I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
If it wasn't for the sodding antivaxxers and denialists (there's a huge overlap between those groups), this would have been over by now.
HART pressuring the JCVI and MPs, bringing the CRG onside and spewing their misinformation and fearmongering into the mdeia, ably assisted by Julia Hartley-Brewer and Toby Young.
Hesitation by the Government and JCVI, a belated decision and even more belated overruling, tentative and slow movement on the vaccination of 12-15s and incompetence in rolling out the boosters.
Other countries have completed their 12-15 rollout by now, and we were at the front of the vaccine rollout field; there's no excuse for it, and the rampant infections in secondary school ages which are driving the entire thing wouldn't exist.
Delusional wankers pushing their ignorant fantasies and too many frightened people accepting them without applying any coherent thought.
Thanks, antivaxxers and lockdown sceptics. Thanks so bloody much. We were free and clear and you've fucked it all up for all of us. Well sodding done.
There were always going to be antivaxxers. We knew this.
We have vaccines which are more efficacious than we dared hope for when vaccines were absent and we have a take-up far higher than envisaged. We knew vaccines wouldn't be 100% effective and some would refuse, and we still sold the vaccines as the silver bullet to ward off further authoritarian measures. We also knew that vaccines would wear off and boosters would be needed.
We need to trust the vaccines and keep to the plan.
Indeed – and, to your point, put the pressure on the government to kick on with the plan (including speeding up boosters and teen vax) rather than pressuring them to reintroduce measures which would have been seen as wildly oppressive and outlandish just 20 months ago.
I have said before that, since vaccines came in, continued lockdownism is a branch of antivvaxxery, as it strongly implies scepticism of vaccine efficacy.
Has anyone's work made any plans for a christmas meal/shebang yet ? I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ? I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
My organisation: we won't be doing that. We are basically wfh till at least April.
Why are we all suddenly so frit? We're vaccinated. We're not facing a lethal virus any more. We're facing a nasty cold. And for this people are voluntarily putting huge aspects of their life on hold for months on end? How many people catch a cold every day? I don't know, but I wouln't be surprised if it was about 50,000. I'm not a denialist. Covid exists. I wouldn't go out of my way to get it. But the extent to which we are hiding from it is ridiculous. We're all going to get it at some point. May as well be now as later. (Easy for me to say, having had it. But still.)
Has anyone's work made any plans for a christmas meal/shebang yet ? I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ? I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
My organisation: we won't be doing that. We are basically wfh till at least April.
Some people clearly live on a different planet to me. If you go into London now, it's like the pandemic never happened. It's absolutely buzzing.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
My ex suggested in 2001 how to win in Afghanistan. In about 30 minutes.
Basically, impose peace, Roman style.
Pax Romana or they make a desert and call it peace?
On the subject of treatment for COVID patients my wife and a lot of my European friends are quite scathing about how UK society operates. In their view (and correctly, IMO) the UK has tried to create a society without consequences for poor decisions. Decide not to get the vaccine? Don't worry the NHS will still give you treatment, even at the exclusion of others. Decide to not look after your weight, don't worry the NHS will give you free diabetes drugs and quarterly checkups to tell you to stop being so fat but don't worry about listening to the doctors, we'll give you the drugs for free either way.
It extends to other areas too, had too many kids and can't afford it on your low wages? Don't worry we've got tax credits for that, need a bigger property for all those kids you can't afford? Great we'll give you housing benefit for that bit too. Oh you don't like your job? Don't worry about it guys, just quit and we'll give you unemployment benefits plus a myriad of top ups to ensure the kids you could already couldn't afford aren't neglected and we'll top up your housing benefits too so the landlord doesn't evict you. Wait, you never want to work again? It's ok, there's no time limit to benefits! You can sit there and do nothing all day if you want and we don't mind.
You get the picture. People make stupid decisions and the state has decided its role is to protect people from their own stupid choices.
If you think free health care is the cause of obesity then you'd have some job explaining the US. And whatever we are doing to encourage people to have kids clearly isn't enough, with births down 4% in 2020 and the fertility rate at 1.58, the lowest on record (and no, that's not because of Covid).
Agree on obesity & free health care. On the birth rate I think it is fair to say that some that part of the problem is some who are above benefit level but not financially comfortable have fewer kids than they might otherwise choose to, and that is particularly down to housing costs. It is unsurprising that this causes some resentment, and that we should look for a better balance than the status quo.
