@Taytoface my son’s father is Irish albeit from the republic, so I have had many conversations about this over the years. I do think I have a rudimentary understanding - enough to get why you’d be so upset about it anyway? Part of what makes it so infuriating is that a lot of Brits don’t even know why NI is part of the UK, let alone care.
I dunno if this is even helpful, and I apologise if it isn’t, but while I was learning about the history - the main thing that stood out for me was how immovable the indigenous Irish Catholic population was for so long, and from a position of peace. While England and other parts of Britain were being invaded and our culture was changing so rapidly over those times, Ireland was largely left alone. The upshot of that being that the culture there was so embedded and part of the national psyche that it was, at least in my opinion, seemingly impenetrable.
The Brits tried countless times to invade and bring in Protestantism and failed spectacularly most of the time because of how strong the indigenous culture was. For reasons that don’t make sense to me, in a fashion, the Brits did succeed in the end. Which brought about the subsequent Troubles and gross persecution of indigenous Catholics.
But, in my very humble and uneducated opinion, I have visited both sides of the border and still feel like Irish culture runs through the veins of both sides. Even if it is an unpopular opinion to hold.
A perspective from a dumb, uneducated Brit 😊