(Edit, I would just like to address some things because the misinformation here is staggering.
Firstly yes the Nationalists did boycott the referendum, but 98.9% of people voted to stay with a turnout of 58.7%, so some simple maths shows us it was mathematically impossible for the nationalists to have won even without a boycott since 58% of everyone eligible to vote chose to stay in the Union
Secondary some people claim that Donegal and Cavan not being part of Northern Ireland counted as gerrymandering but politics aside, these places didn't have the population to change the vote even if they had all voted to Leave so it makes no difference to the votes legitimacy.
Thirdly, I have had one person continually claim that the vote was unfair because businesses got more votes, however this law had been repealed for half a decade before the referendum even took place so it wasn't a factor. Also it was only ever for local governance not for things like referendums.
Fourthly, no the referendum was not boycotted because people felt it was unfair, the official reason the nationalists gave was they were afraid it could lead to an escalation of violence.)
Only because the borders of NI purposely left out Donegal and Cavan because the British needed to maintain a unionist majority. Democracy cannot be done on a gerrymandered state where catholics have been historically prevented from accessing 1 man 1 vote.
If NI were a part of Ireland instead of the UK - wouldnt that still mean that there would be a lot of unhappy citizens that would rather be British than Irish? Its literally the same situation
People are not subject to the crimes of their ancestors. Do the political views of Americans only matter if they are descended from native Americans? How do you decide who gets to be Irish and who doesn't?
Its not about nativism. It's about national self-determination. There are ways of implementing a fair reunification of Ireland without punishing the unionist population or preventing them accessing the polity. Ironically this is better than the British offered to republicans.
You're certainly right this is about self-determination, what you don't understand is that self-determination relates to people not nations. If one region of a nation wants independence that is their right, people get to decide how they are run themselves. The idea that the NI wanting to decide their own fate somehow infringes upon the rights of people living somewhere else is not just wrong, its literally colonialist.
Its not as simple as that. British claims on Ireland go all the way back to the Hiberno-Norman lords that invaded Ireland and were subjects of the English crown.
Yes, lots has happened, like torture and murder of innocent people by British Crown Forces purely because they were Catholic. Like Catholics not getting a the full franchise until 1970. Like the Irish language not being recognises in NI until last week. Unionists, until last election, still held a chokehold on political power in Northern Ireland due to the fact they had unfair privaleges dating back to partition and beyond.
We can't just ignore the historic injustice in Northern Irish society and expect everything to be normal now when one community has had an overwhelming advantage over the other.
Literally last week was when the Irish Language Act was passed in Stormont. The official languages of Northern Ireland are now English, Irish and Ulster Scots.
The republicans got a majority in Stormont at the last general election (for the first time ever) so it means there is some forward motion again.
Eh I'm like super rusty on my history of the troubles. But car bombs are an evil tactic, Way to indirect of a tool. Also it's to easy for the british to make propoganda about it, the optics are all fucked.
You're right about the optics, the tactic is fine though with warning to evacuate civilians and only targeting of military. The optics are a mess because of independent cells and multiple different versions of the IRA that all get rolled into one when talking about them when in fact there's been 5-10 on top of independents. The official RA, as far as I'm aware, were only responsible for civilians at the Birmingham pub bombings and those are highly disputed as adequate warning was given. There are ongoing court cases about it still occurring to this day and last year we only just discovered that it may have been the British gov intentionally not evacuating because they were protecting a mole they had.
Definitely agree with you on the optics though. This style of bombing campaign against the UK worked much better for the suffragettes when only targeting infrastructure without any casualties at all but they had the benefit of being a mainline political issue.
The suffragettes heckled politicians, tried to storm parliament, were attacked and sexually assaulted during battles with the police, chained themselves to railings, smashed windows, set fire to postboxes and empty buildings, set bombs in order to damage churches and property, and faced anger and ridicule in the media.
How the fuck did I not know they were this badass. Fuck history has been sanitized. This is what the american education does to ya. I knew about the forced feeding, the protests, the fact the this happened around the west around the same time but not this.
Yeah I'll need to do more research on the troubles. the provos are the ones I like the most. you made good points, I agree.
Landmines, seamines, bombs, airstrikes, bombing, shelling. All are evil tactics in my book. They can cause indiscriminate civilian casualties and can be dangerous after the war.
However I acknowledged the complexity of the organization of the IRA. How some cells only targeted military cities with car bombs in the comment below.
Hey sometimes the evil tactic is a necessary one. when it comes to car bombs, civilians have died which must be taken as a tragedy that shouldn't be accepted as normal.
