Brexit from Irish perspective

[Carana]

There's a longish thread on Scotland, but nothing about Ireland.

55.8% of votes in NI voted Remain (back in 2016).
https://www.bbc.com/news/politics/eu_referendum/results

Any thoughts?

[Venturi Swirl]

There's a longish thread on Scotland, but nothing about Ireland.

55.8% of votes in NI voted Remain (back in 2016).
https://www.bbc.com/news/politics/eu_referendum/results

Any thoughts?

Yes, they should pipe down and suck it up, or something.

[Carana]

208 border crossings: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/brexit/borderlands/the-border

[Carana]

The backstop isn’t just about trade. Is that so hard to understand, Britain?
Dearbhail McDonald

The Good Friday agreement allows people to identify as Irish, British or both. We’re being forced, once again, to choose sides

Thu 31 Jan 2019 06.00 GMT
Last modified on Tue 3 Sep 2019 10.53 BST


One of my earliest childhood memories is of a circling red light motioning cars to stop near the border, silencing all who encountered its fiery glare. That red light filled my young heart with fear. I didn’t know if the gloved hand holding the torch was that of the RUC, the British army, the IRA or the UVF.

I grew up during the Troubles in the shadow of Cloghogue, one of the largest British army bases in Northern Ireland. Having to make detours to avoid customs and security checks along “bomb alley” – an atrocity-laden eight-mile stretch of road between Newry and Dundalk – was as frightening as it was familiar.

It still is: to this day there are some back roads in South Armagh that I will not drive on alone after dark. It’s hard to explain to those who have not lived through a conflict that claimed more than 3,500 lives, in a region with a smaller population than most large UK cities, how the border permeated every aspect of our lives.

    Backtracking on the backstop is a mistake and a risky one at that

It’s also hard to explain why the Brexit backstop – an insurance policy proposed between the EU and the UK to avoid a hard border, and extended to the whole of the UK at the latter’s insistence – is so critical. As the business editor of the largest media group in Ireland, I can give you chapter and verse about the economic threats a hard or no-deal Brexit poses for the Irish, Northern Irish and British economies. But you know about those already.

The reality is that no amount of economic modelling can capture the unquantifiable human and psychological costs of the return of a hard border. Many argue that technological solutions – drones and suchlike – will do the trick. This is farcical: you only eliminate physical checks between two territories separated by a border when they share a customs union and have broad regulatory alignment. Everything else is infrastructure.

(...)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/31/ireland-hard-border-brexit-backstop-good-friday-agreement?CMP=share_btn_tw

[Miss Taken Identity]

If the EU want a hard border they can put one up - simple.  or are the EU going to force a population to succumb to their will by force? The catholic church has all but lots its credability as the moral compass of a nation- owing to its rape and torture of children throughout its wicked history. The paramilitaries of both sides are the procurers of civil unrest in that island who also use torture and murder to instill fear.

 The EU have removed their democarcy- they use words to keep them in tow.

The Irish voters with a majority  in favour of NOT wanting to sign onto the LISBON TREATY  were denied this.

 TWICE, the Irish  and the Italians have had a majority of NOT complying with the  EU- but the EU was having none of it had their way in the end. They overruled.




Italy did the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfM3LK9h5MY

EU democracy? unelcted commissioners making the rules- cannot be sacked.   Hell yeah

[Venturi Swirl]

“The Irish voters with a majority  in favour of a  TREATY the EU before TWICE, but the EU was having none of it had their way in the end.”

Can anyone translate this into English?

[G-Unit]

We shall have to see what happens now after the Election in the Republic of Ireland. Those who want no border at all have done very well. Perhaps a united Ireland would solve the problem.

[Eleanor]

I was a peripheral IRA Supporter in my youth.  Michael Collins was my hero.

My own Southern Irish Family left Tipperary God knows when and for God knows why.  But then they were Gypsies, so this could have had something to do with it.  Starvation even, perhaps. 
I doubt that I will ever forgive the abuse of Irish Catholics.  I still don't know who I am.  My family didn't want to talk about it.  But there is a Mitchelstown on the border of Tipperary.
Sadly not many Mitchells left in Southern Ireland.  Most of them bailed out and emigrated to far corners of The World.  But a tough breed of Celts they are.

[G-Unit]

I was a peripheral IRA Supporter in my youth.  Michael Collins was my hero.

My own Southern Irish Family left Tipperary God knows when and for God knows why.  But then they were Gypsies, so this could have had something to do with it.  Starvation even, perhaps. 
I doubt that I will ever forgive the abuse of Irish Catholics.  I still don't know who I am.  My family didn't want to talk about it.  But there is a Mitchelstown on the border of Tipperary.
Sadly not many Mitchells left in Southern Ireland.  Most of them bailed out and emigrated to far corners of The World.  But a tough breed of Celts they are.

I knew little about Irish history until the trouble began in the late 1960's. I was horrified to learn how the dominant NI Protestants had been treating the NI Catholics. I didn't necessarily support the IRA but I could understand why they existed.

[Eleanor]

I knew little about Irish history until the trouble began in the late 1960's. I was horrified to learn how the dominant NI Protestants had been treating the NI Catholics. I didn't necessarily support the IRA but I could understand why they existed.

There was an awful lot of misreporting going on at the time.  The IRA often got the blame for what The Protestants were doing.

The IRA didn't have much of a choice if Catholics were to survive at all.

[Venturi Swirl]

There was an awful lot of misreporting going on at the time.  The IRA often got the blame for what The Protestants were doing.

The IRA didn't have much of a choice if Catholics were to survive at all.

The Protestants weren't blowing up military guards on horseback in the centre of London, of killing innocent children on British high streets.  Not that I remember anyway.  Surely there is a better way of bringing about change than through commiting such terrorist atrocities?

[Eleanor]

The Protestants weren't blowing up military guards on horseback in the centre of London, of killing innocent children on British high streets.  Not that I remember anyway.  Surely there is a better way of bringing about change than through commiting such terrorist atrocities?

They did, when people started to listen to them.

[Venturi Swirl]

They did, when people started to listen to them.

Which just goes to show that terrorism works (don't be telling Isis that though). 

[G-Unit]

Which just goes to show that terrorism works (don't be telling Isis that though).

Today's terrorists can become tomorrow's freedom fighters. Look at the ANC.

[Venturi Swirl]

Today's terrorists can become tomorrow's freedom fighters. Look at the ANC.

I'm well aware of that fact.  Does that mean that we should always view terrorists in a positive light and give in to their demands?  Will there come a day when your great grandchildren, in their hijabs and turbans have a framed print of Osama Bin Laden on their dining room walls, and will that be OK with you?