Should Donegal join Northern Ireland?

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000714#Comment_118000714

Irish.

Mr.Nice Guy

This is obviously not a serious question. The only underground appetite for this would be in the orange lodges of the county. Donegal isn't going anywhere.

Also the NHS is already on the brink in NI just dealing with 6 counties. Type 'Northern Ireland health crisis' into Google and you'll get plenty of info on it.

techman1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000161#Comment_118000161

yea East Germany was poor with low expectations however NI is rich and they have high expectations, they want their standard of living to continue, the Brits have proved they can do it we can't, our track record is not great , we had one of the worst collapses after the financial crash and now we have the highest per capita national debt in Europe after borrowing so much for the financial crash and now the Covid lockdowns

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000607#Comment_118000607

Jim Allister’s parents were county Monaghan Protestants, had they stayed in Monaghan do you think aul Jim would have been any less unionist in his heart.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000161#Comment_118000161

Yeah, only the part that's west of the Bann is like communist East Germany.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000161#Comment_118000161

Very true, the East Germany / West Germany comparison isn't valid anymore.

The North / South GDP per capita comparison is more like North Korea / South Korea now.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000018#Comment_118000018

"requires massive subsidies from Westminster to keep afloat"

any good articles that go through this?

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118002957#Comment_118002957

Not that I know of. I've encountered multiple figures. This Irish Times piece puts it at just shy of ten billion per annum.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118002957#Comment_118002957

The Allocated Expenditure is where the "Devils is in the detail" is on any reunification costs. For example Ireland spends a much lower % of GDP on defence than the UK so there's probably a billion pounds to be saved on that item alone. After independence the UK continued to pay state employees pensions because those people had paid tax to the UK.

So reunification cost of between £5.7 - £11.3Bn depending on how the horse trading would go. There'd also be EU assistance and Foreign Direct Investment which should reduce unemployment so what the actual cost would be year one or year five would need much crystal ball gazing.

https://sluggerotoole.com/2018/07/22/would-a-united-ireland-be-affordable/

Sam Russell

I have tried to get figures on NI finances or trade with little hard results. It can only be deliberate that these figures are not available, or just too complicated to unravel. For example, how much of Trident and defence in general is attributed to NI?

Trade between GB and NI is not straight forward, since imports into GB from, say, the EU and then exported to NI are counted as GB>NI trade, but could just as easily be imported in Ireland and then exported to NI and would then appear as Ireland>NI trade. Much of imports from GB into Ireland were such trades, but the imposition of (Brexit) tariffs has eliminated some of this trade with more to come as supply channels adjust.

It is the same with state finances in NI. How much is a direct cost to the NI finances, and how much is just an allocation. For example, M&S (and many other companies) supply NI and make profits but pay their corporation tax in GB, and probably much of their VAT, and some employee taxes.

It is too complicated to unravel without access to the secret figures hidden in the UK Treasury.

It's a great idea, it should tip the balance in any future Unified Ireland referendum up here. Get it done. While we're at it, can we have Sligo too ? No need to bother with Cavan or Monaghan though, thanks all the same.

retalivity

Screw joining NI, would much rather go the Goats Don't Shave route and become a wet, grey Monaco.

Snickers Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000607#Comment_118000607

That's all you know. Donegal is full of Jaffas!

There has always been (Covid lockdowns excepted) an Orange 12th July parade in Rossnowlagh, the only one regularly to take place in the Republic. Much of the hinterland of Derry is in Donegal, Inishowen especially. One famous person whose family home was in Moville (in Donegal but just down the road from Derry) was Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery. He may have chosen Molly Malone as one of his Desert Island Discs (this is actually true!) but he was no Irish nationalist.

There are sizable Protestant communities in Donegal within reach of Derry, although it is fair to say that many have gradually seeped over the Foyle to the East Bank in recent decades.

Having said which: I doubt there is any appetite for annexation by NI from either side of the divide.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118009003#Comment_118009003

That would be between £5.7 bn and £11.3 bn a year. We are not building the DART Underground for 30 years because it costs around €10 bn in total.

So we could definitely afford unification, not.

Luttrell1975

You know, when I think of it a population of 160 thousand of whom 130 thou are nationalist would tip the north over the point where it needs the big border poll.

I've just had a brilliant idea. Rather than Donegal Joining NI, How about NI joins the rest of Ireland. I wonder why nobody ever thought about that before.

AMKC

If the UK Government's and Westminister politicians were anyway clever instead of leaving the EU they would have lobbied for Europe to help us Ireland that is to take back the 6 Counties that they obviously do not want and the would have paid and gave the Unionists and protestants that want to stay in the UK a big house and some land in the UK mainland to keep them happy. Yes that might cost them a bit but it would still be a lot cheaper than them constantly having to fund Northern Ireland.

