Can someone explain the issue with Ireland please?

[Bobcatcornea]

I don't understand what the Irish Backstop means nor what any of this means for Ireland. I don't remember all the troubles with the IRA as I was too young / my parents never really spoke about the news growing up.

The backstop allows us to exit without violating our obligations under the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). The GFA works a magic trick to make us all think what we want to think about NI (Still UK/Closer to Ireland) while it is backed by us both being members of the E.U. We didn't need to return to the bad old days of the border when we were both trusted members of the E.U. working together, not needing customs arrangements to trade and our citizens could go back and forth.
Take the UK out of the E.U. and the backstop allows us to keep that special arrangement unless and until we can come up with a technological solution to allow things like customs to work without any border paraphernalia. Please note that an ANPR camera is border paraphernalia.

helped me get it!

The UK and the Republic Of Ireland are both in the EU just now. Two differing countries with different regulations for goods and tarrifs on goods coming in and out of their countries need checks on those goods at the border. Because the UK and ROI are both in the EU, they don't need customs checks because the regulations on goods are the same and there's no tarrifs. If the UK came out of the EU, a hard border with physical infrastructure at the border of NI and ROI would have to be build and manned and goods checked.

The IRA claim that NI is not part of the UK but part of the whole of Ireland so a hard border would see NI more being part of the UK, indeed in the past troops and infrastructure at the border was a target for bombs and attacks in the past. The Good Friday Peace agreement in essence although not directly says that there shouldn't be a hard border and it never was thought there would be one again because both countries were in the EU.

The backstop allows the UK to leave the EU by allowing a remaining customs union as a safety net if a free trade agreement by the end of the transition period (which it won't) and this would allow goods to flow freely between the ROI and NI. Hard Brexiteers hate this because the UK would still be in a customs union this applying EU regulations without having a say in regulatory EU law.

Did you get it OP? By the way you refer to 'the troubles with the IRA'. Of course the troubles were just as much 'the troubles with the oppression and ignorance of the UK and the Unionists'. And today's news about the Bloody Sunday killings might inform you further.
I'm English, by the way. And thoroughly ashamed of how Ireland has been treated over centuries and that the UK Govt (and much of the populace) still doesn't appear to give any fucks.

A hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland would be extremely difficult for both (and the rest of the UK but that's less important tbh) and would also directly interfere with the GFA.

In short, it would be likely, in the event of a hard border that the ceasefire agreed by the paramilitaries would no longer be honoured. Therefore the troubles would return.

The British attitude towards the Irish people has been appalling for many hundreds of years, but the last 100 or so particularly bad.

It was known before the referendum that this would be an issue, that the violence could well and that it would be in direct contravention of the GFA. Yet nobody noticed and nobody made a plan.

Thank you all, I understand now. The YouTube video in particular helped explain things.

I think more people than those in the IRA consider Northern Ireland to be part of Ireland.

I think more people than those in the IRA consider Northern Ireland to be part of Ireland.

I agree.

Yes, other Republican terrorist organisations are available.

I know that wasn't what you meant. There are plenty of people who consider NI to be Irish who don't support terrorism or terrorist organisations.

Just like there are loyalist terrorists available too

Just like there are loyalist terrorists available too

I wouldn't expect many of those to consider Northern Ireland to be part of Ireland though!

Irish Times video

Nah, they think it's part of the UK

Growing up there “the troubles” to us certainly meant the bombings, killings and intimidation by paramilitaries of all persuasions. The ignorance of unionists doesn’t really make the grade there. Being a unionist no more means supporting terrorism than being a nationalist does.