The Irish

SF running a republican island with a concerted UVF campaign against is a very likely scenario in the next fifteen years, right?
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Yes I also wondered about something like this. The establishment of a political settlement (like NI itself) doesn't mean that everyone accepts it. (cf Remainers also!) It seems quite logical to imagine a rearguard loyalist campaign of sabotage even after reunification. But a political party (like the DUP) then running on a 'let's get go British' again platform would not seem to have much credibility.

it would be endgame stuff but drag on forever, that new phase

i thought on what steps ulster (using the term consideredly) would need to

take? i dont want to suggest it's a "you're on your own here until" but an element of getting the house in order is certainly imo implicit

and likewise what further moves and norms and policies from south would need to happen in order for the most seamless possible transition to unified island to occur

i usually fail to get beyond "everything from 1994 til brexit, but longer" because the cross border policies initiatives and simply practical lived experience were imo working exactly as far as could be hoped.

SF rising to govt added to brexit as a provocation of the slow progress isnt ofc similar in character or anything but is nonetheless i think not a step back, but a step nonetheless that makes wary the population youd most want to be driving the question of what comes next

three generations of piece, a standalone ulster that finds out what works without london intervention, subvention, prevention, a slow melding of tourism roads agriconomy and eventually theyd pop in one day and never leave, like a scandalous widower/widow coupling and really arent we too old for all the fuss, have ye nothing better for doing than looking at us

Yes.

Does your 'standalone ulster' imply actual independence for Ulster, as a temporary step between UK and united Ireland?

SF running a republican island with a concerted UVF campaign against is a very likely scenario in the next fifteen years, right?
― Ár an broc a mhic (darraghmac), Wednesday, February 23, 2022

I reflect now that this putative Neo-Loyalist movement would ultimately be much weaker than the IRA ever were. It would have limited local community support ('soft Unionists'? wouldn't support it), it would have no hinterland in Britain (except, again Rangers fans) as Republicanism has had in the ROI, it would have no realistic political goal (as Republicanism had and has), and it would have no great source of finance from 'our greater Ulster beyond the sea'. It would surely become extremely marginalised, to a much greater extent than the Republican movement in NI has ever been.

I am responding purely to pf as just reading in between bits of work. Dmac alludes to it above but the south has always had a cohort who are either implicitly or explicitly “we can’t rule ourselves, should have left the Brits in charge” who will be put in an interesting position by extreme responses to unification. Can’t imagine John Bruton, for example, being comfortable seeing Irish flags burned, but there are certain columnists (I will not name them but if you know, you know) whose positions have been out of step with 99% of the Irish public and who have had endless space to spout their rhetoric for pay who might - I stress might - be more sympathetic to unionist concerns.

yes it would be a true isolated group of extremists, very unlike an otherwise equivalent nationalist group in situ within a wider nationalist group notwithstanding the treaty looming large over that latter population

to the xp, i dont think theres a question of donegal for instance joining a formal splintered north as an entity politically. the smart play, if a unified political will were there, would imo be to rather downplay official structures and simply start to fund ulster initiatives, cross border initiatives, normalise the province as a shared space and see what better ways of living arise from such an approach

the three counties of ulster are liminal spaces politically and every impression i have of my old home county of donegal is that alienation from the current irish govt usuals has never been stronger felt. other posters on the boards would know better tbh but from this negative you could at least mine some good by appealing to an existing alternative that already functions in many practical ways i think.

sf in govt may have v different appeal to these counties, in any case

xp

gyac: I think I've met one or two of those people! (ordinary people not columnists - let alone ... fifth columnists)

I think it can’t be understated though that a militant loyalist movement would have support from the international far right, as they always have. When they searched Thomas Mair’s house, they found anti-Irish stuff in with the rest of the more obvious Nazi stuff. I wish it were more limited as you think pf, but the blatant supremacist of planters attracts a lot of the far right.

they are a legitimate opinion ofc

just massively overrepresented as an opinion where such opinions (used to?) matter

xp again if you say understated and i say merelybtaken as a given i dont think we disagree!

we should prob meet somewhere around underreported/implicit

As per poster Darraghmac's comments about the difficulty of transition, etc etc -

I maintain the idea that the political power of Belfast, within the same state, would be difficult for Dublin to cope with (and / or vice versa), and one could posit a 'devolved administration' in Belfast all over again - NI being a ... proud province or ... statelet within the ROI as it has been within the UK?