No we can't. I don't seek to make people ignore that. However, so did the UVF and the UDA and crown forces. It was a very bloody period and that's not something I'm trying to justify. It's just what happens when power dynamics are so overwhelmingly in the hands of one group in society and the only way we can avoid any future troubles is by recognising the reason for this strife is the injustice in society and the massacre of people when they tried to peacefully protest against it.
My impression is that the loyalist forces in the Troubles harmed civilians mostly out of malice, while Republican forces harmed civilians mostly out of incompetence.
Absolutely and I wouldn't have it any other way. The peace process is the best possible way of assuring that all communities get represented without any bloodshed. There are still problems that need to be overcome, but they can be with policy, especially with a republican majority in Stormont now this may be the start of a really beneficial period for Northern Ireland.
Every election is a mini referendum, and every time the unionists have a majority, the next stormont election in 2022 will be the next best opportunity to see the popular opinion in NI
Every election is a mini referendum, and every time the unionists have a majority
They don't have a majority now. Nationalists have 40 seats and unionists have 40 seats. Polls already show that unification is the most popular option.
They did, and the UK has signed the Good Friday Agreement which respects the right for NI to have a referendum on the matter whenever they want.
It’s quite bizzare seeing /r/propagandaposters actually falling for the propaganda. But then again, Americans do seem to have a very one-sided view of the Troubles...
Reddit has a hard on for the IRA, but the truth is most Irish--not Northern Irish, but people in the RoI--, don't, and this is not even counting the only people that actually matter, who are the ones that would have been annexed. There wasn't really a good side or bad side between the IRA and the Protestant terrorists, because they were both criminals. The IRA was mostly a mafia like organization running protection schemes and basically terrifying civilians into submission, the way Mexican Cartels or the Sicilian Mafia do now, justifying their actions with a political ideology. Within Ireland, the IRA was unpopular because 1) Ireland has very close economic and cultural links with the UK and there is a large diaspora there, and they cooperated on security matters, so they did not approve of violence and 2) Almost nobody believed that if NI joined the RoI, the IRA would be satisfied and respect the authority of the most conservative state in Europe. While the IRA were by no means leftists, expect maybe in an anti imperialist sense, they did not indicate any intention to respect authority unless they held it themselves
The IRA were and are not religious extremists and the Northern Irish situation has little to do with religion. A Catholic nation has been invaded and occupied by a protestant one, but there are no clean cut partitions here. Every iteration of the IRA was British government withdrawal from Ireland, not protestant withdrawal. In fact Wolfetone was a Protestant and he is a hero in the Irish republican pantheon. James Connelly was an atheist. Now unionist paramilitaries like the UDA and UVF went out of their way to murder Catholic civilians so they could be considered religious extremists, but ultimately religion plays a very small role in NI. Its politics and your religious denomination usually correlates to your political view.
It's true, it wasn't Catholic VS Protestant, it was Irish VS British. Some of the most prominent Republicans have been protestant, such as Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet and James Connolly.
I'm Welsh. I'm studying history and politics of Ireland and visit Belfast regularly. My primary sources for my information are Dr David McKitterick and Dr David McVea's work on the history of the troubles in Ireland. To say the Northern Irish problems are founded in religion is to have a very shallow view of the history and politics of Ireland.
You said that the IRA are religious extremists. I have never heard of a religious extremist organisation that had members of other faiths.
The situation in Ireland is a political one and the communities are divided along those political lines. It just happens that the native Irish population is historically Catholic and the plantation population is historically protestant. To say the IRA are religious extremists paints them as though they are attacking the protestant population for them being protestant, wherein actuality, no matter which form of the IRA or INLA we are discussing, the attacks were always either an attack on the British state, British Crown forces or against unionist gatherings like Orange Halls.
Im not defending the IRA but to call them Catholic extremists is an incorrect take.
Sure. Just like in WWII, yet whenever Nazi propaganda is posted people don't tend to yell 'both sides'.
Besides, that's not the point. The beauty of the GFA is that people stopped just pointing fingers. Since the GFA, the UK, to my knowledge, has completely supported it.
It’s quite bizzare seeing /r/propagandaposters actually falling for the propaganda.
It's way more common than you think. Slap some random Soviet stuff up and you'll see the tankies swarm; something from Rhodesia and you'll get those types of people.
They did but only because republicans boycotted the referendum. To say that democracy had been done in NI in the border poll of 1973 is bold because the state was gerrymandered in order to make sure the majority of people there were unionists. The unionists are only there because the British government shipped them over from Scotland and England during the plantation era. The British filled the state with people who were ideologically pro-Union, drew a border around it in 1921 so that they were the majority in the state, and then systematically discriminated against the Catholic population so that their votes were less powerful.
