Northern Ireland - The Solution!

Great Debates
1

The crisis in Ireland in a nutshell:

The IRA (catholic) want a united Ireland, the UDA (protestant) want to remain part of the UK.

The birthrate among catholics is higher (no contraception) so they will soon outnumber the protestants.

This is why the IRA have (supposedly) renounced violence - they know that, soon, the catholics will be in the majority so they just have to wait.

Once the catholics are the majority then (they think) there will start to be more and more sympathy for their right to unite with the rest of Ireland.

In ten years time they may have a slight majority but in fifty years or a hundred years they may have a quite sizeable majority.

The protestants see this coming and this is why they are currently getting uppity. They are not so keen on the Good Friday Agreement any more because they know that soon they will be outnumbered.

My Humble Opinion

To the UDA, I would say this:

  1. The UK Government has never made any suggestion that it will abandon Northern Ireland.

Therefore the protestants have no need to worry. They certainly have no need to resort to violence and terrorism.

  1. The Irish government would like to re-integrate N. Ireland into one united country one day but they recognize that this is not going to happen anytime soon, certainly not in our lifetimes.

  2. If the day should ever come when people are seriously discussing the idea of a united Ireland then that is the time to come forward with your objections to the proposal.

To the IRA, I would say this:

As foreign colonial powers go, the UK ain’t such a bad one to live under. You have free speech, free press, your own politicians, universal franchise.

Whilst you’re waiting for a united Ireland to happen, you could do a lot worse than live under UK law and UK protection.

Whats so great about the Irish government? What’s so different about them, as opposed to the UK government, that it justifies blowing up Omagh and Manchester?

The Irish and UK governments are so similar in outlook (in all their beliefs and politics) that there is really very little difference. The same goes for the Irish and UK people.

Borders are just lines drawn on a map. If your alternatives were: live under UK rule or live under Taliban rule you might have a point.

But your options are: live under UK rule or live under Irish rule and, really, in practical terms, there’s not much difference between the two. If any difference.

The only difference I can think of is that maybe its slightly harder to get abortions and contraception in Ireland than it is in the UK.

Apart from that the two governments are virtually identical.

So basically the solution is simple: There is no problem.

Except problems people make for themselves. Neither side has a justifiable cause for violence.

This is so simple and self-evident I don’t understand why they don’t see it.

sigh.

2

The clearest glass is invisible.

3

There is no guaruntee that the change in religious demographics will continue in the way it is going at the moment.

When do you decide that a ‘large majority’ is large enough, 60%, 80% ?
Since the number of those involved directly in the violence in NI is a small percentage of the total population it is quite possible that even with a ‘sizable majority’ the minority could easily make life quite miserable for everybody, its how terrorism works.
If a referendum were held in NI with a 80% majority to join Ireland the minority would paint themselves up as being oppressed and the majority would have the grievance that their wishes were being overruled, such a referendum would be extremely divisive.

Next Ireland has never been united under a self rule government therefore it cannot be reunitied, not that this should be a reason for preventing this but the use of that word shows how subtly propaganda has worked its way through society, a united Ireland may well be a tidy geographical feature but this does not mean it is imperative, the border between Holland and Belgium has many peculiarities but the consent of the inhabitants ensures it works.

How does one decide citizenship issues? do we decide that all Catholics should hold only Irish Nationality and Protestants either be given a choice or British, Irish or dual ? and what about the many Irish living in the rest of the UK ? do they suddenly become foreigners ? Surely having paid taxes whilst in UK employment they are entitled to expect something in return.
Do we in the UK just decide to strip Unionists of their nationality, its not a very agreable prospect.

Should we even be looking at this issue purely in terms of religion at all, since some Catholics would rather be British and Protestants who live in Ireland itself don’t seem to have problems, it is a nationalist/unionist debate that is partly divided along religious lines but not fully.

Nationalism has caused plenty of conflicts in the past as well as religion.

At present disparities in taxation and customs duties regimes between the UK and Ireland means there is a lively smuggling trade across the border, I do believe that income tax rates are differant, perhaps interest rates are too, in short the economies may be similar in many ways but the differances mean that some folk may lose out big time , are they to be compensated for this and by whom ? After all if you have planned your financial future in the long term and had it suddenly disrupted by an enforced change of citizenship you would be pretty well hacked off.

