How long before Irish reunification?

eagle eye

Ulster Says No. It will never happen

munsterlegend wrote:

The Alliance get a lot of tactical votes from both nationalists and unionists. I doubt it indicates any support for an independent Ulster.

Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal are part of Ulster. I'm talking about Northern Ireland.
I'd like to see polls done to see if there is interest which I suspect there is.

addaword

jm08 wrote: »

How can someone who refuses to eat food and dies be a terrorist for doing that?

They were terrorists for planting bombs and killing people.That is why they were in jail. People who break the law and shoot and kill and bomb as part of an illegal organisation are called terrorists, no matter whose side they are on.

downcow

munsterlegend wrote: »

There was very little Ira activity initially in the north. However due to a sectarian govt and police force eventually dismantled by Westminster and the killing of innocent people by British forces and subsequent cover up it grew into the organisation it did. I doubt the Dublin govt will make similar disastrous choices.

Another debate we had already when a poster tried to tell me that the ira did not carry out sectarian attacks on Protestant premises and homes prior to internment Which I evidenced as nonsense

RobMc59

10-15 years

jm08 wrote: »

How can someone who refuses to eat food and dies be a terrorist for doing that?


Yes, I do admire them. Take Terence MacSwiney for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_MacSwiney


Do you think he was a terrorist?

No,he wasn't a terrorist but Bobby Sands was.

jm08

20-30 years

eagle eye wrote: »

Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal are part of Ulster. I'm talking about Northern Ireland.
I'd like to see polls done to see if there is interest which I suspect there is.

Most of the support probably comes from the NI Football team supporters, who lets face it wouldn't have a clue about how NI would finance itself.


If you think an independent NI is viable, why do you think that a UI isn't viable because of the need for a subvention.


Who do you think would provide this Independent NI with the necessary funds to survive as an independenet state?


Bearing in mind that unionists claim that they fear being treated badly in a UI, why would they not fear being treated as a minority in an Independent NI which is likely to happen in the next couple of years that they will be a minority?

downcow

eagle eye wrote: »

About IRA prisoners rights? Isn't that what it was over?

Spot on. One of the issues was that the sausage rolls were not long enough.
It certainly had nothing to do with a ‘free ireland’

downcow

jm08 wrote: »

Their listed grivences:

1. the right not to wear a prison uniform;
2. the right not to do prison work;
3. the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;
4. the right to one visit, one letter, and one parcel per week;
5. full restoration of remission lost through the protest

But it was mainly to get international attention which they succeeded in doing by staggering the hunger strikes which went on for months. The Iranians named the street in Tehran that the British Embassy was on after him!

I knew the list was embarrassing but that has still shocked me again that that is what 10 men died for.
And I think you should be further embarrassed by the Iranian support

munsterlegend

downcow wrote: »

Another debate we had already when a poster tried to tell me that the ira did not carry out sectarian attacks on Protestant premises and homes prior to internment Which I evidenced as nonsense

I said there was very little activity. The sectarian orange state and police together with British inaction and murder turned the north into a powderkeg. The PIRA didn’t just appear out of thin air.

FrancieBrady

From the CAIN website, what the Hunger Strikes achieved and led to - The Anglo Irish Agreement, the effective end of the Unionist Veto and the paving of the way to the GFA.
When Maggie Thatcher (who Jim Molyneaux had claimed a special relationship with) signed the AIA and effectively cut the legs from under Molyneaux it was a watershed for nationalists and as Jim would eventually remark about the road they were now on, it was 'The worst thing that ever happened Unionism'.

A little bit more achieved than longer sausage rolls.

CAIN wrote:

The hunger strike of 1981 had very important and far-reaching consequences for Northern Ireland and proved to be one of the key turning points of 'the Troubles'. The Republican movement had achieved a huge propaganda victory over the British government and had obtained a lot of international sympathy. Active and tacit support for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) increased in Nationalist areas. Political support for Sinn Féin (SF) was demonstrated in two by-elections (and the general election in the Republic of Ireland) and eventually led to the emergence of SF as a significant political force in Northern Ireland. The British government's fear that SF would overtake the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) as the main representative of the Catholic population of Northern Ireland was a key reason for the government signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) on 15 November 1985.

munsterlegend

addaword wrote: »

They were terrorists for planting bombs and killing people.That is why they were in jail. People who break the law and shoot and kill and bomb as part of an illegal organisation are called terrorists, no matter whose side they are on.