Anyone above benefits level can afford to have kids. Yes, it may be a struggle, but it's doable. My parents were permanently skint when I was a kid, and I had a brilliant childhood. Not denying there's a housing crisis. But having a family is much more important than being financially comfortable, IMO.
Whether they can, or should do is not really the question for society, that is for individuals. If many of them feel they can't or shouldn't have a replacement level of kids there is a big problem that society needs to look at.
I agree. I would like to see the whole of society reoriented to support children and families, with more family friendly work places, better funded schools, more subsidised childcare and higher child benefit. I take the Whitney Houston view on children. The only point I am making is that people who wait until they have amassed a certain amount of money before having children shouldn't resent others, including those who receive support from the state, who are willing to just get on with it.
Again, perhaps they shouldn't resent it, but some of them do and that is very understandable.
If we are only allowed to comment on opinions that we think are not only wrong but also impossible to understand then we'll be reduced to discussing why some people like Love Actually.
This is looking like a "last chance saloon" Press Conference to me. We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
What's happening?
Oh sorry. I was talking about Javid tonight. We need to keep our nerve. Followed by the inevitable. Maybe I'm being overly gloomy, but the messaging seems very familiar to me. We've been down this road more than once.
Well, yes, but what happened previously is that the virus could spread very easily in a population with low levels of immunity, so all the metrics quickly doubled a couple of times after a warning.
Surely we have too much immunity for that to happen this time?
One would hope so. As I said, maybe I am being gloomy.
Has anyone's work made any plans for a christmas meal/shebang yet ? I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ? I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
My organisation: we won't be doing that. We are basically wfh till at least April.
Some people clearly live on a different planet to me. If you go into London now, it's like the pandemic never happened. It's absolutely buzzing.
3 different work events before xmas, but 1 not booked yet and lots of concern as venues don't have much capacity left, even just for a large table at dinner.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
My ex suggested in 2001 how to win in Afghanistan. In about 30 minutes.
Basically, impose peace, Roman style.
Pax Romana or they make a desert and call it peace?
Presumably Tacitus in re Agricolae in Caledonia: as the local chap said,
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
Has anyone's work made any plans for a christmas meal/shebang yet ? I asked my fiancee about it yesterday and we agreed we'd probably go if one was put on. But maybe others would be more cautious ? I'll be blunt, I wouldn't like to be the normal person organising this sort of thing this year !
My organisation: we won't be doing that. We are basically wfh till at least April.
Why are we all suddenly so frit? We're vaccinated. We're not facing a lethal virus any more. We're facing a nasty cold. And for this people are voluntarily putting huge aspects of their life on hold for months on end? How many people catch a cold every day? I don't know, but I wouln't be surprised if it was about 50,000. I'm not a denialist. Covid exists. I wouldn't go out of my way to get it. But the extent to which we are hiding from it is ridiculous. We're all going to get it at some point. May as well be now as later. (Easy for me to say, having had it. But still.)
It's not being frit; it's just being a responsible citizen. The main problem with Covid at the moment is all the Covid patients clogging up the hospitals and making it hard for the NHS to treat other stuff. Anything that people can do to reduce the transmission of Covid helps to ease the pressure and let them get on with their normal work.
O/T but Ann Selzer has produced a truly horrible poll for Biden, showing his approval rating down to 37%. The RCP average gives 42%. If it's at that level by the mid-terms, the Republicans will win both Senate and House by a country mile.
#GrinnellPoll findings: @JoeBiden won the presidency in 2020 with 54% of the independent vote. Today that support is at 28%. If the 2024 election were today, Biden and Trump would both get 40% of the vote–with 14% saying they would vote for someone else.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
One thing to consider is the bigger picture in terms of deaths. Here are the weekly COVID deaths in England and Wales and the non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average (2015-2019):
Week ending: COVID deaths, non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average
Personally I think this puts the COVID deaths in context of more deaths happening anyway. I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that dodged the reaper during last winter when flu was limited by the restrictions. How many of those dying from COVID may have been picked off anyway is unknown, but I don't think the COVID deaths warrant any extra action.
No, it is now known and the strong majority of deaths were not what is called "forward displacement of mortality", especially not in the under-65s:
So it turns out excess deaths are not "people whose time was up anyway"?