For the forseeable future the last thing that the Irish government needs is unification with NI, because it would have to raise taxes just to support it, which the UK has to do at the moment. This might well cause a recession in Ireland, just the sort of environment for the terrorist to exploit.

For my part I would like to see Ireland under one government, but one of full consent, the waste of human resources in social and economic terms is so pointless.

Perhaps in fifty or hundred years time if we have a federal Europe or something similar the idea of British, or Irish might simply dissolve into the kind if variation between say Lancastrians and Yorkists, which were at war once upon a time but are now irretrievably bound up together.

4

That’s a pretty sensible post, xanakis. There’s just a couple things I’d like to point out.

The general sense I get from reading what unionists have to say on the subject is that few of them are really afraid of a Catholic majority voting the NI state out of existence. There seems to be a fairly widespread belief that the number of Catholic unionists, or even Catholics too afraid of the consequences of British withdrawal, will be enough to prevent a vote in favour of unification. Are they right? It’s impossible to know at this point, really. It is however undeniable that the percentage of votes for nationalist parties has increased apace with the Catholic population increase.

Protestant disenchantment with the GFA has less to do with that, and more to do with their belief (totally wrong IMHO) that the republicans haven’t lived up to their end of the bargain - by the lack of IRA decommissioning, Sinn Féin’s policing demands, etc. And there was never strong support for the GFA in the Protestant community to begin with. Voters weren’t asked to state their religion when they voted on the agreement, but it’s generally believed to have been supported by only a slim majority of Protestant voters - CAIN’s estimate puts the figure at 51-53%.

Part of the agreement is that the UK will hand over the North when and if a majority votes for Irish unification.

Your points about the similarities between the Irish and British governments are well taken now, but you have to be aware that the situation was very different in the North throughout most of its existence. Northern Ireland from the time of partition until only recently was a one-party, openly sectarian police state. By “openly sectarian” I mean that Unionist politicians up to and including several Prime Ministers had absolutely no qualms about stating that their Government was being run exclusively to benefit the Protestant majority. From the time of partition until 1973 there was not one Catholic in Government. Catholics were, privately and by the State, discriminated against in housing, employment, voting rights; districts were gerrymandered to keep them even out of local government. Outnumbered, they had no means to change this through the “democratic process” (such as it was), and when in the 1960s they attempted to change it through peaceful protest, civil disobedience etc., they were met with violence by loyalists and the police force. The UK Government allowed this situation to go on, only stepping in after the Catholics started fighting back, and ordering Stormont (the NI Parliament) to make reforms - and then refusing to use their power to defend those reforms. So of course, many Catholics came to believe reform of the NI state was impossible, and that abolition of it was the only way they would ever achieve fairness and equality.

Of course things are different now. But Irish memories are long.

(Contraception, btw, is freely available in Ireland, and abortion is illegal in the North as well. Just so you know.)

5

ruadh:

The IRA decommissioning issue is a pointless argument. They agree to the principle of decommissioning so why don’t they just get on with it.

There is no question that the IRA should agree to full decommissioning immediately. The rate at which they dismantle etc is just details.

I know that, 30 years ago, the situation was different. As I understand it, there was a Property Election which meant that only those who owned properties could vote. Since most catholics were renters rather than owners they were effectively disenfranchised.

Anybody who is disenfranchised has an absolute right to draw attention to their plight and this may include (in certain circumstances) “terrorist” acts.

But the IRA haven’t been “justified” in committing terrorist acts for a number of years now.

Manchester is my home town. I am from an Irish-Catholic background. I suppose I could be considered part of the “natural constituency” of sympathy for the IRA’s cause - a fairer treatment for catholics in the north.

But then they bombed my home town.

And it wasn’t just a small bomb, it was a HUGE bomb.

Manchester is jam-packed with Irish-catholics and yet they bombed it. If I ever meet the guy who planted that bomb he’d better be a quick runner. I joke not, I’ve never hit anyone in my life (well, not since I was a little kid anyway) but I have a black belt in karate - he will NOT leave my company unharmed.

casdave:

You’re right - there is no guarantee about the demographics although it does seem to be heading towards a an eventual catholic majority at the moment.

The GFA does say that, when a majority wishes it, Northern Ireland will become part of Ireland. But just because the protestants become a minority doesn’t have to mean they are an oppressed minority. There is a difference.