The IRA in 1919 were also deemed illegal by the British ‘terrorists’.

downcow

15-20 years

downcow wrote: »

I knew the list was embarrassing but that has still shocked me again that that is what 10 men died for.
And I think you should be further embarrassed by the Iranian support

Would you not be aggrevied that the british government let people strave to death for what were relatively modest compromises??


Theres a street in auckland named after patsy ohara iirc

jm08

20-30 years

RobMc59 wrote: »

No,he wasn't a terrorist but Bobby Sands was.

Why was he a terrorist? His charge was possession of a weapon. 14 years for possession of a revolver!

RobMc59

10-15 years

munsterlegend wrote: »

I consider British govt and army former rule in the south terrorism. What’s your view?

Ireland was united and part of the UK so your statement is wrong imo.

munsterlegend

RobMc59 wrote: »

Ireland was united and part of the UK so your statement is wrong imo.

You can’t terrorise people in your own country?

So when say a british army vehicle drove into Croke park and shot at the players and spectators playing a football match? What would you say that was Rob?

RobMc59

15-20 years

RobMc59 wrote: »

Ireland was united and part of the UK so your statement is wrong imo.

The way they carried on here was terrorism,sending their army in,to take out food

Sending black and tans to terrorise population into submission.....those people have nothing positive to offer the world,

I was reading earlier,they went to india in the 1700s it was richest country in the world,by time the british withdrew in 1947, its average life expectancy was 27

munsterlegend

15-20 years

munsterlegend wrote: »

You can’t terrorise people in your own country?

Nah....it was just fun and games on bloody sunday


That lad soldier f finished off, crawling on the ground injured,was just banter that outta hand,according to the resident unionists

RobMc59

10-15 years

jm08 wrote: »

Why was he a terrorist? His charge was possession of a weapon. 14 years for possession of a revolver!

He was involved in bombings and gun fights with the legitimate state representatives of the UK and possession of a gun is a serious crime.

jm08

20-30 years

RobMc59 wrote: »

He was involved in bombings and gun fights with the legitimate state representatives of the UK and possession of a gun is a serious crime.

Because he had no other option maybe. A small snapshot of how he became involved in the Republican movement.

He left school in 1969 at age 15, and enrolled in Newtownabbey Technical College, beginning an apprenticeship as a coach builder at Alexander's Coach Works in 1970. He worked there for less than a year, enduring constant harassment from his Protestant co-workers, which according to several co-workers he ignored completely, as he wished to learn a meaningful trade.[10] He was eventually confronted after leaving his shift in January 1971 by a number of his coworkers wearing the armbands of the local Ulster loyalist tartan gang. He was held at gunpoint and told that Alexander's was off-limits to "Fenian scum" and to never come back if he valued his life. He later said that this event was the point at which he decided that militancy was the only solution.[12][13]
In June 1972, Sands's parents' home was attacked and damaged by a loyalist mob and they were again forced to move, this time to the West Belfast Catholic area of Twinbrook, where Sands, now thoroughly embittered, rejoined them. He attended his first Provisional IRA meeting in Twinbrook that month and joined the IRA the same day. He was 18 years old. By 1973, almost every Catholic family had been driven out of Rathcoole by violence and intimidation, although there were some who remained.

jm08

15-20 years

jm08 wrote: »

Because he had no other option maybe. A small snapshot of how he became involved in the Republican movement.

Afaik he was one main proponants of having a civilian wing in sinn fein as he come to conclusion,

If a ira active in an area was arrested/killed off,it would leave area exposed to loyalist attacks and a strong presence of activists could organise defence etc in locality

Kaybaykwah

downcow wrote: »

I knew the list was embarrassing but that has still shocked me again that that is what 10 men died for.
And I think you should be further embarrassed by the Iranian support

Is that all you could find as support?

