12th of July

[starbuckslover]

Apologies for posting this in AIBU, I was sure where to put it but..

AIBU form not understanding why people in Northern Ireland still celebrate the 12th of July (and the 11th night), in such an epic fashion? A country that voted for and signed the Good Friday Agreement, begging for peace to then light bonfires burning Irish flags, and marching gleefully in memory of a war that resulted in the death and oppression of goodness knows how many Catholics, is more than a little hypocritical?

How can this still be happening? I know people who are so anxious about brexit as it could upset the peace process who are out watching the marches today..how?!

Also, most place in NI are integrated now so Protestant and Catholic people are living as neighbours. How can these Protestant people go to parades that celebrate their neighbour's persecution...

I would fee the same if there were catholic parades for the same thing...so I am really not on one side or the other.

If anyone can help me to understand how such a huge group of (many) educated, sensible people (I know lots aren't, but many are normal everyday, semi-liberal citizens), can be so hypocritical I would be very grateful...🤷‍♀️

like being savaged by a dead sheep
If you were a historian/political historian you’d recognise the quote.
Clearly you are neither - as suspected 🙄

They are scared now because they know Britain doesn't want them.

I think unionists in NI have known Britain doesn't want them for a long time! It's not recent.

If you were a historian/political historian you’d recognise the quote.
Clearly you are neither - as suspected 🙄

As I implied when you called me a historian because I said I'd done a degree in history and politics: that is not a historian.

I don't give a fuck what conclusions you come to because I don't instantly recognise your lame references. I don't care about you at all

You are equating the English colonisation of Ireland from Norman times to the present day, with Nazi Germany's occupation of European countries.

Occupation is occupation, whatever way you want to spin it.

It's not to the colonists left there over hundreds of years.

Nazi Germany didn't do that, if didn't have control for long enough.

Says the person who claims to have extensively studied Irish history, yet doesn't know that the Irish constitutional claim to NI was removed in order to facilitate the Good Friday Agreement.*

I didn't realise that. Was taught our ability to apply for irish passports was due to claim.

After my degree I worked in politics (internship) but when it ended I went abroad, other side of the world, and did something totally different. That, combined with being sickened and disallusioned by the terrorist prisoner arrangements meant I switched off and never really made up the knowledge.

*switched off about the GFA.

You seem to know very little about the GFA actually, seeing as you believe Irish people in the North should just up and move to ROI (you'd love that, wouldn't you?). Guess what, their right to identify as Irish and hold Irish citizenship is upheld in the law. You may not like it but it doesn't change the reality.

Irish people in the North...
If they were born in Northern Ireland, they're Northern Irish. They can call themselves Irish but they're actually living in the state of Northern Ireland; so what does it a actually mean. If they want to be "Irish" so badly, why not move to the republic of Ireland until "the vote that's coming" dissolved Northern Ireland. I just don't get the hypocrisy.

I suppose if someone is tied to land I get it more but ..

Many people here are Irish nationalists who don't want Northern Ireland to exist but are happy to live in part of the UK because of healthcare, education etc. I find it hypocritical and lacking integrity.

These are part of the reasons why I do find the "right to be Irish" odd. It reminds me of people I know who call their children Irish names as a statement but can't speak a word of Irish.

"doesn't know that the Irish constitutional claim to NI was removed in order to facilitate the Good Friday Agreement."

That was a fundamental part of the GFA and is why the Irish Republic also had to have a referendum, to agree to changing their constitution
94% of voters there agreed to this

The release of prisoners on both sides was another fundamental part of the GFA
There would not have been peace without it

So was the roadmap to a reunited Ireland, if voters in both NI and the Irish Republic vote for it
This was deliberately to give nationalists a peacefful route to their wish of a reunited Ireland

The GFA gives people in NI to apply for Irish passports if they wish and created a wealth of crossborder institutions and links, as partt of the concessions to the nationalists

The GFA was approved ovewhelmingly by voters on both sides of the border, with 71% approval in NI on an 81% turnout

Running away and ignoring the GFA doesn't stop its provisions being legally binding

"If they want to be "Irish" so badly, why not move to the republic of Ireland until "the vote that's coming" dissolved Northern Ireland. I just don't get the hypocrisy."

Well one reason is that then there would never be a reunited Ireland if they did that:

the GFA requires a vote to be won in both Ni and the Irish Republic

The GFA gave the right of Unionists to aspire to remaining part of the Uk and to Nationalists to aspire to have a reunited Ireland

Just because a country was conquered, doesn't mean it should stop aspiring to independence after XX years, or XX people killed in the struggle for independence

Ireland always rebelled against centuries of brutal English and then British rule

Then when (some) Irish people were finally allowed to vote and choose MPs who wanted Independence,
Britain refused to allow this in full
and insisted on hanging onto NI, under threat off turning loose the British army to slaughter the Irish people into submission

When the British Empire dissolved after WW2, colonists in many countries conquered by Britain wanted their country, or part of it, to stay British
Rhodesia was the only country where the colonists were strong enough to achieve this themselves for a while
(South Africa gained Independence in the early 20thC and the Nritish & Afrikaaner whites hung onto power there for many decades)

Britain refused this, because after WW2 it was too weak to hang onto bits of other countries that were far away.