In fact, I suspect that this will be one of the best-treated minority groups in the world (due to all the fuss they’ve made).

In the end, the majority opinion has to win. The minority cannot impose their will over the majority. That would be a dictatorship.

Regarding citizenship, they would ALL be given a choice - British, Irish or dual. Irish citizens can vote in UK elections now anyway. Although we can’t in theirs.

6

Well, partially at least because their supporters don’t want them to. And you can’t really blame them, at a time when the UDA are getting away with random sectarian shootings, throwing pipe bombs at schoolchildren etc. At least one of the Holy Cross mothers was quoted as asking why the IRA weren’t doing anything to defend the families, and you can bet she wasn’t the only one wondering.

Is it worth the IRA giving up some arms if it means northern Catholics start looking to the dissident groups to protect them?

Basically true. Only householders and their wives could vote. And the gerrymandered local councils allocated housing in a manner designed to maintain this imbalance, sometimes even going so far as to refuse to build new housing rather than give any more Catholics the vote. And businesses could have up to six votes. The resistance to changing this was incredible. Really the only thing surprising about the outbreak of the Troubles is that it didn’t happen sooner.

I agree with you. But you know what? The IRA haven’t committed terrorist acts for a number of years now.

Well in fairness they did phone in enough warnings to prevent any fatalities in the bombing, they were aiming at British commercial interests rather than at people (Irish-Catholic or otherwise). I’m not defending the attack but I do think that makes it somewhat less heinous than it could have been.

Assuming you’re resident here, you can vote in Dáil, European and local elections. That’s what it says on my voter registration application form.

7

I think by that time it’ll be practically irrelevant. Both countries will be part of the EC. All these hang ups about little individual countries will probably seem quite quaint and no more important than which local council you have.

Or maybe I’m just being an idealist?

8

ruadh:

It is not the job of the IRA to protect the catholics of NI. That is the job of the police and/or the army.

In a democracy, the protection of civilians is not the responsibility of an unaccountable terrorist group.

Justice and the law should be paramount. If the IRA engage in revenge shootings this will just make the situation worse.

Obviously the police may not be as good at their job as we would like. They may make mistakes etc but this is NO reason to justify vigilante law.

The same argument applies to the UDA. Whatever their grievance may be they should express it through the normal political process not through the barrel of a gun.

The Manchester bomb was not justified nor has been any terrorist activity for a number of years before that.

For one thing the warnings were too vague. A friend of mine, an Irish-catholic female who was 8 months pregnant at the time, was in a nearby cafe and was showered with broken glass when the blast blew the cafe window in.

But in any case the bomb was NOT justified. There was a political dialogue in place.

I think Irish citizens don’t actually need to be resident to vote in UK elections.
I sometimes think that some people have a slightly rosy view of the IRA. They don’t realise that they are also involved in protection rackets, drugs and other organised crime. I once saw their “manifesto” - what they stand for. They are more right-wing than Genghis Khan, they are all in favour of executions for all kinds of minor offences. If they came out and stood as a political party, no one would vote for them.

As for the protestants, they just seem to be insane. They have a marching season that goes on for months at a time and they absolutely insist that these marches have to go down all these particularly sensitive streets.

What does it matter where they march (if they really have to do it at all)?

I sometimes wonder what would happen if we knocked down Belfast and rebuilt it along the lines of Milton Keynes whereby all the roads would be a grid system - the horizontal ones named a,b,c etc and the vertical ones named 1,2,3 etc.

Then none of the roads would have any significance. We could even set aside a “marching area” well away from any inhabited areas. Then they can march to their hearts content without bothering anybody.

Does any other religion in the world have a “marching season”?

9

Well, maybe you should tell them that. Look, if the police and the army had done their job 30 years ago, there would probably be no IRA now. There was none to speak of when the Troubles began - the IRA had called off its campaign in 1962. They reorganised as a direct result of and response to the loyalist/RUC terror campaign against Catholics. By the time the IRA claimed its first victim there had already been several deaths and uncountable numbers of injuries of innocent Catholics including many at the hands of the very people who were supposed to protect them. It’s all well and good to say that doesn’t justify vigilantism, but what exactly were Catholics supposed to do? Turn the other cheek?

Northern Ireland has had no right to call itself a “democracy” until very recently.

