A United Ireland. Opening up the discussion.

[RedHand88]

I married a lass who was from the protestant tradition. We were walking round the town I grew up in one night. The local orange Lodge were putting up their arch, as they do each summer. One of them recognised her and asked what was she doing with a fenian. He then spat in her face.

Nice.

[Angelo]

Just for clarification, Sid and I posted on a different forum for years back.

We agreed on a lot of things back then so I do know his views now are completely at odds. I know what he is saying now is both vindictive and emotional at his personal opinion with the current actions of SF. He's entitled to criticise the party but when he engages in revisionism of The Troubles is another things.

Here are some of his former viewpoints. The Troubles ended in 1998 yet Sidney was a supporter of the Provisional IRA campaign until about 3 or 4 years ago.

















So when people engage in his crazy revisionism of The Troubles and the context around they should be fully knowledgeable that they come from an emotional and embittered place, that he in fact doesn't even believe those views himself. It's political point scoring over a conflict he had no personal experience of.

[sid waddell]

No point trying to talk logic and reason to Sid. You can try to explain to him all day about why many ordinary people, living through extraordinary times, felt the IRA campaign was justified. I tried before to have that adult conversation with him and to explain why I felt it was justified. He ignored everything I said and accused me of supporting it because I'm "into dead children" and because I like to see "children blown up". In fact, his "into dead children" bit was his first engagement with me after I offered him my condolences and prayers on the loss of his father.

That's the mentality of who you're trying to engage with. A sick f**k who repeatedly envokes the concept of child suffering and death to attack others on a discussion board. He even recently randomly claimed that another poster accused him of "child rape" ffs. Do not waste your time or energy with that sort of individual.

Personally I think it's long past time for a banning for Snapchap

He makes no effort at all at reasonable discussion and just personally abuses me while inverting reality to claim he is a victim

Like seriously, what sort of person tries to airbrush the suffering of children from history

Inflicting suffering and death on children was an integral part of the PIRA campaign

He uses the words "sick f**k", apparently with zero sense of irony or self awareness

Goebbels couldn't have done any better than that

It's frustrating when a poster behaves in this ultra-narcissistic manner

[Rossfan]

https://www.thejournal.ie/explainer-shared-island-unit-5375878-Mar2021/?jrnl_lg=1

[Snapchap]

Personally I think it's long past time for a banning for Snapchap

He makes no effort at all at reasonable discussion

You accused me of being into dead children.

[Snapchap]

https://www.thejournal.ie/explainer-shared-island-unit-5375878-Mar2021/?jrnl_lg=1

To quote political commentator, Brian Feeney (former SDLP Cllr, co-author of 'Lost Lives'):

"It's true that Unionists usually only support the parts of laws they like, but in this case the GFA is an international agreement carrying legally binding requirements on the UK and the Republic. Demanding a referendum is a right, not wishful thinking.

That's why it's astonishing that Taoiseach Micheál Martin remains silent on all these matters. The last time he addressed the question he banished talk of a referendum for five years, that is the length of this Irish government if it lasts that long. Instead, in an obvious ploy, he substituted a meaningless 'shared island unit' comprising four civil servants which turns out to be even less than a talking shop already rejected by Unionists. His plan was transparently to counteract Sinn Féin's demand for a Border Poll. The result rather has been that Fianna Fáil has walked off the pitch and left it to SF.

The lifetime of the 'shared island unit' is coterminous with Martin's time as taoiseach which will turn out to be two wasted years on the constitutional scene with FF, allegedly 'the republican party', left flat footed and silent as you'd expect Fine Gael to be. Events and thinking are moving fast, but thanks to Martin's pathological terror of Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil is being buffeted in the slipstream. With senior Unionists talking of the need to prepare for a Border Poll and English politicians talking about the need for UK constitutional change, it's a disgrace the Irish government hasn't a word to say.

What hypocrisy for Irish politicians to remind the UK it's a joint guarantor of the GFA when Irish governments sing dumb on a central component of the same GFA. Still, to an extent there's consistency. No Irish government has given a second's thought to any practical means of advancing what should be their constitutional imperative, uniting the country.