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118584678#Comment_118584678

Immigrant loving England taking in 1m+ of their 'brethren' and giving them all houses and land? What could possibly go wrong??

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118585842#Comment_118585842

Are you sure it's 1 million Unionists and protestants out of a population of 1.885million?

Sure wouldn't they only be delighted to welcome there brethren back home lol.

Some could go to Scotland some to England and some to Wales. So roughly 333.3thosand to each country.

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118585857#Comment_118585857

Maybe closer to 800k, if the percentage is under 50%, and that's if they all wanted to leave. I'd guess the 'hard' unionist base is around 20% of the population, maybe even less. Could sell it to the English as a reverse plantation, here's who can come in and do all the minimum wage jobs like picking vegetables, cleaners and drivers, now they've kicked everyone else post-Brexit!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118585857#Comment_118585857

Scotland has a stagnant population... could do with the influx... and better still

"Jocks are coming home, they're coming home'.

'Red hand on a shirt

Bigotry still intact

Four hundred years of hurt

Never stopped me drumming'

You know it makes sense😁

pixelburp

Unionism isn't some desire to live in England, kind of hard to take a debate in good faith if it's based on a fallacy that those up north yearn not to be Irish. It's a complex identity, this is their home. They're as Irish as anyone else on this island, and whatever shape a UI takes it'd have to be mindful of that heritage. No more than an independent Scotland would have to square away its own Scots who share an identity with the UK as a whole.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118585929#Comment_118585929

Hard to take this post seriously when some 'up North' would likely express quite forcibly they are no way Irish.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118586182#Comment_118586182

And do you think this is the majority? Treating unionism as a monolith, with the DUP extremist position as the centre, is exactly the kind of divisive, exclusionist principle that'll only hurt the UI movement, not help it. Unionists don't yearn to live in England, TBH it shouldn't even need saying. I don't have an easy answer to brining unionists into a UI, but going "to hell or to England" isn't it.

BorneTobyWilde

Everyone knows it's the youth that makes the difference, the only way NI will be part of Ireland is if the 30% of those in NI who identify as Irish multiple like rabbits, and win that race through numbers.It's a thing in the US this, Republicans have far more kids than Democrats, it's a simple numbers game.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118584678#Comment_118584678

Ah yes, the ethnic cleansing/displacement issue raises it's head again, every few months we get somebody proposing a scheme like this.

Northern Ireland is home to these people, this is where they have grown up, lived, worked, brought up their children. Why should they have to give this up and move to England to retain their identity?

Quitelife

Looking at recent NI elections there would be a stronger case for Derry City ( Foyle Constituency ) which has 82% nationalist voters to be become part of Republic Of Ireland than Donegal going anywhere.

Whilst your at it you also close by have West Tyrone 61% Nationalist and Mid Ulster 60% Nationalist which would be more at home in ROI. Equally over the other side of the province South Down 64% Nationalist and Newry& Armagh 62% Nationalist should also be in the south .

The Unionist Vote in those 5 constituencies is only 12% in Foyle , 28% in West Tyrone, 30% in Mid Ulster, 22% in South Down and 30% in Newry & Armagh .

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118634200#Comment_118634200

Re-partition has been floated by Unionists on multiple occasions to keep an easy majority in the remainder. Much of which they would have willingly divested had minimal infrastructural investment so wouldn't have been missed.

"assisted resettlement", or ethnic cleansing by a cuddly name, was also on the cards if this worked - to help Unionists move East of the Bann and effectively force Nationalists the other direction. Sammy Wilson was a notable proponent of these plans.

There's a citation on a wiki article to an actual book claiming to have early 80s polling figures on it, and it was a much more popular idea with Nationalists (albeit still under a quarter in favour) than Unionists - which is odd as basically only Unionist have ever suggested it!

And its never going to happen. Would never get cross community support and probably couldn't get a 50%+1 majority either.

retalivity

Always a good excuse to post these - now it conflates religion with national identity but they correlate closely anyway when it comes to NI...

The pettiness of the powers that be, that they couldnt even be arsed building a motorway between the 2 largest cities, as one of them is full of 'themmuns'. Same story as building a motorway to the other largest city on the whole island, instead its a DC spur off the motorway to the metropolis of Portadown, not to Newry and onwards to Dublin. Even the cross community effort to link Dublin to Donegal and also Derry through the North with the A5, which the ROI was fronting a lot of cash for, has been hampered for years by unionist controlled councils - incredibly petty.

Why would donegal want to join that when you see how Derry and the western part of NI is treated??

Quitelife

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118634249#Comment_118634249

Think at this stage Counties Derry, Tyrone, Armagh have significant nationalist Majorities... Fermanagh has a slight nationalist Majority and Down has a shrinking light Unionist Majority leaving Antrim as the only county with a sizeable Unionist Majority. Thats 4 out of the 6 counties with Nationalist majorities yet we are forcing people to remain under British rule that dont want to be.