Can we still blame the dead for being "fat and stupid" though? I think it's important we find some way of dehumanising them, because it's easier than wearing a mask on the tube or something.
What excess deaths?
Unless I'm very much mistaken those excess death charts are cumulative. Nobody sane doubts that there were excess deaths pre vaccines.
But the excess death rise in that chart stopped months ago. They've flatlined for the under 65s (and 10% of a small number remains a small number) and are trending down not up now for older groups.
We don't have a time machine and can't revive those who died pre vaccines. But post vaccination things have changed.
If we do invent a time machine, we should go back and save all those thin, young, and clever people who were unfortunate enough to die. Not the others, though, obviously.
Why do you keep throwing Leon's words at me? Are you incapable of telling us apart? I'll give you a tip, to the left of the comment is the posters name. If it says Leon then that is him. If it doesn't, and it has my name, it is me.
We didn't have a vaccine rolled out in the past. We do now. Lockdown measures were dubious but probably worthwhile pre-vaccinations. Post-vaccinations they're absolutely not.
If you can't wrap your head around the fact that different posters are different people ... Or that pre and post vaccines we might require different policies and priorities ... Then that is a limitation of your intelligence not mine.
Sometimes different posters are the same person... Although if it turned out that you were part of the Leon multiverse I think it would rate as one of the more surprising PB season finales.
Would be even funnier and more dramatic if @kinabalu was.
Maybe we all are? 🤯
I don't think @SeanT has it in him to do @kinabalu's perambulatory style without gnawing his own leg off
Maybe he could but he ("SeanT") hasn't posted for over a year. Just checked that. He's well & truly gone, which is a shame. His last conversation on here was a strange one with a poster called "eadric", that dreadful bloke who was kind of like a PB 'shock jock', which is a thing we don't really need imo, so maybe that was the final straw in his decision to leave the board. Can't really blame him if so.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
There’s going to be a SF-led Administration in Stormont well within that time frame, too.
How did the UK go from leading the pack in vaccinations to being a middling player? France, Portugal, Italy, Spain all ahead of us. Germany about to overtake. Even the disastrous US is close behind.
Because of the blocking of vaccination for under 18, for so long.
BY WHOM?
WE NEED TO KNOW SO WE CAN MAKE THEM SUFFER
HART. Claire Craig. Mike Yeadon. Their "man on the inside" Robert DIngwall. Julia Hartley-Brewer and Toby Young who gave them a platform and amplified their message. The MPs and journalists who listened and were "friendly" to them.
This is looking like a "last chance saloon" Press Conference to me. We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
What's happening?
Oh sorry. I was talking about Javid tonight. We need to keep our nerve. Followed by the inevitable. Maybe I'm being overly gloomy, but the messaging seems very familiar to me. We've been down this road more than once.
Complete and utter over reaction if there are any actual restrictions announced.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
Philip is surely right though that if the Jews had been ethnically cleansed from Israel, then the matter would now be settled. (Lots of Jews were ethnically cleansed from Arab countries, but immigrated to Israel).
Value in no imv. If no 10 backed kwarteng over the treasury spat they are not going to hang him out to dry by putting him out to say things which ain't so a week later.
Subject to the unpredictability of the virus, natch.
Mate it has been a feature of this government during this pandemic that it has been bolted on that when a govt minister goes out on the airwaves at 8am saying this will/won't happen, sure as eggs is eggs by later that day it is announced that it won't/will happen.
At one point it was comical how predictable this process was. Why is KK so different?
Time is ticking, late oct already. Chance they will save Christmas and pile on, too late, in the New Year.
8% is 23/2. it would be great if this could routinely be stated if we are going to implied odds for threader headlines, as seems to be happening.
Of course the interesting thing is how blase the UK has become to this level of deaths.
Influenza and pneumonia killed 30,000/year in 2018/2019 with nary a headline. It probably ran at the same rate previously. Let's say that's over the six months around Christmas so it's 170 deaths a day. We have been in a pandemic that has been shocking and "unprecedented" and we have had the most extraordinary restrictions of our freedoms.
Perhaps people are working out what an acceptable price to pay for freedom is and it turns out it's 10-20% (as it stands) more deaths than the status quo ante.
I hope @contrarian is ok. I still think he was wrong, but less wrong than I used to think.
I PM'd him a while back, no response.