What is different is that Micheál Martin and the DUP leader are united in refusing to discuss a referendum."

[Rossfan]

The Irish Government's prime Constitutional imperative and what they are elected for is to run the State.
The Good Friday Agreement sets out the criteria for holding a "Border poll" which unfortunately is in the gift of the Brit Secretary of state.
That however is what a large majority of the Irish people voted for in 1998.

[sid waddell]

Personally I think it's long past time for a banning for Snapchap

He makes no effort at all at reasonable discussion

You accused me of being into dead children.

You openly support and justify a decades long terrorist campaign which slaughtered children

Therefore it's 100% fair comment

May I remind you that you call me "sick f**k", "sub human", and many more

Based on nothing

[dublin7]

The Irish Government's prime Constitutional imperative and what they are elected for is to run the State.
The Good Friday Agreement sets out the criteria for holding a "Border poll" which unfortunately is in the gift of the Brit Secretary of state.
That however is what a large majority of the Irish people voted for in 1998.

People in the south are constantly being told we don't know what it's like living up in the North. You now want people in the south to call for a border poll on how the people in the north should live. It's up to the UK government/NI assembly to call for a vote on remaining as part of the UK. With SF/DUP as divided as they've ever been I don't see a border poll being called anytime soon and there's certainly no pressure being put on the Irish government by anyone in the south to look for one

[Louther]

On SF and united Ireland. Heard Matt Carthy on radio last week or prior to that. They discussing the protocol and it was put to him that the difficulties that will lie ahead convincing loyalists to accept a referendum if the vote is marginal with only a % say in it. If they can't accept the protocol, how will they accept something so much bigger.

I found his response telling and that could lead to issues in any referendum. Firstly he stated that any margin win has to be accepted and is in the GFA as been accepted.

Then he said that a new Ireland has to be projected for the referendum and that it's not merely a case of the 6 joining the 26 as a 32 county republic. He said a new Ireland has to be set out and lots of changes will be required and he referred to a New Ireland again.

Obviously we are a long way off yet but will take lot to identify what this New Ireland is and when it laid out in black & white it may not be as easy a sell in the 26 as some may think.

Ireland is very fractured politically. We've now it appears 3 main powers who may not form a government even as a pair. Smaller parties and independents hold so many seats. The government that has to make the vision of this new Ireland will have plenty of opposition at the time before they even head north to reach some consensus on it up their. We've seen the SF north differs from SF south and I very much doubt if the unionist parties will even engage on any potential structure of when a United ireland will look like.

[Snapchap]

The Irish Government's prime Constitutional imperative and what they are elected for is to run the State.
The Good Friday Agreement sets out the criteria for holding a "Border poll" which unfortunately is in the gift of the Brit Secretary of state.
That however is what a large majority of the Irish people voted for in 1998.

People in the south are constantly being told we don't know what it's like living up in the North. You now want people in the south to call for a border poll on how the people in the north should live. It's up to the UK government/NI assembly to call for a vote on remaining as part of the UK. With SF/DUP as divided as they've ever been I don't see a border poll being called anytime soon and there's certainly no pressure being put on the Irish government by anyone in the south to look for one

There is a general consensus across the board in the north and in London that a border poll will happen in the relatively near future. Would you say that FFG Governments are being responsible by refusing to even discuss the possibility of such a poll, let alone plan for a potential positive outcome?

[Applesisapples]

Christ Almighty. The vast majority of nationalist envy the South for having freedom and independence. there are however a few tools spoiling for a fight. it is true that some in the Republic view the North as a foreign country, possibly a sizeable few but I'd say that given the right circumstances and that is a two way street, unity would be no issue. Bating our Southern brothers and constance reference to the Freestate does not help.

And what does the esablishment figureheads of the 26 consistently playing political games with victims of the troubles achieve?