Perhaps the 'standalone Ulster' is a step toward this or a step toward avoiding it?

Perhaps this would be an opportune time for Cork to demand more autonomy?

I also re-posit my one, I think, slightly original hypothesis here amid the better informed statements of others, namely a conservative coalition of southern conservatism (eg FG) and northern (ex-)unionists - as a 'shared repository of sensible conservative values' (why not even ... 'Christian values'? for 'we are of different traditions on this island, yes, but we come together now in a recognition of what is best in our two traditions and of what, being un-Irish, will not stand' -- the latter being ... socialism, for instance).

The Irexit crowd are ofc very much in line with what I suggested above, Richard Chambers reported on them a few years back (search his tweets for Irexit as some of the threads are separate).

What we learned:
✅ #irexit political movement contesting elections planned
✅ "Quisling", "immigrants have no affinity or allegiance and we should demand it" in speeches.
✅ Farage will be back and more meetings planned.
✅ Media framed as the enemy of #irexit

— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) February 3, 2018

✅ "Ireland is not a foreign country" #Irexit

— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) February 3, 2018

xp lol your last sentence, you need to read about the Mother and Child Scheme if you haven’t heard of it before.

I don’t see a future back for the church in public life, though, regardless of an unlikely alliance around the idea.

PF- its difficult to argue for any such approach as follows when the trend is to predict absolute certainty in selling any idea at the levels in question, but I'd say that it would need to be an approach towards not a standalone province, but a 9 county province in itself with the very formally-tied structures of state left as they are but more and more functions and resources funnelled into activities that were less controversial and generally agreeable- sports, tourism, regional transport links across border and suchlike.

if this had to be categorised as either of your options i suppose id be selling it as the standalone option with several asterisked caveats, and certainly id be telling any smaller conference room informally that it was ofc *hoped for* that a period of stabilised (this can ofc be read politically literal or as the equivalent cycling tutelage stage, either would be correct) existence without such constant reference to the region as six counties turned towards the UK question nor forced to think of itself as necessarily in transition towards dublin would lead to the question longer term being considered in a more peacable light and with concrete gains for many who could be sold on a future as ulster within the four provinces of ireland if the wider political situation were calmer.

unity delayed is ofc unity denied for many, and any move towards even the goal of unity is viewed as presumed aggression by others.

the belfast question has been raised as ive seen it a few times. did m bourke or an other of this thread suggest or post a suggestion that belfast should be considered as a candidate for the 32 county capital?

i know mcwilliams, and ive little use for him mind, has written in his usual fabulously casual "will this do?" style of the development of a new superdock between dublin and belfast for several reasons, one being the bringing about of a new focus on the question of the dublin/belfast relationship as a pair of cities in a relatively small economic zone as opposed to the usual historical balancing act. to his credit i guess such attention is welcome regardless of the merits or otherwise of his concepts.

regional capitals are the ideal and as you say it wouldnt/shouldnt/neednt stop at the north east but the idea of regional hubs was established practice in the mid 90s and its a pity that not even working from home has made it a more pressing political issue again, altho the health boards being reproposed and wfh and belfast demanding some status and dublin being a housing disaster would all seem to be a mounting suite of pressures that argue for exactly such an approach.

quick return to the catholic right as an all ireland force- it would imo take politicians and votes from all three of the major players in the republic and the actual breakdown of that would be fascinating to see, id guess it would hurt ff and sf more than fg tbh

I’m no expert™️ but wouldn’t the ulster goodwill be massively improved by, oh, say, having trains?

Idk I’m going for a walk will think more on this

donegal yeah for sure that kind of thing is what im getting at

if putin is allowed to do this in the ukraine, will johnson in london be looking at the four ports and be licking his lips?

Don’t make me visualise that this dark morning pls

Thanks Darraghmac for your substantial post.

I had never heard talk of

a new superdock between dublin and belfast

This stuff tends to go into Flann O'Brien territory - if only, in my mind, because the early Flann c.1934 demanded a deep water harbour in Bettystown. Which would be a good proposal here except that, as we know, Bettystown is only 48km from Dublin and would hardly bring the spatial equality sought.

For the above reasons I was excited to actually see, or actually to see, Bettystown for the first time, in 2006; though more engaged still by Skerries.

i doubt very much that you couldnt dig into any one caper dreamt up by the same man that didnt have a lot more than a seed in either a white paper hed read or a meeting he had attended that week tbh

Pf I sincerely think you might be the first and perhaps only person in history to be engaged by Skerries.