I can see from his profile that he's still with us. Just not posting. A shame.
How did the UK go from leading the pack in vaccinations to being a middling player? France, Portugal, Italy, Spain all ahead of us. Germany about to overtake. Even the disastrous US is close behind.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
That is quite frankly bollocks.
The Arabs that chose to stay in Israeli land became Israeli citizens. Many did move though to the new Egyptian and Jordanian territories (what is now called Palestinian land). But Israel never forced them out, if they had there'd be no large Arab minority in Israel today - and if they had forced them out of the bits of Egypt and Jordan they occupied into the rest of Egypt and Jordan there'd be no "Palestine" today.
O/T but Ann Selzer has produced a truly horrible poll for Biden, showing his approval rating down to 37%. The RCP average gives 42%. If it's at that level by the mid-terms, the Republicans will win both Senate and House by a country mile.
#GrinnellPoll findings: @JoeBiden won the presidency in 2020 with 54% of the independent vote. Today that support is at 28%. If the 2024 election were today, Biden and Trump would both get 40% of the vote–with 14% saying they would vote for someone else.
Trump would win the Electoral College by 311 to 227 on these numbers.
And become the first President since Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century to return to office at an election after losing his first re election bid
This is looking like a "last chance saloon" Press Conference to me. We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
What's happening?
Oh sorry. I was talking about Javid tonight. We need to keep our nerve. Followed by the inevitable. Maybe I'm being overly gloomy, but the messaging seems very familiar to me. We've been down this road more than once.
Complete and utter over reaction if there are any actual restrictions announced.
Yep. I am foreseeing this as being the Presser before that. The John the Baptist one as it were.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
Absolute nonsense. All the Palestinian Arabs who wanted to stay in Israel did so, unmolested by their Jewish neighbours, and they and their descendants now form a large part of Israel's Arab minority. The refugee crisis happened in 1948 because the rest were terrified that the Jews were going to do to them what they were planning to do to the Jews if they'd won.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
Absolute nonsense. All the Palestinian Arabs who wanted to stay in Israel did so, unmolested by their Jewish neighbours, and they and their descendants now form a large part of Israel's Arab minority. The refugee crisis happened in 1948 because the rest were terrified that the Jews were going to do to them what they were planning to do to the Jews if they'd won.
Both sides suffered ethnic cleansing, and inevitably, the number that feared being killed far exceeded the number that were killed.
If it wasn't for the sodding antivaxxers and denialists (there's a huge overlap between those groups), this would have been over by now.
HART pressuring the JCVI and MPs, bringing the CRG onside and spewing their misinformation and fearmongering into the mdeia, ably assisted by Julia Hartley-Brewer and Toby Young.
Hesitation by the Government and JCVI, a belated decision and even more belated overruling, tentative and slow movement on the vaccination of 12-15s and incompetence in rolling out the boosters.
Other countries have completed their 12-15 rollout by now, and we were at the front of the vaccine rollout field; there's no excuse for it, and the rampant infections in secondary school ages which are driving the entire thing wouldn't exist.
Delusional wankers pushing their ignorant fantasies and too many frightened people accepting them without applying any coherent thought.
Thanks, antivaxxers and lockdown sceptics. Thanks so bloody much. We were free and clear and you've fucked it all up for all of us. Well sodding done.
There were always going to be antivaxxers. We knew this.
We have vaccines which are more efficacious than we dared hope for when vaccines were absent and we have a take-up far higher than envisaged. We knew vaccines wouldn't be 100% effective and some would refuse, and we still sold the vaccines as the silver bullet to ward off further authoritarian measures. We also knew that vaccines would wear off and boosters would be needed.
We need to trust the vaccines and keep to the plan.
Unfortunately there has been a well-organised misinformation campaign stoking fears and concerns, coupling with sheer denialism.
The HART leaks are pretty eye opening. Craig and co, for all their vileness, did get well organised and know where to pressure politicians and JCVI members as well as know how to get their message out into the media and amplified.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
That is quite frankly bollocks.
The Arabs that chose to stay in Israeli land became Israeli citizens. Many did move though to the new Egyptian and Jordanian territories (what is now called Palestinian land). But Israel never forced them out, if they had there'd be no large Arab minority in Israel today - and if they had forced them out of the bits of Egypt and Jordan they occupied into the rest of Egypt and Jordan there'd be no "Palestine" today.