And even today the RUC are still doing a shit job of protecting Catholics. Have a look at the Pat Finucane Centre’s chronology of sectarian attacks in the North. And consider John Reid’s refusal to declare the UDA ceasefire over. And tell me again why Catholics should trust the RUC and army to protect them?

I have a personal note to add here as well. Driving through Belfast this past August on our way back from a Celtic match we had a brick thrown through our window by four thugs in Rangers tops. Fortunately it bounced off the opposite window before hitting my mate sitting next to me on the face, so he wasn’t seriously injured. The thing weighed about a kilo though - if it had hit his head direct he’d be lucky to be alive.

We got the hell out of there and headed for the RUC station in Newry. On the way someone pointed out that we’re an easy target - we’re on the same road at the same time every second Saturday - so maybe we could suggest to the RUC that they post someone there next time. Well as it turned out all the RUC cared about was whether or not we’d been drinking.

Frankly I think we’d have been better off going to the INLA.

It will, and they deserve credit for not doing it, despite the UDA’s best efforts to provoke them.

“Etc” being the key word. Burntollet was not a “mistake”. Robert Hamill’s death was not a “mistake”.

Agreed.

Well unless there’s an MP for Ireland I don’t know about, I can’t think who nonresident Irish citizens would be able to vote for. I’d like to see a cite for this.

Again, agreed. The IRA are guilty of a lot of completely indefensible things.

I’d like to see a cite for this as well.

Yet the political party with which they are allied is now the largest nationalist party in the North.

Simple. It reminds the Catholics who’s boss.

It would segregate itself within 45 minutes.

10

OK, I agree with your first paragraph but it was really a description of recent history which is all very interesting but not relevant to the discussion, which is more along the lines of “Where do we go from here?”.

Regarding your second paragraph, the RUC may be doing a shit job of protecting catholics but they are still the best people to do that shit job.

I’d rather the police did a shit job of it than some bunch of thugs from down the street did a shit job of it.

At least the police are accountable and have to operate within the limits of the law. And we know who they are.

Incidents such as the one you describe where your friend nearly got hit by a brick will only reduce if there is a lessening of tension in the area not an increase in tension.

IRA activity can only serve to increase tension.

Leave it to the police to solve crimes. Thats why we employ them.

If you don’t like the RUC, well don’t worry, they are about to be reformed anyway.

If you still don’t like them then write to your MP but don’t start planting bombs.

I don’t have any cites at the moment, it’s just stuff I’ve picked up along the way (but I do have an A Level and a degree in politics, so I’m not just plucking facts out of the air).

11

It’s relevant to the discussion because it explains the way the IRA are still viewed today by substantial portions of the Catholic community. To you, they’re the group that bombed your hometown. To them, they’re their last (only, really) line of defence.

Theoretically, maybe. Obviously that hasn’t been the case in real life.

Well with all due respect xanakis, it doesn’t really matter what you’d rather. It doesn’t matter what I’d rather, either. IRA decommissioning will only happen when the Ardoyne and New Lodge and Garvaghy Road (etc) Catholics decide they’d rather put their faith in the police. And that will only happen when the police start showing themselves to be worthy of that faith.

They’re supposed to be accountable, but again, I’m talking about real life here.

What part of “they aren’t doing it” don’t you understand?

It remains to be seen how “reformed” they will really be.

And ask him to do what, exactly?

Mind you I do think the residents of West Belfast have probably been giving their MP a piece of their minds. You know who he is, don’t you?

I have a degree in politics as well, and I can back up everything I’ve said here with cites.

12

ruadh:

No, I’m sorry, it’s still not relevant to the discussion.

I agree that the catholics were treated appallingly and I accept that the RUC could not be counted on to protect them. I even think that the catholics may have been justified in engaging in an armed struggle since they were disenfranchised and discriminated against and the State seemed to be doing nothing to help them. If anything, the State was part of the problem.

However, whilst the prevailing conditions of 30 years ago may help explain some of the attitudes that still exist today, the political climate has changed completely since then and is in the process of changing further.

I don’t really see the need to dwell on past problems, I prefer to look ahead to the solutions (which is what the opening post concerned).

An armed terrorist group may be the last line of defence for a community of people who have no other option, repeat, no other option.