If Pyutin will go after Keev, who’s to say Cobh isn’t next Joe?

joe would be out with the red flag ten mins after joe knows his pitch

We're still waiting for Boris' bridge from the Shankhill Road to Ibrox Park to get the go ahead.

alan kelly gone as labour leader

professional politician since school, professional shouter since, always had fuck-all time for him tbh and whatever labour needed after govt and collapse it was never him.

we wish him well in future endeavours

"Duncan Smith takes himself out of race for Labour leadership" might some of us a double-take.

*give some of us

This is huge.

#AE22 First preference votes
(All 18 constituencies reporting)

🟢 SF 250,388 (29.0%)
🟠 DUP 184,002 (21.3%)
🟡 AP 116,681 (13.5%)
🔵 UUP 96,390 (11.2%)
🟩 SDLP 78,237 (9.1%)
🟦 TUV 65,788 (7.6%)
♻️ Green 16,433 (1.9%)
🟢 Aontú 12,777 (1.5%)
🟪 PBP 9,798 (1.1%)

— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) May 6, 2022

That's up (2%) on the last election's vote total, too.

and there it is

good luck with that petition of concern u speak of

Meanwhile

POLL: Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks
(May 6, MoE 3%)

Sinn Féin 34 (+1 in four weeks)
Fine Gael 23 (+1)
Fianna Fáil 16 (-2)
Soc Dems 4 (-2)
Labour 4
Greens 4 (+1)
PBP-Solidarity 3 (+1)
Aontú 3
Inds/others 8 (-2) https://t.co/Zkok403wsH

— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) May 7, 2022

This is true.

there's lots of heavy breathing about Sinn Fein, but none of it gives me any idea of what SF will do in power on either side of the border

— jamie k (@jkbloodtreasure) May 7, 2022

nobody cares about the opinions of English people, sorry now

Don't be sorry, will keep linking British opinions or otherwise if I like it.

Whenever a woman is successful, this is is what they do. Absolutely sick and tired of this shite. pic.twitter.com/aw7ZA7uXmP

— Maggie Moo Mar (@Midge1415) May 8, 2022

Coverage of this latest electoral outcome has demonstrated something: large parts of NI, and also the BBC, are content to consider nationalists as politically invalid and not people who have a right to political participation.

A republican party wins by far the highest share of the vote. In a democracy this would have consequences. The actual consequences from Unionism and the BBC seem to be: we'll ignore these people and not conduct politics anymore, and mainly talk about why they are bad and should never be allowed to participate in society.

that is not too far from what happened in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Irish_general_election

Agreed.

R4's election coverage included interviewing two people whose parents got taken out by the RA during The Troubles. very impartial lads, and not at all inflammatory/unhelpful.

In so far as there's progress, the DUP has publicly said that the issue with supporting a national executive is the Northern Ireland Protocol rather than the concept of a Sinn Fein first minister, with some apparently accepting that "the people have spoken" - obviously I'd be wary of considering the DUP of operating in any kind of good faith, but it is noticeable that they're not throwing that particular toy out of the pram.

that is not too far from what happened in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Irish_general_election🕸

Pretty soon this will all pass and the English media and public can go back to their default position of ignoring all those ka-rrrrrrazy people somewhere over there across the Irish Sea.

Andrew F: this seems true. So, we have a Brexit deal, which secured the current powerful UK government, which apparently means that the NI Assembly cannot exist.

I won't say that no-one pointed this out before (lots of people pointed out lots of bad things about Brexit all along), but it appears that the UK state now rests on a basic incoherence, which the current UK PM happily created and went along with and little of the British media (perhaps unlike the Irish) cared to mention.

Calzino: yes, I heard this report. It was extraordinary. Like being back in about 1987.

I started to wonder: if we're going to ban popular political parties from taking office because their historical associates have killed people, maybe we'll have to extend that to the Con Party and, come to think of it, the Labour Party. Not to mention the DUP, who were oddly not mentioned in this connection by Radio 4 and are now seemingly seen as responsible, sensible people.

Jerry: We only need to be lucky once!
George: She's gotta be lucky every time, Jerry! Every time! https://t.co/YKnhX6dAst

— brandon (@BrandyBeansH) May 10, 2022

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FT7ctcTX0AAu_2w?format=jpg&name=small
as an avid player of the Irish Daily Millions lottery game I just thought I'd share this fantastic pic from their site, because it cracks me up and I felt like it was very important to make a record of it before it disappears.