Northern nationalists have been treated with contempt from the southern counterparts for decades, we shouldn't be afraid to call it out for what it is.

By some but not all, and don't judge all politicians by Micheál Martin or Leo.

[Applesisapples]

Anybody who thinks the War of Independence and the PIRA campaign are morally equivalent is an idiot

Ok Sid, a number of British soldiers are ambushed by the IRA in their fight against British rule. They unmercifully emptied their magazines into these young men, brutally executed by the side of the road in cold blood.

I'm not telling you what county it happened in or what year.

Morally justified or not?

You're resorting to crude reductionism in an attempt to justify a 28 campaign of futile murder

Horrible things happen in all conflicts - but that's not how we judge them in the round

A plausible, arguable moral case can be made for the War of Independence because it was short, sharp, had a clear strategy was and successful - it got most of what the people waging that war wanted

The PIRA never had any hope of getting anything they wanted - and they didn't

They just kept on murdering for 28 years, murdering in a vacuum, like ISIS

And they sacrificed their own for no reason

The deaths of the hunger strikers, for instance, were totally futile

Now, what's the difference between Omagh and Enniskillen or Warrington?

The answer is nothing

To my knowledge, nobody here supports the Real IRA or justifies what they did at Omagh

Yet they justify the PIRA's 28 year campaign of murder

That's remarkable cognitive dissonance

Incidentally, Bernadette Sands McKevitt, the wife of Michael McKevitt, the Omagh bomber, was the sister of Bobby Sands

So if anybody had a handle on the true mindset of Bobby Sands and what he truly believed, it was her

The SF/PIRA movement as a whole moved away from the ideology of Bobby Sands and the hunger strikers when they decided to surrender - I suppose you could say they did the dirt on Sands and people like Brendan Hughes

I'm glad they did that - because peace followed from it - but it's pretty unarguable that the likes of McKevitt and his wife were the true believers and stayed true to the ideology

SF and the vast majority of the PIRA who abided by the ceasefire abandoned their ideology

So what was it all for?

Nothing

Utter hypocrisy

[JPGJOHNNYG]

On SF and united Ireland. Heard Matt Carthy on radio last week or prior to that. They discussing the protocol and it was put to him that the difficulties that will lie ahead convincing loyalists to accept a referendum if the vote is marginal with only a % say in it. If they can't accept the protocol, how will they accept something so much bigger.

I found his response telling and that could lead to issues in any referendum. Firstly he stated that any margin win has to be accepted and is in the GFA as been accepted.

Then he said that a new Ireland has to be projected for the referendum and that it's not merely a case of the 6 joining the 26 as a 32 county republic. He said a new Ireland has to be set out and lots of changes will be required and he referred to a New Ireland again.

Obviously we are a long way off yet but will take lot to identify what this New Ireland is and when it laid out in black & white it may not be as easy a sell in the 26 as some may think.

Ireland is very fractured politically. We've now it appears 3 main powers who may not form a government even as a pair. Smaller parties and independents hold so many seats. The government that has to make the vision of this new Ireland will have plenty of opposition at the time before they even head north to reach some consensus on it up their. We've seen the SF north differs from SF south and I very much doubt if the unionist parties will even engage on any potential structure of when a United ireland will look like.

Lose a referendum and what are their alternative?

1.Re-partition
2. Take up arms
3. Mass emmigration

1 and 2 will go nowhere as for 3, I hope most have the wit to stay and make things work and not leave with Arlene

[sid waddell]

Strangely enough, in a hypothetical unification referendum in the Republic, I expect that there would actually be some push back against unification from some people who vote Sinn Fein

The sort who is a habitual protest voter, terminally cynical about everything, who hates politics and politicians, who has a propensity to believe in conspiracies and all that

Some of them would vote against unification just to spite the Fine Gaelers and Fianna Failers who would be advocating it

The form of any putative united Ireland to be voted on would also be an issue

In the Australian Republic referendum of 1999, a split in the Republican camp - with some of them demanding a greater purity of Republicanism than what was on offer, led to the monarchists winning