A United Ireland

[poppiesallykatie]

Not a goady thread or to stir, but how many are against it or for it? Obviously many in NI want to part of the Republic, many in NI want to part of Great Britain, how do the British people feel about it?

Invest NI have transformed our country, for the better. I grew up in a time where there wasn’t so much as a McDonalds ( maybe not a bad thing!) because of Troubles no money, no jobs, few opportunities. Salaries are lower but so are costs - 4 bedroom house in a good area with good schools for £100k anyone?? And there is always the option for ambitious grads to move or work in England and get a bigger salary and spend 50% of that London salary on London rent.

I don't know of anywhere you could get a four bedroom house for 100k, much less one in a decent area.

I'm not going to start claiming that house prices are on a par with London or Bristol or Dublin, obviously that would be nonsense. But I don't think safe parts of NI, particularly Belfast, are as affordable as is often suggested.

And the idea that if you're ambitious you can always just leave here is part of why we're in such a mess to begin with. Plenty of people are ambitious but have responsibilities that keep them here.

I do think that InvestNI have done fantastic work. But I also worry that selling us on our low salaries might backfire further down the line.

Considering it was quite prominently discussed before the vote, it doesn't paint "so many Brits" in a good light. A better - and more accurate - way to phrase it would be so many Brits choose to put their heads in the sand about this problem. Which makes them idiots to a certain degree. Not knowing is one thing. Not knowing, being told, and then carrying on as if you didn't know is another.

YY to this. You would have to have had your fingers stuck firmly in your ears and humming 'LALALA' very loudly with your head stuck in the sand in order not to have absorbed the necessary information. Whether you were alive before the GFA is a complete red herring.

I mean, have you been to the countryside in ROI? Where is this “liberal, progressive, forward-thinking” Ireland I’m reading about?

It's the rural Ireland that recently voted overwhelmingly in favour of legalising abortion. Remember all that patronising Dublin-centric 'urban-rural divide' stuff in the run up to the referendum, that turned out to be a complete fiction, because every county, urban and rural, bar Donegal voted in favour of the right to terminate? A referendum which, furthermore, for all the BBC reportage about it as somehow reflecting the Brexit referendum, far from polarising the country, was in fact a massive force for social cohesion.

@DGRossetti

The Brexit campaign is to blame for so many people sticking their heads in the sand. Any attempt to point out the really obvious drawbacks, like the fact that there is a land border with the EU between NI and ROI, was greeted with a cry of 'Project Fear'.

The law firms are back office underpaid jobs that don't have training contracts attached and pay not much more than minimum wage. I know. A lot of paralegal not qualified solicitors doing work for firms that can pay shit money for people with law degrees to do paper shuffling donkey work cheaper than it costs to pay someone to do a training contract.

This social change has also happened north of the border. I was discussing with my aunt about the pope’s visit. In 1979, they all went. This year, not one and never even crossed their mind to do so. Perfectly happy with gay family members, and empathetic about how hard it must have been to have grown up gay in a Irish farm in the 1970s

A lot of the work the law firms are going in NI is insolvency litigation and acting for vulture funds so that’s not a great example.

In fairness, you have no idea how socially progressive normal people are in NI are because no referendum has been held there. Nobody expected the result in ROI before it happened - maybe conservatives just shout louder? When I was growing up it was certainly my impression that NI was more sexually liberated than ROI - comparing uni experiences of those in Belfast v Dublin. When my sister came down to Dublin from Belfast she couldn’t get out fast enough - she found it v cliquey (went to London in the end). I would find it surprising if the ROI population has become so much more liberal than (the previously more liberal) NI population. My mum was offered a medical abortion in NI 35 years ago for god sake - that’s still not legal in ROI!

Not to jump into the thread again. But to also add I agree people in NI Ime are completely social progressed. Most of my friends use contraception, support gay rights and marriage, there is a massive lgbt community in NI. Most of friends have botox, regular even casual sex, definitely DC before marraige, some have even had abortions, Daughters and sons studying for university with big dreams, they are out spoken career driven.

Anyone saying NI is not socially progressive hasn't been there in a long time or ever. It seems it is getting confused with the NI of the 80s. Would anyone recognise the ROI now from the 80s memory.

I don’t doubt that social progression has happened in Northern Ireland. However the fact remains that Abortion and Same Sex Marriage isn’t available. Lots of women here had abortions when they needed to but the culture didn’t support their need. It feels like from my perspective in The Republic that you’re at the start of a civil movement to address these needs whereas The Republic has been doing this for a while to achieve this progression.

If there’s a United ireland tomorrow I really don’t see availability of abortion and gay marriage as much of a sticking block. Issues will be the NHS, welfare rates, tax...and flegs.

That’s true.

@Phuquocdreams

Plus the issue of currency, the transfer from Sterling to Euros. The banks and businesses would need to prepare, and the population would need to adjust. (I expect Euros are used more in NI than on the mainland, but even so.)

My Irish relatives say they are quite scared of being a united ireland. They don’t think they can cope with the politics of the transition etc. They say most of their friends don’t want it.

