[leadmoffer]

Wow.

Now that is a thing I never thought to see.

Props to all those who have got things this far.

[Muhabsssa]

And I thought this was going to be a copycat thread...

Indeed a momentous day!

Proof that dialogue and negotiation even with people considered sworn enemies and terrorists is preferable to armed conflict...

[ingeneensueva]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Are their actually bases in Northern Ireland, and this means they are just goint to stop patroling?

Is there not any military infrustructure in NI period? From the Beeb link :

A garrison of 5,000 troops will remain but security will be entirely the responsibility of the police.

[KRbGA0Bg]

So?

[fapourfasiark]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
As the ever closer Union progresses I suspect the sovereignty issues that have caused such grief in the island will come to seem incomprehensible and absurd.

Which is what they have always been. I disagree. Ireland was under a historical and long-term occupation, and under such circumstances sovereignty issues will be inevitable, and neither incomprehensible nor absurd.

[Mister.levitra]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Do you think this would have happened without armed conflict? Do you not believe that the UK is/was a democracy? Democracies or even countries that pretend to be such generally don't need terrorist groups pushing for rights that could have been granted in non-violent ways as it only serves to retard the quest they claim to be after.

[casinobonyanes]

Yes, that summarises things well.

It is the fact that it took hundreds of years for people to decide to get on with each other rather than constantly to re-open ancient wounds that makes me think the issues were silly ones.

In any place under the sun people have found ways to get themselves mixed together. And there will be reasons why some can then claim to be dispossessed by others.

Finding ways to co-operate pays off, resting on rights rooted in the past doesn't.

Anyway, as a Brit living in England I am mighty glad the Irish are looking to bury the hatchet. And I give some of the credit to the Union. It was founded with the intent of reducing the reasons for war between nation states in Europe and if it turns out, as I think is happening in Ireland, to reduce the sort of nationalist passions felt in N. Ireland or the Basque country or Brittany or wherever then that is all to the good.

[intisgunkas]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
The catholic minority were oppressed in N. Ireland when I was a boy. Time out. Oppressed? I'm going to disagree with you here.
The Protestants were desperate not to be overrun and thrown out of their church by the larger southern contingent of Catholics.

[AngegepeM]

The Catholics were contained. Why were they contained? British troops.
Irish Catholics could have always gone home.

[LillyPlay]

Think of it, it just makes sense. Pull the troops out, THEN nuke.

[Theariwinna]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Do you not believe that the UK is/was a democracy? Democracies or even countries that pretend to be such generally don't need terrorist groups pushing for rights that could have been granted in non-violent ways as it only serves to retard the quest they claim to be after. Cuz the U.S. gave civil rights to Blacks peacefully. It's not in the nature of settler states to give power to minorities without a struggle. The Irish did try to have a civil rights movement based on the practices of Gandhi and MLK. Then the British troops massacred them.

[tgs]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


They were home. Evidently not.

[sallythetolly]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Cuz the U.S. gave civil rights to Blacks peacefully. I wasn't aware that they achieved them through the efforts of a terrorist group. Perhaps you could name the one that deserves the credit?

[tropicana]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Evidently not. If anyone was to go home, it would not be the Irish Catholics, whose ancestors had always lived there, but the British Protestants planted there to create a pro-British contingent.

[DoniandaCoado]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Are you really that stupid, Slowwhand? The Irish are natives of Ireland. The Nothern Irish are Scottish settlers from the time of William of Orange's conquest of Great Britain and Ireland from James II. Hence their name, Orangemen. Quibble (but not a small one) - IIUC there were Protestants/Scots Irish living in two counties well before the battle of the Boyne, or even Cromwell. In fact there had been extensive contact between Scotland and at least parts of Ulster going back to before the Reformation, and accompanying settlement.

Oh, and of course many of the post Boyne settlers were English, or came from areas along the Scottish-English border where the distinction wasnt always clear, and where "border"culture overlapped the frontier.

[2swasseneons]

Originally posted by Patroklos
So? You seem to be confusing the troops leaving with the end of British rule.

[wepoiyub]

What can it possibly matter when or in what circumstances the ancester of someone in N. Ireland arrived there?

If it did, the implication, I suppose, is that the person whose ancesters lived there the longer enjoys some right or privilege over the person whose ancesters moved there more recently.

But that is an assertion that no-one (except nutters like the UK's National Front or the Klu Klux Klan) makes.

Clearly, however, the people of N. Ireland spent a long time thinking that things like this did matter. If we have some N.Irish Polytubbies I'd be interested to hear what the importance actually is.

But I have no interest in hearing about how it is important enough to kill and maim for. That was just nutty.

[Lån-Penge]

I can't speak for people in N.Ireland but it would be surprising if in the short to medium term the resistance to union with Ireland on the part of the N.Ireland protestants lessened.

Meanwhile the attitude in the rest of the UK is indifference save that I doubt that any union would be agreed if that was something clearly opposed by the N.Irish protestants.

I understand that demographically catholics are heading towards becoming a majority in N.Ireland but I doubt that will change anything.

In the longer term it it appears that desire for a measure of (peacefully achieved) regional autonomy (the Basques or Catalans or Scottish for example) grows within the European Union rather than diminishing which suggests that N.Ireland may finish up retaining a regional autonomy but from London as well as from Dublin. If that is something the N.Irish catholics come to want it will be rather ironic.

I don't know what the attitude of Ireland is. They are, I think, too busy trying to catch their infrastructure up to the boom in agriculture, house building and immigration which their recently acquired prosperity brought with it, to worry about such matters.