The Irish protocol.

And the UK have decided that they do want to export to the EU, hence entering into negotiations on how to facilitate that.

Eventually it all leads back to the logical position that either

1) The UK agree to maintain standards that are in compliance with the EU

2) Goods leaving the UK for the EU are subject to checks

3) the EU undermines itself in an effort to placate the UK and decided to just take their word for it.

As 1 has already been rejected by the UK, and 3 obviously isn't going to be acceptable to the EU, that leaves us just with Option 2.

So the question arises as to where to have those checks. There is the seemingly obvious choice of erecting border infrastructure on the border between the EU and the UK, but due to the porous nature of that border and for historic reasons, both sides have agreed this is not suitable.

There could be checks between Ireland and the rest of the EU, which while perhaps favoured by you would effectively be reducing Ireland's EU membership and forcing Ireland to take on the burden of the UK's decision to Brexit....again, undermining the EU, hardly likely to be acceptable to the EU whom you're trying to get an agreement with.

Or there is what we ended up with. Not ideal, but seems better than the alternatives to me.

This is possibly an example of one of the criticisms of the older generation of Unionist thinking, in that it was seen as insular looking and uninterested or unwilling of informing itself of any wider affairs outside of Unionism.

Conversely, while listening to the Nolan show a few weeks ago, a journalist contributing to a discussion involving the Protocol described Micheal Martin as one of Unionisms best friends, if only they could see it!

Well the first bit is highly doubtful considering you have referenced him on multiple threads. Secondly I don't think we would benefit from you posting the LCC ramblings. The fact they blame someone in the Irish government for a deal signed by a British PM who doesn't give 2 f"cks to Northern Ireland is testament to reality that their community will be stuck in the dark ages for a long long time.

I am just seeing the ROI flag being used.

I don't think you can represent them but I don't think they would ever represent team Ireland anyway. There is some athletes who are obviously from unionist backgrounds (20 out of the 27 from the North at the Olympics are representing Ireland) who dont have a problem representing Ireland ... like Rory Mcllroy for instance. But as pointed out despite him willing to play for team Ireland he is very quick to drop the tricolour flag if placed on him. Presumably he just associates this with the south where he is not from.

Political pionts could be won here if a team Ireland had a flag and anthem for all of Ireland while team GB which is also suppose to be representing the North continues with the branding team GB.