But the catholics of NI are not in this situation. They have a police force and an army to protect them.

And they have a political voice through which to express grievances and effect change.

The IRA are most definitely not the only line of defence for these people and, I think, they mostly realise this.

You are attributing them with a belief which I don’t think they have.

I don’t know what you expect the police to do, give each catholic a personal blow job perhaps?

No police force is perfect, and the RUC are worse than most because they are obviously a protestant force, but this doesn’t mean they have to be protestant biased. They are still subject to the law of the land same as any other police force. The law doesn’t care whether you are protestant or catholic - justice is blind.

And they are being reformed anyway.

Many protestant terrorists are locked up in the Maze as well as catholic terrorists.

We can all cite a dozen cases of the police seeming to have acted unfairly toward the catholics. Or cases of them having acted wrongly in relation to particular people.

Obviously we need to take action to ensure the police are as impartial as possible but the bottom line, which you seem to be missing, is:

** we don’t need to bomb or shoot anyone to bring this about**.

The part where you claim they aren’t doing it.

So if I were a catholic living in Belfast and some protestants beat me up and (for the sake of the argument) I knew who the protestants were. I had witnesses, video evidence etc.

Are you telling me, that if I went to the police, they would tell me to go away because I was catholic?

What if my house was burgled, would the police decline to look into it because I am a catholic?

Whatever the crime was the police would look into it in the normal way.

Don’t bother coming back at me with cites of individual cases where the police have appeared to mistreat catholics, they don’t advance the general argument. We all agree that the RUC has an inbuilt protestant bias, we all agree that this needs to change.

Dragging up past cases of injustice doesn’t justify terrorist activity. All it means is we have to work harder to ensure they don’t happen again. And we must do this peacefully, by using the political process.

I haven’t asked you for any cites.

You asked me for two cites:

  1. regarding the fact that Irish citizens can vote in UK elections

  2. regarding the IRA’s political manifesto

I didn’t bother looking for cites for these because they are side issues and I didn’t want to detract from the central argument. You can believe me or disbelieve me as you wish, I don’t care.

But, for the record, and since you have made an issue out of it, here’s a cite for the first one.

I can’t seem to locate a cite for the second one. It was many years ago when I saw it and I daresay much will have been changed by now. I would say, however, that although Sinn Fein and the IRA are closely allied they are not exactly the same. Sinn Fein are the more moderate of the two when it comes to policy.

Also you should note that both Sinn Fein and the IRA were born out of marxist roots and the redistribution of wealth is still one of Sinn Fein’s stated aims.

13

We’re going around in circles and I still am not sure you understand the point I am trying to make. Catholics still do not feel safe (and in fact, they aren’t). Regardless of changes in the political climate, there are still sufficient numbers of sectarian attacks, and sufficient incidences of seeming RUC/British apathy to those attacks, to make them extremely reluctant to see the group that has traditionally been their protector disarmed. Those things have to change, too, before the community will support decommissioning.

That applies to both sides. It certainly applies to people who still feel the need to dwell on the IRA’s past atrocities even now they’ve been on ceasefire for four years.

Well I suppose it’s possible that all the (many!) people I know in and from these communities are lying when they say they feel that way, but I doubt it. On what are you basing your opinion?

What the law says and what the law does are not necessarily the same thing, especially in Northern Ireland.

No offence, but I might repeat this quote next time I’m down the Falls Road. Just for larfs.

And the amount of objections to the extent (or lack thereof) of those reforms demonstrates how deeply the antipathy to the RUC runs in the Catholic community.

Psst. Nobody’s in the Maze anymore.

Anyway, it’s true that Protestant terrorists were locked up. It’s also true that internment was used exclusively against republicans for quite some time, and mostly against republicans for quite some time after that. And even if that is in the past, it hasn’t been forgotten.

Please show me where I said that “we” did.

Like asking a group of Celtic fans who’d been attacked by Rangers fans whether we were drinking, and then sending us on our way, you mean?

Well, what sort of evidence are you looking for???

Which is exactly what we’re trying to do. But what if it fails?

You need to read that cite a little bit more carefully. In every instance so far as I can determine where it includes “citizens of the Republic of Ireland”, it also includes a criterion of being “registered in that constituency” (or words to that effect). What part of (the Republic of) Ireland is a British constituency, pray tell?

