troubles, Paisley's Vanguard only had 12% of the vote that supported becoming independent (to stop the Brits from forcing Unionists to give equal rights to Catholics).

>I actually wouldn't mind re-integrating the Republic of Ireland back into the UK
That would never happen. We had HUGE bitch fits from politicians and activist groups just because a couple British politicians said they'd be open to us joining the Commonwealth.

The Union was absolutely horrid for Ireland and the Irish, there's simply no way we're going back. The British might not hate us today, but you never know what tomorrow brings, and giving Westminster judicial and legislative control makes absolutely no sense.

...

>english people having opinions on northern ireland

>Don't hold many ill feelings towards Catholics other than those ones that love the IRA etc.

I'm not racist against Black people, I just hate Nigerians!

>>The British pound (which is always in fluctuation) is presently slightly stronger than the Euro (which is in perpetual fluctuation as well). Therefore reunification will reduce Northern Ireland to the economic third-world status it already is.
You know we're export-led economies, right? The only way to generate wealth is by having a weaker currency and increasing exports.

You're a retard. "muh strong currency for a strong nation"

>To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country—these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissentions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in the place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter—these were my means.
>To unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter under the common name of Irishmen in order break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, that was my aim'.
>If the men of property will not support us, they must fall. Our strength shall come from that great and respectable class, the men of no property.

>If it wasn't for the IRA unification may have happened by now on it's own, but their horrid campaign has meant that opinions are that divided it's unlikely to happen in our lifetime.
Daily reminder that the UVF started the troubles, loyalists killed the most civilians in absolute numbers and that both loyalists and british security forces killed more civilians as a proportion of their victims.

Source.

>Source.
His arse. In fairness it's decent banter

>I just don't get it why it matters, I feel the same about the Scot too
There are huge differences underneath. Just speaking the same language doesn't mean you're the same, just as there are differences between Australians and Canadians. Irish culture is more exaggerated than the differences between Oz/Can because we still have a quasi-Gaelic culture (preferring personal independence to State control, playing Gaelic sports, speaking a Gaelic language [which many do speak, regardless of the memes], celebrating our history).

Just speaking the same language doesn't make you the same, there are quite stark cultural differences (even the -way- we speak English is different to the Brits, the sentences structure was heavily influence by Irish [for example: you'd never say "I'm only after having a cup of tea" in English, but it's quite common in "Irish-English" because it was how you formed the sentence in Irish]).

There's superficial similarities, but scratch a little deeper, and we're not that similar.

This. The Ulster Volunteers were a terrorist group that wanted to circumvent Home Rule because they were butthurt assholes who knew their days of supremacy were numbered.

Though to be fair, there were isolated incidents of violence and murder against Protestants in the south like the Dunmanway killings.