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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Do you think giving birth in Belfast will become a thing post Brexit?

431 replies

Lalaloveyou2020 · 19/01/2021 12:01

Since 2005 a person born on the island of Ireland (including NI) to Irish or British parents has a right to apply for Irish citizenship/a passport. I read an article in the FT yesterday discussing the obstacles UK business travellers would face in a post Brexit word, which ended with this:

"There’s one group that will do well out of this: UK-based EU passport holders, who will be able to advertise themselves, both to British employers and to EU service buyers, as being able to travel unhindered around the bloc. Best-placed of all will be Irish passport holders, who can not only travel in the EU, but live and work freely in the UK too. Cecil Rhodes, the British mining magnate and colonialist, once described being English as “the greatest prize in the lottery of life”. Post-Brexit, it’s the Irish who hold the winning ticket."

If you really really wanted your child to have access to the EU in the future, would you be willing to move to Belfast for your birth so that your child could then claim an Irish Passport?

This is meant as a light-hearted discussion more than anything else, though if anyone from NI could chime in on how difficult it would actually be to do, please do so! Reason for going to Northern Ireland over the Republic is the access to the NHS and an automatic right to be both Irish and British at birth.

OP posts:
WINKINGatyourage · 20/01/2021 11:17

@wellthatsunusual

I know someone who has their microwave in a cupboard permanently

I also have my microwave in a cupboard Grin

To be honest, I find myself eyeing up the kettle sometimes as well and thinking 'hmmm, I wonder...'

Grin
WINKINGatyourage · 20/01/2021 11:19

@wellthatsunusual

On a non toaster but very Irish note, this painting is called The Fear. And I absolutely love it.
Oh i love this painting! I know Aidan- definitely an artist worth checking out. His work is absolutely amazing.
DGRossetti · 20/01/2021 11:20

I live in a county of England with a very strong identity as was astounded by a father to be at a maternity unit tour saying that he was happy for his wife to have an hour's journey to hospital rather than a 15 minute one as the baby had to be born on the right side of the county border! There's nowt so queer as folk!!

If you spend any time in the West Midlands (Brum) and listen to local radio for a while, you quickly learn that there are deep divisions over the 1974 boundary review which bought Sutton Coldfield into Birmingham, and created Sandwell and Dudley. If people get that worked up over minor boundaries ...

Jarline · 20/01/2021 11:48

As an aside, you can no longer pay to access a private room - assuming we are talking about Johnston House, the top floor in the Royal. You simply request it when you are in labour, and if there is space, you will be allocated a room there - they do keep a quota of them for people who clinically need privacy though, of course.

And Maternity care is not midwife-led automatically, you are given a choice as to midwife-led or GP led in my trust, and Consultant led if there are any complexities.

I had two very difficult pregnancies ( with a loss in between) and can’t fault the care I received.

Lalaloveyou2020 · 20/01/2021 12:26

Just on the note that @Yuddiesorno struck in her post saying that her grandmother fled Ireland to find refuge in England, that went on in a different way right up until 2018 when the eight ammendment was struck out by popular vote. Women seeking terminations could only find them in the UK, including women who were carrying babies with fatal foetal abnormalities. They recieved care from the Liverpool Women's NHS Trust. I remember watching a heartbreaking documentary on the women who had to attend. England did awful things to Ireland, but it looked after the women that the Irish government refused to even acknowledge. Nationalism in Ireland is still a bit too emotionally immature to come to grips with the fact that the establishment of the Republic was no great thing for Irish women. In NI, as well, Arlene and co refused to legalise abortion. It only came in when Stormont was on hiatus (for three years on full pay!!) and women are still havibg to travel to the UK as they cant access the service in parts of NI.

The anti Irish and anti English sentiment in this thread is awful, especially when in recent years (minus Brexit) a tone of friendship had been struck between the two governments. And Irish women and English women have always had links, be it friends, mothers, grandmothers.

OP posts:
BadEyeBri · 20/01/2021 12:36

As fine a piece of whataboutery as I have seen in some while. You have to be from NI OP.

LadyfromtheBelleEpoque · 20/01/2021 12:42

@Lalaloveyou2020

Very strong links with the women that we need to protect. I agree that women paid a high cost in history (abortion/losing jobs/role in society/sipistiotomies?) etc - England has been a safety valve in that sense in allowing them something they couldn’t access in Ireland. It is way too complicated to be reduced the way some would like and they are crushing the very real lives of Irish women who left for a multitude of reasons (my own included who came to earn money to send back for the younger ones after her father died).

ReallySpicyCurry · 20/01/2021 13:02

OP abandons her own thead, fails to interact with the many valid points raised by numerous people posters from all corners of the UK.

OP returns once she thinks she can slide in her own back door, attempts to regain ground with a gotcha moment.

Except, OP, if you're using the women who had to travel for abortions to justify your great birth tourism idea, it doesn't work.

NI women were still paying for those abortions. They were not funded by the NHS. In some cases, certain charities may have helped with some or all of the treatment. The women may well have received care from the Liverpool, Trust but if it was free and NHS funded, then it's the first time I've heard of it.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40271763

www.fpa.org.uk/news/ban-nhs-funded-abortion-care-women-northern-ireland-narrowly-upheld

So women from N.I had to pay thousands of pounds over the years to access the same medical care as women in the rest of the UK.