Ireland was unlucky being right next door

There is no provision to allow people in GB to vote for NI to leave ...
because otherwise most of us would probably have voted for this long ago !

Every other group got their democratic rights, except rUK

So we give an annual 10 billion quid subsidy to 1 million Ulster Unionists, which is higher than the net contribution to the EU for the 65 million people in the UK

The Orange Order march triumphantly through areas where the Catholics live, to show who is still top dog

• and it is time the Parades Commission, which was set up by the GFA, put a stop to such disgraceful provocation.

Some marchers taunt the residents over the Loyalist murders of Catholics there;
all marchers are basically boasting of protestant victories over catholics, triumphalism.

It's like white supremacists being allowed to march through predominantly black areas of mainland Britain, boasting about empire and slavery

*Well one reason is that then there would never be a reunited Ireland if they did that:

the GFA requires a vote to be won in both Ni and the Irish Republic*

I see, well that certainly is a good reason for Irish nationalists to maintain dual citizenship and reside in Northern Ireland.

There is no provision to allow people in GB to vote for NI to leave ...
because otherwise most of us would probably have voted for this long ago !

But wouldn't that be subject to what the citizens of NI vote; otherwise it's not democratic.

So we give an annual 10 billion quid subsidy to 1 million Ulster Unionists

Could you explain this? How does it go to only the Ulster unionists in Northern Ireland?

Just because a country was conquered, doesn't mean it should stop aspiring to independence after XX years, or XX people killed in the struggle for independence

I absolutely agree; but what is important to remember is that a significant portion of the population in NI do not want undependance.

*independance

"Ireland was unlucky being right next door*

But it was also due to demographics; the plantation (s) altered the demographic in a way it didn't in most British colonies, and that alternation meant a portion of the population vehemently opposed independance and saw/see themselves as British. This is ignored/minimised by your narrative.

Only the GFA prevents this

Otherwise, the democratically elected govt in Westminster could agree a treaty with the irish republic that Ireland should be reunited on XX date

Without the GFA, that would be perfectly ok under international law
and it would make relations with e.g. the USA muc h easier.

atm, the GFA is all that is preventing this, since the NI backstop is what is stops the kind of Brexit that the Tory party wants.
The US Congress would also probably not approve a US-UK FTA without an NI-only backstop

Polls show that a big majority of Tories would happily see NI go, to get their WTO Brexit

is why the Irish Republic also had to have a referendum, to agree to changing their constitution
94% of voters there agreed to this

Ive felt from my friendships and a auaintances with folks in the Republic that they are pretty detached and indifferent about NI. If they voted such a majority to drop the claim (although it's been replaced by the rights in the GFA (?)), would they vote to absorb (for lack of a better word) Northern Ireland?

A few I know definitely wouldn't! I was in a relationship with a guy from Donegal for a while and he told me he and his family consider most people from my town lazy, work the system Spongers "we don't want those people!" is what he told me his late mum said 😁.

The original NI was gerrymandered to be 90% Protestant and overwhelmingly Unionist

Over the decades, the number of Unionists has reduced and the number of nationalists increased

Now that Unionists gerrymandering has been stopped, this is reflected in elections
Fewer Unionist elected over time

Catholics will become a majority fairly soon - they already are a majority in the under-40 age group
So, it is likely that eventually people will vote for reunification

Brexit is likely to make this happen much sooner than otherwise,
if the small businesses and farms, that are so impotant to the NI economy, suffer as their business organisations predict

NI was created only by threat of sending in the Brittish army if the rest of Ireland disagreed
Imagine if this threat had been used to create settler enclaves in other British colonies,
e.g. Kenya, or other countries where the settlers also desperately wanted to remain British

• and had a far more valid fear of the bloody dictatorships that would follow independence

Opinion polls show a large majority of voters in the Irish republic would vote to accept a United Ireland
IF the NI people voted for it

That is in the GFA - NI has to vote for it first

Of course, if Brexit wrecks the GFA, then Westminster and the Irish Republic can agree a new treaty for reunification.
If London says they no longer want NI - too expensive or it blocks a US FTA - then the Irish republic can't really refuse to have it

Yes, it's another mess created by Britain.
And that they would like to dispose of like a used tissue.

The 94% in the Irish Republic and the 71% in NI voted for an end to the Troubles

Probably 71% in NI weren't all thrilled about prisoner release, any more than 94% were keen on abandoning thei claim to a bit of their country,
that they were forced to let Britain keep at athe time, only because of the British threat to send the army into all Ireland again.

Howevere, both electorates overwhelmingly accepted that the GFA was negotiated as a whole package, a peace treaty with something for both sides