85 years ago. Today, Protestants are a bare majority in the total population -- while Catholics are a clear majority in the underage population, pointing to the future of the balance shifting. (In my understanding, this is the elephant in the kitchen of Northern Ireland politics: Sinn Fein can count on time and no longer needs violence, the Protestants have to bargain a good deal while they are still a majority.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The professor who I was closest to in my undergraduate wrote some articles on green poltics with a professor from Belfast who was also ran as a candidate for the Green Party in Belfast. Though orginally from Dublin, because of UK law about citizens of Commonwealth states, he can run.
Needless to say a Catholic green from Belfast who rejected nationalism, and argued for a new arrangement of the British Isles. IONA, Island of the North Atlantic to replace the traditional ids was no popular with Sinn Fein.
One of the things that I found interesting is that he made a point that Protestant communities in Belfast are at a greater disadvatange in terms of social capital than the the Catholic communities are in many ways.
And he made a point of mentioning something that is rarely discussed, the dissappering Protestants of the Irish Republic. It's something that needs to be discussed, but isn't because it's embarassing to the Irish. That a people who experienced so much discrimination of their own would turn around and do the same thing once the balance of power shifted. That's the lesson, whether it's Palestine, or Dublin.
There's an largely unwritten history of the type of things that I've mentioned in the Republic of Ireland. And there have also been several acts of violence in Scotland and Wales against the home of "white settlers", English famililes who came to those areas. Thus, I think that with the past and present showing discrimination and violence to be a possbility to deny the possiblity is a form of revisionism.
The future is not written, but the where you've been and where you are is a good indication of where you're going. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
I don't think that the Northern Ireland Protestants could stand on their own. The need the British government. If the consituent nations of the United Kingdom were allowed to devolve to Commonwealth status, Northern Ireland would fall to the IRA. And you'd have tribal warfare in Europe.
The Commonwealth parth was the legal fiction that lead to the independence of the Republic of Ireland. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
And you'd have tribal warfare in Europe.
Huh? As a consequence of your island infighting? No.
As I think has been made clear by the various local expertise, most of the yearnings for independency you found in wikipedia are jokes, extremely weak or non-existent. Exceptions are UK, Spain and Belgium (and possibly Cyprus depending on how you count).
And the EU makes it possibly a worse idea to start independent states as they do not automatically become members.
But your diary was a very good startingpoint for interesting discussions. So congratulations. And thanks. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
I figured you meant "in Europe" as on the european mainland, and that was what I answered. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
I was thinking of only in Northern Ireland.
I'm saying that the situation in Northern Ireland is fragile, and the the Protestant majority is waning.
Another thing about Belfast is that the only thing that the Protestants and Catholics can seem to agree upon is that they both don't care for the Asian minorities there.
Fucking charming isn't it. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Could you expand on this? It is one thing the British goverment keeps the Catholic areas in check for them. It is a wholly different matter whether they could control their own areas. You are claiming that the IRA is (or more correctly: will be) much much stronger than them. Frankly I don't see that. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I think that the IRA has more guns and money than the Unionists. And I think that in terms of hard core militants the IRA can call a larger force out than the Unionists. This is why disarmenment is important and the Unionists refuse peace until the IRA turns over all arms. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
I can't remember what the DUP are looking for at the moment. Hold on . ... ah yes, the current stumbling block is Sinn Fein properly recognising the police force, the PSNI. That's what it's down to now: arguing over who recognises and sits on the policing board.
I think you're living in a fantasy land.
Without photographic evidence there's still a lot of suspicion that the IRA arms were never destroyed for this reason.
I don't much care for the condescending tone Colman. If you have a countering view, back it up with some links, because I think that despite the statements dissident factions within the IRA will never back down. And the Unionists.
It's not like an armed Unionist killer stormed into the Northern Irish Assembly with a plan to kill Sinn Fein leaders.
Oh wait, that did happen last week.
You're living in a fantast land if you don't understand the the nationalist tensions in Northern Ireland have been swept under the rug. A growing minority rejects both sides, but so long as an armed man with plans to kill their opposition is able to gather the weapons they need to make a go of it Northern Ireland isn't stable. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Do those factions control all the weapons? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
DoDo, even supposing the IRA and the Unionists disarm, does that make a difference if organized struggle within those factions ends, but numerous individuals are willing to take independent action, like what happened last week?
Once you gone to where Northern Ireland is now, it's hard to put all the anger and resentment, and the desire to harm back in the bottle. You have a generation who only know what life is like when politics becomes a matter of arms. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
It sure does, which doesn't mean I will predict one definite course for events to follow. Such breakaways could (a) grow just as strong as the original groups, (b) stay causers of isolated actions and falter for lack of networking, (c) go way out of sync with the majority of 'their side' and fail even if managing ever more spectacular action. (For the last, see Real IRA or the German Rote Armee Fraktion.)
For the (a) scenario, I'd guess the Protestants are more of a concern, not because of that mad gunman, but the potential from the masses of idiots like the Orangemen. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Part of the decline of Irish protestants is down to the ethnic cleansing - much of it seems to have been voluntary in a "I'm not living in a country run by Papists" sort of way - on both sides of the border in the '20s, intermarriage and the subsequent raising of children as Catholics, emigration along with everyone else and a much lower birth rate through most of the 20th C.
The discrimination issue is difficult: the Republic of Ireland was a nasty unpleasant little place until at least the '60s under the thumb of a Catholic church that ruled both in the education system and in the health system. A Protestant teacher or doctor would certainly have encountered problems outside of Protestant run hospitals and schools. Other than that, I'm not sure how much trouble they would have had. Less than Catholics in the North I think: don't forget that the recent Troubles started off as a Catholic civil rights movement that drew violence from the Protestant majority. British troops first entered the North to protect Catholics. It sort of went downhill from there ...
As far as I can make out, the Republic has now normalised itself to the point where it's only as unpleasant as the average country.
Ireland isn't part of the Commonwealth.
1922-1937 The Irisj Free State was part of the Commonwealth.
The discrimination issue is difficult, but it did happen.
And as I'm sure you won't deny, in Scotland where this discussion all started out, the SNP does play on the economic resentment of Scots to English economic influence.
And if the SNP nationalized that oil, Scotland would have enormous wealth.
This is the origin of the slogan, It's Scotland's Oil.
I suspect this is the reason for US interested in the Scottish question.
And after the oil, there's the issue Izzy brings up of land ownership. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