Yeah, that sounds “more right than Genghis Khan” to me, too :rolleyes:

14

I agree that there appears to be some circling going on. I don’t disagree with this statement, what I’m trying to point out is what to do about it.

My solution is basically for everyone to realise that whilst there were problems in the past, these problems no longer exist.

I think that the onus is more on the protestants than it is on the catholics to realise this since they are the ones causing most of the trouble at the moment.

This is why catholics don’t feel safe - because the protestants are so uppity. If the protestants calmed down a bit I think most catholics would feel more inclined to allow the proper political process to unfold.

This is why I said:

Of course they are worried now because they sense the danger emanating from the protestants but I don’t think it would take much to sort out the problem in NI - basically just a large dose of common sense on all sides but particularly on the protestant side.

I did say “the Maze” didn’t I, sorry.

Please show me where I said that you did say this.

I’m not looking for any evidence of anything, including past misdeeds. I’m trying to present a way forward for the future.

You’re right about that first cite. As I said, I considered it a side issue so I didn’t really look at it for very long (about 2 seconds).

If I were presenting this as the basis of my whole argument I might have actually bothered to read it first.

But since we’re in IMHO and not GD, and since it is peripheral to my point, and since I’m not writing an essay on which I am to be marked, I think I can get away with it.

At the time I made the Genghis Khan remark I was just working on some vague memory I had of seeing some of their other policies (apart from the united Ireland issue). There appeared to be a lot of death penalty offences in there.

I think I read it in some old politics textbook way back when which is why I have no cite.

There is arguably little difference between extreme left and extreme right anyway - Stalin v Hitler, you choose.

Anyway, on a different issue.

I noticed David Blunkett saying today that he is going to expand the race hate legislation to include hatred based on religion.

Will this include the likes of Ian Paisley who regularly tears up pictures of the pope and comes out with vicious anti-catholic rhetoric?

15

But you rubbish any reporting of “individual cases” which show that they do still exist. They may not be as widespread as they used to be, but every single one adds to the perception Catholics already hold.

… or as I’ve been saying all along, if loyalists would stop terrorising Catholics they would feel more comfortable about IRA decommissioning.

Sometimes I think they’re born with a natural immunity to common sense up there. On all sides.

You said I was “missing” that idea, which implies that I don’t agree with it. Apology accepted if you didn’t mean it that way.

I agree, but I don’t think Sinn Féin ever fell into the category of “extreme left”. One of the key reasons Sinn Féin and the (Provisional) IRA split from the “Official” branches of both wings was that the official branches were veering into doctrinaire Marxism, which the provisional branches had little time for.

I’m going to have to research this, but I think such legislation might already exist in Northern Ireland (religious discrimination is already illegal there, though that doesn’t stop it happening - on both sides). And I’m not sure if Blunkett’s law would apply to Northern Ireland anyway. Might add that I don’t personally believe in legislating speech, though.

[aside]But I do wonder if that legislation would ever be used against the Rangers support which at every match can be heard celebrating being up to their knees in fenian blood…[/aside]

16

This is a Great Debate.

Be seeing you.

17

WooHoo!! GD time!!!
Xanakis.
a situation for you to consider.

You live in the Bogside in Derry. your car is stolen. Who do you think will find the thief?

18

For the love of St. Joseph in a rocket powered rickshaw… stop saying this!!

I would say the increasing birthrate is that more **couples ** are having children, rather than couples are having more children.

Add to the fact that more are staying in Northern Ireland with the recent economic boom and peace process, instead of fleeing the north as soon as they can get a job elsewhere.

The increasing Catholic population is a result of socio-economics, not some 1950’s fear of the collar paddywhackery that gets rolled out every time this subject is brought up.

19

Does that mean the Protestants are gonna have to shag like rabbits to hold on to their homeland…?

I can see it now:

  • government grants for fine wine and candlelit dinners
  • free distribution of Barry White CDs
  • state-sponsored viagra drives

Sounds like it might be worthwhile heading over there for me next hols!

Anything to help out, you understand :smiley:
– Quirm :slight_smile:

20

you know why i love living in northern ireland?

it’s the complete suspension of reason and logic from politics, religion and history.

guys, don’t try and argue FACTS with each other, the troubles have never been about truth. they have been about perception. prejudice, and bigotry.

and so far, not much is changing.