Has anyone here, from either ROI or NI, said we're beyond reproach as a country, as a people? God no. We're not. But we've actually only been a country for coming up to 100 years, most of them shadowed by one war or another, so is it suprising we're only getting our shit together now?

So no, you don't get to use the experiences of traumatised women, women who had to sit on a freezing hours long journey on a ferry boat with a fistfull of saved and borrowed money, and the fear of discovery on them like no other, in order to justify your argument.

Emeraldshamrock · 20/01/2021 13:04

The anti Irish and anti English sentiment in this thread is awful, especially when in recent years (minus Brexit) a tone of friendship had been struck between the two governments. And Irish women and English women have always had links, be it friends, mothers, grandmothers
It has never been any different on these threads. There is still a comradeship between the two, as countries we are very interlinked, we have many related ancestors but we're not discussing the weather.
You started this thread it is like starting a thread on obesity/thin shaming then wondering how the bun fight started. It is a sensitive subject one where feelings will arise.

OwMyNeck · 20/01/2021 13:06

The anti Irish and anti English sentiment in this thread is awful, especially when in recent years (minus Brexit) a tone of friendship had been struck between the two governments. And Irish women and English women have always had links, be it friends, mothers, grandmothers

Er what now? The 2 governments, English and Irish? Who the fuck are you talking about?

OwMyNeck · 20/01/2021 13:07

England did awful things to Ireland, but it looked after the women that the Irish government refused to even acknowledge

By allowing them to pay privately for abortions and all the costs associated? How kind of them Hmm

Emeraldshamrock · 20/01/2021 13:09

By allowing them to pay privately for abortions and all the costs associated? How kind of them 👏🤣

Cocolapew · 20/01/2021 13:12

@OwMyNeck

England did awful things to Ireland, but it looked after the women that the Irish government refused to even acknowledge

By allowing them to pay privately for abortions and all the costs associated? How kind of them Hmm

Exactly
ReallySpicyCurry · 20/01/2021 13:12

To the tune of £900 or thereabouts. And that just for the procedure of course.

OwMyNeck · 20/01/2021 13:14

Plus flights, accomodation etc etc. For 2, unless you can manage it alone.

ReallySpicyCurry · 20/01/2021 13:14

So well looked after. Getting into trouble with loan sharks, borrowing money off mates, all so you can have an abortion, sit in some dire B&B for a few hours, then hot foot it home on the boat with knickers full of Tena before anyone back home notices you've gone.

implantsandaDyson · 20/01/2021 13:15

I usually avoid NI threads on MN, they are usually full of faux innocent questions, ill judged and poorly educated reasoning. I've been on MN for an embarrassing amount of time and seen an embarrassing amount of nonsense spouted but using womens fears and horrible, horrible, sad, heartbreaking experiences travelling for healthcare that was denied to them as some kind of gotcha moment is truly sickening. Well done Lalaloveyou2020

beantrader · 20/01/2021 13:26

England did awful things to Ireland, but it looked after the women that the Irish government refused to even acknowledge

Oh no no no no no....you don't get to say that. Sorry but you don't. I used savings, begged and borrowed to go to the UK to have an abortion.

And frankly how dare you start a goady thread on how you can get Irish citizenship then bleat on about divisiveness and lack of unity. Wow. Just fuck off with that.

ReallySpicyCurry · 20/01/2021 13:28

beantrader Flowers

OP I think an acknowledgement of how very mistaken you were on this particular subject would be acceptable about now

JaneJeffer · 20/01/2021 13:41

The anti Irish and anti English sentiment in this thread is awful
But just as in real life it is in the minority despite what the shit stirrers try to do, and get away with, on this site.

Piglet89 · 20/01/2021 13:46

If the OP is English, that recognition of being wrong will somewhere contain the sentence “I’m sorry you feel that way” or some other notable qualification. Some notable examples of recent English “contrition”:

“If Miss James has misinterpreted that then I can only apologise to her as it was not my intention to suggest she was less valuable....” - that’s what you did though, Lord Sumption, so “I’m sorry” would be appropriate right about now.

“If people felt upset by expressions of frustration specifically that has been highlighted by Alex Allan, I've been very clear about that, I've given an unreserved apology." - aaah, that’s all right then, Priti. All better now!

Yuddiesorno · 20/01/2021 13:49

I would like to apologise to anyone who has been upset by my contribution- I wasn't trying to derail the thread and I only talked about my Granny's experience because reading the thread brought it to mind. I genuinely did not me to compare her situation to anyone else's or score cheap points by exploiting traumatic events in women's lives. In hindsight I think it probably wasn't relevant to this topic.

As pp said it's maybe better not to engage in some particularly inflammatory threads. I'll be off to watch Father Brown now, as my Granny had a touch of the Mrs McCarthy about her (if you caught her at the wrong time Grin.

BadEyeBri · 20/01/2021 13:53

@Yuddiesorno your post had way more relevance that the OP's subsequent one and no one but the most rabid nutter could accuse you otherwise

ReallySpicyCurry · 20/01/2021 13:58

Yes @Yuddiesorno I agree. Your post wasn't the problem, it was the way OP expanded on an otherwise relevant theme

FlaviaAlbiaWantsLangClegBack · 20/01/2021 14:01

Sorry Yuddiesorno I started to reply to your tag earlier then had to wrestle DS into doing his school work and forgot. I know you weren't comparing them and I see the point you're trying to get across.