There are many street names in French cities named after Bobby Sands. There was support in many countries of Europe, i.e.: Germany, Italy, Belgium and in North America. The European Court of Human Rights also negotiated with British authorities for a solution to the hunger strikes.

FrancieBrady

RobMc59 wrote: »

He was involved in bombings and gun fights with the legitimate state representatives of the UK and possession of a gun is a serious crime.

How was it 'legitimate' when another country had a constitutional claim on it?

It was a 'legitimacy' they claimed by force.

jm08

20-30 years

RobMc59 wrote: »

He was involved in bombings and gun fights with the legitimate state representatives of the UK and possession of a gun is a serious crime.

14 years is a fairly hard sentence though for possession of a revolver. He wasn't charged with any bombings or gunfights, just possession of a revolver.



Terence MacSwiney wasn't any different.



As they say, ''One man's terrorist, is another man's freedom fighter.''

jm08

20-30 years

downcow wrote: »

I knew the list was embarrassing but that has still shocked me again that that is what 10 men died for.
And I think you should be further embarrassed by the Iranian support

It was embarrassing for the British Government because they were asking for so little. The world were shocked at British behaviour. It diminished Britain's standing in the rest of the world. Maggie's good friend Ronnie Reagan was even talking her down from her highhanded approach.


As for the Iranians, they were just using it to humiliate Britain.

FrancieBrady

jm08 wrote: »

It was embarrassing for the British Government because they were asking for so little. The world were shocked at British behaviour. It diminished Britain's standing in the rest of the world. Maggie's good friend Ronnie Reagan was even talking her down from her highhanded approach.


As for the Iranians, they were just using it to humiliate Britain.

There was absolutely nothing only a colonial mindset stopping the British delivering what was in the GFA in '39, '49, '59 or '69.

Had they done it then the Unionists would probably be sitting in a secure Union instead of fighting a rearguard action to cling on and avoid the Union they don't want.

Hamsterchops

Deleted User wrote: »

The way they carried on here was terrorism,sending their army in,to take out food

Sending black and tans to terrorise population into submission.....those people have nothing positive to offer the world,

I was reading earlier,they went to india in the 1700s it was richest country in the world,by time the british withdrew in 1947, its average life expectancy was 27

Fascinating.

You make the British out to be infinitely worse than the Nazis, too much sun on the old head dear boy

Edgware

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Would you not be aggrevied that the british government let people strave to death for what were relatively modest compromises??


Theres a street in auckland named after patsy ohara iirc

Theres a street in Dublin named after Thierry Henry

munsterlegend

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Fascinating.

You make the British out to be infinitely worse than the Nazis, too much sun on the old head dear boy

I suppose you do realise they tried and wipe out everything culturally Irish? Not too unlike the Jewish policies adopted by Hitler.

FrancieBrady

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Fascinating.

You make the British out to be infinitely worse than the Nazis, too much sun on the old head dear boy

Not worse...they did the same things though.
The distinction would probably be lost on an Irish or Indian native suffering under their colonial oppressive regimes though.

jm08

20-30 years

Hamsterchops wrote: »

Fascinating.

You make the British out to be infinitely worse than the Nazis, too much sun on the old head dear boy

4 million dead Bengalis say different and that's just one of the things that Churchill was responsible for.


https://medium.com/@write_12958/the-crimes-of-winston-churchill-c5e3ecb229b3

armaghlad

10-15 years

eagle eye wrote: »

Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal are part of Ulster. I'm talking about Northern Ireland.
I'd like to see polls done to see if there is interest which I suspect there is.

There already is a Northern Ireland independence movement and it is tiny - advocated only by far-right loyalists. There is zero appetite for it. What there is growing appetite for (against a background of EU withdrawal despite the wishes of the electorate) is a border poll. 8 pro-union MPs elected in 2019 v 9 pro-unity MPs/one neutral.