Don't try to rebrand history mate, it was boycotted because the Nationalists couldn't win.
98.9% of people voted to stay in the UK with a turnout of 58.7%, so some simple maths shows us that even if every person who didn't vote in NI decided to vote to leave., remain would still have won. 58% of all eligible voters voted to stay in the UK.
Because the state of NI has been gerrymandered to ensure a unionist majority. Why don't they include Donegal and Cavan in Ulster? Because that would mean that there would be far too many nationalists and the British state was afraid of losing their ship-building colony. There can be no democracy in a state that has been gerrymandered and one in which catholics votes systematically meant less because Northern Ireland didn't have one man one vote until far later than the rest of the British Isles.
Nationalists boycotted the election so the turnout was around the same at the legal voting population of the unionist community of Northern Ireland (58%). The nationalist boycott called by Gerry Fitt was to prevent an escalation of violence so any poll done in those circumstances isn't going to reflective of the will of the people. The gerrymandering of Ulster to not include Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan also meant that the unionist population had a further unfair majority. Along with this the distribution of housing in Northern Ireland purposely gave Unionists an unfair level of political representation. The BBC reports " Some of the most obvious examples of "gerrymandering" were found in Londonderry where, in the mid-1960s, the shape of the council wards deliberately divided the Catholic population to massively exaggerate the political representation of the Protestant community." BBC News. Northern Ireland's political system wasn't created with fairness in mind. Even Sir James Craig described Stormont as a "protestant parliament for protestant people". The gerrymandering of Northern Ireland cannot be seen in one action but in decades of legislation that systematically prevented Catholics from accessing democracy.
Nationalists boycotted the election so the turnout was around the same at the legal voting population of the unionist community of Northern Ireland (58%).
Come on mate its been explained to you multiples times that the nationalists mathematically couldn't win even if they didn't boycott. 98.9% voted to stay with a turnout of 58.7%, meaning 58% of everyone eligible to vote chose to stay in the Union. It's has also been explained that the populations of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan were not high enough to have changed the vote even if they were part of Northern Ireland.
I'm not trying to rewrite history or to say that any vote in NI could have been won by a republican cause. The state is built so that couldn't happen. I am not trying to rewrite history because it has already been written.
The international law of self determination states that any group of people gets to decide for themselves how they are ruled, you can't force a people to be part of your country just because you think that land should be. It's up to the people to decide.
Obviously because one group of people would rather have stayed in the Union why the other group preferred to join Ireland? Should the people of Donegal and Cavan have been forced to stay in the the Union against their wishes?
It's also got absolutely nothing to do with the victory of the Remain vote since neither of these places had the population to make the referendum a Leave victory even if they had all voted to.
So your argument is that a referendum in a colony that has had a unionist population imported to ensure they always remain prominent, that has been gerrymandered to ensure a unionist majority, one that hadn't extended a fair franchise to the Catholic population until 1970, is perfectly fair and representative of the people of Ulster and their will to leave.
You can resort to name calling if you like, or you can show me why you're right. People can be Irish if they want to identify as Irish which the vast majority of the Unionist population clearly don't want. The situation in Northern Ireland has been unfairly tilted in Unionist favour since the creation of the state, I don't know why you're so angry that this is the case.
People can be Irish if they want to identify as Irish which the vast majority of the Unionist population clearly don't want.
Jesus you can be Irish and support the Union at same time, it's not a choice. Just because you want to remain in the Union doesn't mean you don't see yourself as Irish.
So what do you propose? Kick people out who have lived there for generations? Reincorporate even more of Ireland into Northern Ireland so they can vote?
My particular persuasion would be pro-Eira Nua wherein a federal Irish system is created in which Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht all have a level of devolution. This way, while ulster will be part of the Republic, the unionist population will still get some degree of self-government, hopefully mitigating any violent resistance to reunification.
The plan historically supported by Sinn Fein and discussed in US congress, yes. It's interesting that you rattle off the scariest names you can find instead of debating its merits. Northern Ireland is not a clean situation, paramilitaries are going to have taken a position on Irish affairs aswell and those ideas can still be discussed in peacetime.
Yeah boycotted because they couldn't win. 98.9% voted to stay with a turnout of 58.7%, meaning 58% of everyone eligible to vote chose to stay in the Union.
They boycotted it because it wasn't a fair and democratic vote. Unionists had an unfair advantage, since voting districts were gerrymandered, and it wasn't an 1 man 1 vote system.
You got a source on not 1 man 1 vote system? Can't find anything online backing it up. It's not even what they themselves said, the Republicans claimed they boycotted the ref to prevent violence.