I’m only against it in the sense I’m
Worried if things were to change then violence and problems would flare up. Honestly my vote is for peace and I can’t see Ireland being reunited happening only with peaceful acceptance

A referendum which, furthermore, for all the BBC reportage about it as somehow reflecting the Brexit referendum, far from polarising the country, was in fact a massive force for social cohesion.

Yet more proof that the Irish are better at referenda than the British. There absolutely is a place for them in a functioning democracy, not least a means for winning hearts and minds and yes, bringing people together. Scenes of people travelling home to vote were incredibly moving.

Part of the art, of course, is knowing when they're appropriate.

We’re better at them as we’ve simply had more practice. We have the referendum commission which ensures everyone who can vote receives free accurate and unbiased information on the consequences of the vote.

We also have a very different relationship with news media. There are very few tabloids and Instead we have a higher amount of newspapers which do not aim at scandalous headlines but instead at aim at news analysis. Papers such as the independent, the Irish Tines and The Examiner fall into this catagory. Online news such as the journal fall into the earlier one for me.

The paparazzi isn’t really a thing here. As Ireland is so small celebrities really don’t get the same level of attention they seem to receive in the UK. I’ve seen international celebrities walk down Grafton Street (one of the main shopping street in Dublin) and people looking at them but not approaching. This isn’t that the Irish have great respect or anything like that for them. It boils down to the Irish begrudgery of not wanting to let someone think they’re better than them. I know that sounds mad 😂.

What I’m really trying to describe is how different a culture Ireland is from the UK.

When I have visited NI it has always struck me as being closer to the UK in its culture than it is to The Republic.

We’ve had peace for the last 20 years. My children have grown up not knowing of bombs and bullets - from both sides - being part of the news. I just don’t want to go back to that. Growing up I grew pretty immune to the news of more fatalities in The North. Appallingly, it was everyday news. I don’t want to go back to that. And I can’t see the Unionist community ever wanting to be a part of a United Ireland anymore than the Republican community wanted to be a part of Britain. So I would worry that I would be turning my prosperous peaceful country into a violent place.

No international businesses would seek to be having offices here then. And we rely on them for employment which is why we give them plenty of tax incentives to be here. I don’t want to risk them looking at Ireland and dismissing the incentive of tax breaks and a highly educated workforce as not being enough to offset the violence and threat of violence which would be there.

All of these are selfish reasons but if Ireland doesn’t watch out for itself no one else is going to do it.

I agree with much of what you said inkspell.

Except there was a lot of very emotional intense biased shocking imagery around the time of the abortion referendum! I visited there at the time. It shouldn’t have been allowed.

There was but this is something that has been presented by the anti-choice campaign on a near constant basis for years. It was an element I found unacceptable and viewed it as a desperate act on behalf of a campaign which were heading for a resounding loss. I found the use of any abortion imagery particularly inappropriate when it could be accessed by children.

However, I found that if I relied on the RTE and TV3 coverage as well as the referendum commissions information I could filter out the crap. And I suppose thats the difference I find significant. The British don't have that option.

Agree re our media, Inkspell. DH and I have been discussing that in the last few days. Although there is a huge reluctance to discuss the role of agriculture in pesticide use and global warming. Because we mustn't offend the farmers.

There were 10 ft high posters with aborted foetuses on in the middle of the shopping Main Street, I had my child with me, and posters everywhere along the streets where I stayed with my cousin. Social media campaigns too. However the leaflets through the letter box were much more factual.

Sorry that’s probably by the point. My cousins still felt very concerned, did not want a United ireland as they associated it with trouble, and extremist views on both sides. It’s very tough as I’m not sure how it’s going to pan out, surely the border can’t be there forever?

We’re used to it, Pina — SPUC and its fun friends have been pulling that kind of shit regularly since the early 80s. I don’t even see the images any more. I used it as an opportunity to talk to my six year old about freedom of speech, coercive tactics, and a woman’s right to choose. I think he said ‘Can we go and buy a comic now?’ or something equally profound in reply.

There absolutely is a place for them in a functioning democracy, not least a means for winning hearts and minds and yes, bringing people together.

I'm always a bit surprised by the British attitude to referendums. Thundering The People Have Spoken and The Will Of The People etc.. Making nasty remarks about how the Irish keep having referendums until they get the result the powers-that-be want. It isn't that at all, it's that people's opinions change as time goes by. Just because a referendum gave one result twenty years ago, should we be tied by that forever? The Brexit referendum result is being treated as some kind of voice from the gods, when it was badly run, and the electorate weren't really sure what they were voting for and the result wasn't overwhelming. Taken at face value, a no-deal Brexit would seem to be what was voted for, and that's what a lot of Brexiteers are still pushing for.

The difference between Brexit and the abortion referendum was striking.

Repeal the 8th: citizen’s assembly and Oireachtas committee both discussing issue at length, heads of legislation if referendum passed published in advance and Referendum Commission overseeing everything

Brexit: ....

ROI native here and I don't want to see a united Ireland. There has been a massive shift away from wanting a united Ireland in recent years. I don't know anyone who wants it now. Would cost us far too much money. We are already struggling massively with a housing crisis and our healthcare is a shambles ( have a Google about Emma Mic Mathuna) We really don't need any extra burdens. Not to mention having to listen to the disgruntled unionists