Under the GFA there will be no united Ireland until a majority in the Six Counties wants there to be. Interestingly, a few years ago when there were rumours that the census was going to show the Catholic population about to overtake the Protestant (it didn’t), unionist leaders started moving the goalposts and claiming this would have to be a majority of “both” communities. But that’s a moot point anyway, because I can’t see a pro-UI majority any time in the near future. (I blame Fianna Fáil.)
I honestly can’t predict what’s going to happen. There are a lot of factors involved, like the amount of growth of the population that sees itself solely as “Northern Irish”, whether Scotland becomes independent, and how much deeper EU integration gets (and whether the UK itself is involved in that). I don’t think it’s outside the realms of possibility that we could see a new form of “state” develop within the EU over the next couple generations, with a number of quasi-independent territories possibly including the Six Counties, Scotland, Catalunya and other places like that. But who knows.
The problem with this argument is that the Protestant community in the Six Counties opposed a united (independent) Ireland long before that “Catholic establishment” did anything at all. Irish republicanism is actually traditionally non-sectarian; the leaders of the United Irishmen in 1798 were Protestants, as were many of those who fought in the Easter Rising and Anglo-Irish War (Markievicz, Childers, Casement for starters). It was genuinely a struggle for Irish independence and not for Catholic dominance, and yet northern Protestants by and large opposed it anyway. As I said, I’m sure some of the things that happened after independence didn’t help, but they didn’t create the opposition in the North.
It’s also worth pointing out that the environment in which Catholicism could exert undue influence was created by partition. The post-1922 drop in the Protestant ratio from 7% to 3% is nothing compared to the drop that occurred when the counties with the largest Protestant populations were cut off from the state in the first place. Protestants accounted for roughly a quarter of the island’s population at the time. How different might things have been if they hadn’t insisted on their own “Protestant state for a Protestant people” (which was far more sectarian in practice than the state they were partitioned from)?
It is interesting. It would be nice if the sectarian/political stuff fades to a dull roar because the NI people have much else in their cultures that is unique and worth preserving (whatever country that may be in)
True, the sectarian issues would have been more fluid in those earlier times. But I think that would mainly be of academic interest to Protestants - by the 1800s, and definitely by 1916, the island had pretty irreversibly solidified into Catholic nationalists and Protestant loyalists (I’m aware there have been some exceptions, but “Home Rule is Rome Rule” was the slogan of the time.) Many Protestants do claim their families would have had no equal opportunity in the ROI today (or in recent years). On that point, I am reminded of the big drop in Quebec’s Anglo/Protestant population over the 1970s - 1990s; it was presented as a French liberation movement at the time but looks a lot less noble (if not outrageously wrong) in retrospect.
I get your point but come on, that is blaming the victim.
I fairly refuted these notions in that other thread and it would be nice if you would acknowledge that. The Protestant % of the Republic indeed decreased over time but there were never any explicit policies against people of that religion and as that link I provided before indicated protestants were allowed privilege of a sort in southern Irish economic life.
“About the same as ever and always, Mike. The Catholics live in the South and the Protestants live in the North and they’re at each other’s throats as often as not. If only we were heathen so we could all live together like good Christians!”
Sorry, I didn’t mean to misrepresent it - you did indeed point out that the reality was was a lot more nuanced.
I just meant that there is still a perception among NI Protestants that the ROI is hostile territory for them compared to NI, Scotland, Canada, etc. I realize that the Protestant minority may have had it better than many ordinary Catholics, but even the CAIN paper paints a picture of de-facto paranoid isolation for that community, so their perception is not too surprising. Plus, there were the Ne Temere (mixed-marriage) laws which discriminated in favor of Catholics (albeit you mentioned earlier that the law was often ignored in private.)
No, it isn’t, because the people to blame for this situation are not the “victims” of partition (and even though you haven’t shown any real way that southern Protestants *were * victimised by partition, certainly they never were in the way that Catholics were in the North, I understand what you’re getting at here). Partition was desired by northern Protestants, not southern ones and in no way can the northern ones be described as “victims” of it.
It’s a simple reality that what the Catholic population wanted, by and large, was an independent Ireland where there would be a significant Protestant minority. They didn’t ask for one with a small Protestant minority; that was simply all they were allowed. The blame for Protestants becoming a tiny minority in the new state has to lie with those who insisted on keeping the largest Protestant-population areas out of it.