Why scare quotes for Palestine? It's really odd. It's what the land was called before 1948.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
Absolute nonsense. All the Palestinian Arabs who wanted to stay in Israel did so, unmolested by their Jewish neighbours, and they and their descendants now form a large part of Israel's Arab minority. The refugee crisis happened in 1948 because the rest were terrified that the Jews were going to do to them what they were planning to do to the Jews if they'd won.
Exactly. Conflict leads to people fleeing the conflict, that's nothing new.
But if Israel having successfully won a defensive war in either 48 or 67 had treated the Arabs attacking them in the same way as the Germans were treated in the Sudetenland then there'd be no such thing as "Palestinians" today. The Arabs would have been resettled in Egypt and Jordan like the Germans were resettled in Germany.
CNN JUST IN: The White House releases its plans to roll out Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending FDA authorization
When it's approved by the MHRA, how many months will the JCVI wring it's hands over this one for before chucking it back to the CMOs ?
Hmm, I've been very much pro vaccination for everyone down to 12, but is there really a need to do children under 12 given how mild it is in them?
By the time we actually get round to doing under 12s I imagine the vast majority of them will already have been exposed, with or without their parents' knowledge.
I heard this about the 12 - 15 cohort, but the subsequent (colossal) infection rates don't really support that it was the case prior to approval. The risks of vaccination are much smaller than Covid for 12 - 15. I'll await the CDC, FDA and MHRA reports on 5 - 11 but if they think we should go for it then we definitely should.
If this was three months ago then I'd have said yes, but I don't think in the UK we'll see any approval for 5-11 year olds this side of Christmas. Even then it'll probably be another anaemic pace rollout as the government doesn't seem to learn from mistakes.
By that point, I imagine given the current infection rates in kids then we might actually be at the stage where it's of limited usefulness and it probably won't make a difference this winter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing that age cohort, I just remain to be convinced it's needed/will have an impact at the moment.
Given that Javid steamrollered JCVI about 12-15 and the boosters rapidly, when he got the post, I would be surprised if he doesn't push the 5-11 forward as well.
Pity he isn't so active and determined about actually getting the 12-15 year olds jabbed. Nor about boosters lagging way behind the weekly newly eligible.
The problem with the boosters is people not rushing to take them up.
I got
(i) a SMS from my GP practice about 10 days ago asking me to make an appointment for a booster, which the GP practice actually don't do, so they've booked me into a vacc centre in Leiston (but the one where I had my original two vaccs doesn't seem to be operating any more).
Today (ii) I got a SMS from NHS-Noreply (which was how I originally got notified for my original vaccs) asking me to book through the NHS booking system.
Now, it seems to me to be a real lack of joined-up admin. Will the fact I've had a booster get recorded? How come I got an earlier notification from my GP than from the NHS-noreply booking system? I wouldn't be at all surprised if the apparent lack of progress on boosters may have something to do with administrative cock-ups.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
That is quite frankly bollocks.
The Arabs that chose to stay in Israeli land became Israeli citizens. Many did move though to the new Egyptian and Jordanian territories (what is now called Palestinian land). But Israel never forced them out, if they had there'd be no large Arab minority in Israel today - and if they had forced them out of the bits of Egypt and Jordan they occupied into the rest of Egypt and Jordan there'd be no "Palestine" today.
Why scare quotes for Palestine? It's really odd. It's what the land was called before 1948.
The West Bank was Jordan and the Gaza Strip was Egypt.
Had Egypt and Jordan won either 48 or 67 there'd be no such thing as either Israel or Palestine today. All the "Palestinians" of today would be Egyptians or Jordanians.
Had Israel treated their Arab aggressors they were defending themselves from as the same way the Germans were treated in the Sudetenland there'd be no such thing as a "Palestinian" today, they'd all be Egyptians or Jordanians.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
Quite agree; what I object to is them be lied to for the political advantage of others.
And I’m proud to be a left-wing patriot.
Edit: subject of course to a poll under the GFA. Thanks folks for reminding me.
If it wasn't for the sodding antivaxxers and denialists (there's a huge overlap between those groups), this would have been over by now.
HART pressuring the JCVI and MPs, bringing the CRG onside and spewing their misinformation and fearmongering into the mdeia, ably assisted by Julia Hartley-Brewer and Toby Young.