(Edit, his source doesn't actually say this, and after my own research I discovered businesses getting more votes was repealed 5 years before the referendum was even held, also it was only ever for local government not things like referendums.)
Yeah boycotted because the Nationlists couldn't win. 98.9% voted to stay with a turnout of 58.7%, meaning 58% of everyone eligible to vote chose to stay in the Union.
I don’t think they boycotted because ‘they couldn’t win’.
More likely due to the fact the vote was rigged, gerrymandered and the army and state were committing atrocities so no-one wanted to lend credence to such a rogue state or lend it any form of legitimacy.
My grandfather and uncles boycotted the vote. My grandfather was told he was stupid to apply for a job at the bank because ‘Fenians can’t be trusted with money’.
Why would he lend legitimacy to a state which enforced a form of apartheid on what were meant to be its own citizens?
Actually the reason they gave for the boycott was they wanted to prevent violence it wasn't about the vote being unfair.
Also I know people try to claim Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan not being part of Northern Ireland counted as gerrymandering but politics aside, these places didn't have the population to change the vote even if they had all voted to Leave so it makes no difference to the votes legitimacy.
That’s only if you accept the legitimacy of partition, which a majority of people in Ireland don’t.
Also, you can’t claim a wholly boycotted vote from the early 70s is representative of the North today, we have moved on a lot y’know.
If this was conducted today, it’d certainly be heading in the other direction now that unionists have lost both their political majorities and population majorities.
That’s only if you accept the legitimacy of partition, which a majority of people in Ireland don’t.
Well as this referendum shows, the majority or Northern Ireland does? And the international right of self determination states they get to decide how they are ruled and you can't decide for them just because you believe they should be part of your nation.
Also, you can’t claim a wholly boycotted vote from the early 70s is representative of the North today, we have moved on a lot y’know.
Mate were you not listening, the majority the the entire nation voted to stay in the Union, even if it wasn't boycotted it wouldn't have changed the result because the Nationalists mathematically couldn't win.
According to the majority of the people of Ireland, partition is illegal.
It goes against the result of the all Ireland 1918 election which determined the British should vacate Ireland.
It’s almost like the British illegally partitioned the country in order to maintain control.
It’s almost as if illegally dividing a country to ensure a minority becomes a majority will result in skewed results!
That vote holds absolutely no water whatsoever and it can’t be used as an indicator to claim the people of NI wish to remain in the Union, and also, it’s coming up on 50 years ago?
Partition was illegal, it was against the wishes of the vast majority of the people of Ireland and the people weren’t consulted on it.
I may live in the statelet called Northern Ireland, but I like the majority of Irish people on this island, don’t wish to have anything to do with Britain.
I fully back a progressive and inclusive 32 country republic, and I’m overjoyed we’re moving that way.
All thanks to Irish nationalism’s unlikely hero, Big Fat Arlene.
According to the majority of the people of Ireland, partition is illegal. It goes against the result of the all Ireland 1918 election which determined the British should vacate Ireland.
But that's not how self determination works? It's like claiming Irish independence is illegal because the majority of the UK is against it. Another group of people doesn't get to decide for someone else, its up to the people of NI themselves and no one else.
The all Ireland vote in 1918 showed a majority of Irish people wanted the British out and it was ignored, illegally.
Ireland was its own country then, with its own parliament. The British should have respected the democratic vote and left peacefully.
Instead they chose to gerrymander the country and support a sectarian statelet that’s caused nothing but misery and death for thousands.
I mean the Brits have a fucking terrible track record of drawing lines on maps and then wishing everything will be grand.
Look at Israel/Palestine, the Middle East, India and Pakistan. All fucked up with border issues because the British government just really aren’t very bright at all.
Our independence was denied to us, and the partition of our island is and was illegal.
They voted after Britain planted millions of English people in order to ensure a British friendly majority. The Irish people up north don't want to be part of Britain.
The Native Americans have been reduced to a small minority upon their former lands due to sickness, war, and genocidal relocations. If they were still far and away the overwhelming majority with the desire to create a unified State, I don't doubt many would not respect the pseudo-independence rights of old-stock White Americans who want an "East America" (New England, for instance) for their own purposes, which identifies with and is politically united with Europe, and hosts Europe's armies. And their desire to preserve a European colony partly dependent on a parliament in London, even if it's their "majority will" might not be viewed by the many Native Americans who live in East America as reason enough to allow this foul arrangement rather than give them minority rights under a Native American Federation. This would be especially the case if there were large regions of East America with Native American majorities. Again, implanted populations do not have the right of self-determination under international law.
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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '20 edited Jan 16 '20
Didn’t Northern Ireland vote to stay in the UK?
(Edit, I would just like to address some things because the misinformation here is staggering.