To think most people in the UK don't really care about NI

[Tooldemont]

Just that really, we don't seem to be a together nation and many people I know would just prefer Ireland to become one country on that landmass.

Maybe it's just my circles, but rings true here

@TooManyPaws - England does NOT equal Britain.

My comment was tongue in cheek, based on the fact that historically Britain consisted of England and Wales, while great Britain also includes Scotland. Apologies if I offended you.

I'm glad someone stepped in to say that Graham Norton is actually from Cork (one of the most southerly parts of Ireland). I was questioning my own sanity there for a minute.
Will read back now, but just had to comment on that one.

Growing up as a member of the CoI in the 60s and 70s Graham Norton may well have felt like a bit of an outsider. I'd also guess that being a young gay may in what was an overwhelmingly Catholic and conservative society can't have been a barrel of laughs either. I'm not surprised he jetted on out of there at the first opportunity.

But these days he has a home in West Cork that he spends a lot of time in and I know he's said that the young Graham would never have envisaged the older Graham wanting to spend so much time there and considering it home.

I genuinely feel that with all that has gone on, NI should set up its own country/government. They were quite happy there for a few years, but now they're taken out of the EU, they're not happy.

The solution is not handing it back to Ireland like a hot potato.

Too much violence, too many hard held opinions, too much hatred.
And IMO, the DUP are pure poison. Sinn Féin aren't without fault either, but I like their politics apart from their craving for a United Ireland. It's like they are thinking back to 100 years ago, before the place was blighted by war.
As NI is now, I don't think it could happily go either way.
People of Ireland have been shamed over the years about the war in the UK on our island.
Please don't think that Ireland wants to take NI on either.

I genuinely feel that with all that has gone on, NI should set up its own country/government.

Nope. They're economically depressed as it is being part of the UK. They'd be utterly ruined if they set up as an independent country.

And to the person who said that because I only had experience of Carrickfergus which is predominately Unionist, I was studying in Jordanstown.

NIrish are IN MY EXPERIENCE ONLY a suspicious and argumentative people. They are not friendly. They distrust most Irish. You can't say anything or you're somehow inadvertently insulting them. That's not Irish. That's not how Irish people are. You're constantly on edge up there in case you say the wrong thing. They're hyper sensitive, and you get the impression that if you say the wrong thing, you're going to get shot or something.

Well, if you tended to go about blurting out this kind of thing in person, I'm not surprised that you encountered NI people who were 'sensitive' and 'suspicious' around you.

As for my comment about us being more like Spanish than NI? Both of us are mad for the craic, dancing, we're friendly open people. We like to chat and socialise. Nobody is afraid of us (in our case, most people think we're permanently drunk and thick). Not sure what the stereotype is of Spanish people. But we get on! We have a lot in common in our way of thinking.

So, some Bórd Fáilte stuff about 'craic', plus some hoary old Drunken Paddy stereotypes somehow make us like Spaniards?

Donmess wtf? I've known lots of people from NI and they've been some of the funniest and warmest people I've met

I can only talk about my experience as an Irish person having lived there and dropping out of my UNI course as a result

Parthenope. It's like we're worlds apart. That's what I am trying to exemplify.

Someone on this thread has even commented that because I lived in Carrickfergus, I was in a Unionist area.

It's not like that in Ireland. You go to Dublin, Cork, Tullamore, Donegal, Kerry, Galway, we're all the fucking same. But if you walk into the wrong pub in NI, you're shunned or basically made to get out. That's not fucking Irish! That's NI!

Ireland is NOT like Northern Ireland.

And Irish people really don't want them as part of our nation.

And you can get my posts deleted if you want, but try actually reading what I'm saying.

news.sky.com/story/sky-data-poll-irish-overwhelmingly-back-governments-pressure-on-backstop-11629673

'Meanwhile, our poll found that the majority of people in the Republic of Ireland would back Irish unity - 64% support (34% strongly), 16% oppose (6% strongly), with 18% answering neither and 4% don't know.'

(Sky Data interviewed a nationally representative sample of 1,611 Sky customers in the Republic of Ireland online from 1-4 February 2019)

Lol, you all thought Brexit would be a whitewash too.

Not sure what that means? I have no agenda. I'm merely presenting recent polling data. Do you have a particular issue with data?

All I'm reading is gross generalisations based on a kneejerk reaction to your unhappy experience as a student, Donmess.

A cynic would suggest that 'Nora from Carlow' was a very naive and sheltered eighteen year old, who should really have figured out before she moved to a city with a complex sectarian history, that not everywhere is like Bagenalstown and environs, and that perhaps her own obtuseness about not listening to local advice might be partly at issue in her negative experience of Belfast, rather than deciding all NI people are suspicious, argumentative and unfriendly.

'And Irish people really don't want them as part of our nation.'

^^

What is that assertion based on?

Donmesswime I'm not sure what the whole of NI has done to upset you so much, but you're on quite the rant there! Your gross generalisations are quite laughable, both to me (the unfriendly, aggressive one from NI) and to my DH (the easy going, welcoming one from ROI)

Patrick Kielty made an interesting NI doc a few months ago in which he interviewed Arlene Foster who was adamant she’d leave the island if a United Ireland came to pass. Which is fair enough

She'd have to get in a time machine and go back to 1690 where her mentality is stuck! God help us if she comes over to the mainland to live and spread her bigotry. She'd also find how little she has in common with mainland Brits. She and the EDL would make bedfellows.

Some of the statements here are so depressing. I've lived all over the UK. There are pubs I wouldn't go into in Manchester/Dundee/Leicester/Leeds and Belfast is similar. I'm guessing there are places in Ireland too that may not be as fully welcoming as has been suggested by a pp. However, many, many people here are delightful and I'd happily spend an evening with them without their address/religion/school being a second thought. The only people that I wouldn't want to spend time with would be (most of) our 'esteemed' MLAs.

Donmesswime - will you ever give over?

A United Ireland is not at the forefront of people's minds in ROI, but if NI voted for it then I'm certain we would embrace the opportunity to unite the country. The poll above shows it. The nationalists in NI are as Irish as you and I, and it's really unfair to use the bad treatment you got from some unionists as a stick to beat them with.

If a UI happens, unionists will of course still be entitled to their British citizenship, and we would have to be inclusive. Some of them may do an Arlene and leave, but I imagine most will just want to get on with their lives.

FWIW my best friend and I went to a gig in Belfast when we were about 20 and inadvertently booked a B&B in a heavily unionist area. Flags everywhere, kerbs painted, etc. I felt intimidated til we walked in the door - the people running the place couldn't have been nicer to us.