By “blaming the victim”, I was specifically referring to your statement that “The post-1922 drop in the Protestant ratio from 7% to 3% is nothing compared to the drop that occurred when the counties with the largest Protestant populations were cut off from the state in the first place.” You’re presumably referring to the 1916-1922 period and that seemed like quite a sinister way to put it, though maybe that’s not what you meant.
I’d agree in theory, and if you or An Gadaí happened to be in public office that would surely contribute to improving the tone. But there were (and are) much more hardline elements out there too which make it difficult to criticize people’s choices too much (especially that long ago). Even among some Irish Americans one can hear references to “invaders” and “West Brits”, or even a dismissal that the other community exists (“Never heard of those people”).
Yes. The point is that the reason Protestants are such a small minority in independent Ireland is, first and foremost, because northern Protestants didn’t (and don’t) want to be a part of independent Ireland. It’s circular for them to now cite the small Protestant population as if that were the *reason * they don’t want to be a part of independent Ireland.
See what I said about not listening too much to the diaspora. Those attitudes are extremely marginal in Ireland and have been for some time; they aren’t part of the political discourse here in any real respect. (You do still hear “West Brits” but it’s mainly directed at Dublin 4 anglophiles, who could be of any religion.)
Yes, allegedly because of “security concerns”. Personally I think it had more to do with Frazer & Co twigging that they would look silly coming down to demand the Tricolour be taken down from the Irish Parliament … on a day when the Tricolour wouldn’t be flying over the Irish Parliament (they don’t fly it every day, either).
You did say in an earlier post that it’s completely irrelevant what anyone in the south thinks of the flag, but here you imply that the south does have some say in the north’s affairs, so what is the situation? Just curious.
And maybe this Dublin protest would serve a purpose to entice the West Brits in the south to come out and reveal themselves.
It doesn’t matter what we think. It’s (for the foreseeable future) a different country that’s why the proposed march would be so bizarre. As regards West Brits, just read the Sunday Independent. By the way, that term refers more to a stereotypical set of cultural precepts not really political ones. And insofar as they exist they look to England. Northern Ireland is irrelevant to most West Brits.
The south does not have a say in the north’s affairs. Frazer initially claimed that the protest was a tit for tat thing. If they had to take down the union flag then we had to take down the tricolour. Which makes no sense, but then this is Willie Frazer. The man that branded a primary school a breeding ground for the IRA because he mistook an Italian flag being flown during cultural week for an Irish one.
When he discovered that the flag would not be up on the day of the march he then changed tack and said it was a ‘sarcastic’ protest. This then changed again to be a protest against the guards as he suspects them of colluding with the IRA. The goalposts are continually shifting with him.
But when you get down to it the real reason for the protest is because he believes it will cause the same yahoos that rioted at the Love Ulster march to do so again. Then he can point the finger and say ‘see they’re worse than us.’
And so on and so forth, everyone is completely sick and tired of it.
You’re referral to West Brits is a bit confusing. ‘West Brit’ is a term normally leveled at people from posher areas of Dublin. If you don’t LOVE the GAA. If you don’t want to speak Irish. If you like Rugby. These are all things that might earn you the title. Its not a religion thing.
The South doesn’t have a “say” in the North’s affairs, in the sense of exercising any control over the North, but you might say it’s officially an Interested Party under the GFA. Frazer seems to think it goes further than that though. On one occasion when he was interviewed for the news here he asked who (in the South) had the right to go to Belfast to tell them not to fly their flag - as if the decision had been made in Dublin rather than Belfast City Hall.
Yes, from listening to my Irish American coworkers, I did get the feeling that it was mostly a class thing where West Brit = posh. I also got the message that (in the ROI) not all West Brits are Protestant, but all Protestants are West Brits. (Funny how I keep bumping into the NI conflict, I used to socialize with Orangemen and these days more with Irish-American republicans)
But there were (and are) much more hardline elements out there too which make it difficult to criticize people’s choices too much (especially that long ago). Even among some Irish Americans one can hear references to “invaders” and “West Brits”, or even a dismissal that the other community exists (“Never heard of those people”).