Hesitation by the Government and JCVI, a belated decision and even more belated overruling, tentative and slow movement on the vaccination of 12-15s and incompetence in rolling out the boosters.
Other countries have completed their 12-15 rollout by now, and we were at the front of the vaccine rollout field; there's no excuse for it, and the rampant infections in secondary school ages which are driving the entire thing wouldn't exist.
Delusional wankers pushing their ignorant fantasies and too many frightened people accepting them without applying any coherent thought.
Thanks, antivaxxers and lockdown sceptics. Thanks so bloody much. We were free and clear and you've fucked it all up for all of us. Well sodding done.
There were always going to be antivaxxers. We knew this.
We have vaccines which are more efficacious than we dared hope for when vaccines were absent and we have a take-up far higher than envisaged. We knew vaccines wouldn't be 100% effective and some would refuse, and we still sold the vaccines as the silver bullet to ward off further authoritarian measures. We also knew that vaccines would wear off and boosters would be needed.
We need to trust the vaccines and keep to the plan.
Unfortunately there has been a well-organised misinformation campaign stoking fears and concerns, coupling with sheer denialism.
The HART leaks are pretty eye opening. Craig and co, for all their vileness, did get well organised and know where to pressure politicians and JCVI members as well as know how to get their message out into the media and amplified.
There is a free newspaper doing the rounds. The Light or summat. Claiming 40m vaccine deaths amongst other bollocks. And that any ailment subsequent to the vaccine is causal. Have had that figure quoted back at me. And blame for illness, including sepsis.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
Absolute nonsense. All the Palestinian Arabs who wanted to stay in Israel did so, unmolested by their Jewish neighbours, and they and their descendants now form a large part of Israel's Arab minority. The refugee crisis happened in 1948 because the rest were terrified that the Jews were going to do to them what they were planning to do to the Jews if they'd won.
There was ethnic cleansing in 1948 Palestine just as there was in 1990s Yugoslavia. This should not be controversial.
Value in no imv. If no 10 backed kwarteng over the treasury spat they are not going to hang him out to dry by putting him out to say things which ain't so a week later.
Subject to the unpredictability of the virus, natch.
Kwarteng is a dunderheid of the first order as well as a liar. Heard him on radio this morning , did not know anything on number of cars in UK, said iphones were significantly cheaper than when introduced so electric cars would be the same ( they are 3 x price of first iphones nowadays) and said it would be no problem as there would be chargers on the streets for people who lived in flats. Absolutely thick lying Tory drone.
Heh. I know Kwasi. Whatever he is, he's not thick.
Well, he went to Eton so the jury's out Though Wikipedia grants him a PhD and a series win on University Challenge so perhaps Kwasi just uses Android phones.
Ah, thanks for giving us an example of when left wing prejudice gets in the way of objective analysis!
And thank you for giving us examples of jokes flying overhead, and missing that I am clearly agreeing Kwasi is as smart as a shiny but not cheap iPhone 13.
A trip to the GP for the annual diabetic checkup, and the nurse to tickle my feet.
- The practice has done more than half it's current quota of booster jabs. - Bit short staffed as this time round they are doing the visits to Care Homes. - Jabs for children going rapidly - more than 50% again. - Yes, the nurse who graduated in the last year (I am in North Notts) is aware of numbers of friends fairly routinely hassled in Night Clubs, sometimes comments / assaulted, but herself was a mum doing her degree home-based so not really a clubber. - Freestyle flash monitoring of glucose levels (the sensor Theresa May had visible on her upper arm, that you wave a scanner at rather than doing a finger-prick) is being rolled out quite widely, and is quite transformative for diabetic control for many people. - They are having trouble with constant date changes on batches of Pfizer vaccines delivery. The current lot due soon has been rearranged 7 or 8 times. - Interesting comment that they regularly now have people diagnosed with Type II diabetes who manage to roll it back into remission by lifestyle changes.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
Brexit points to a united ireland being an almost certainty, in time.
An independent Scotland is 50/50, I’d judge.
The Tories still don’t appreciate the implications of what they have done.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
Absolute nonsense. All the Palestinian Arabs who wanted to stay in Israel did so, unmolested by their Jewish neighbours, and they and their descendants now form a large part of Israel's Arab minority. The refugee crisis happened in 1948 because the rest were terrified that the Jews were going to do to them what they were planning to do to the Jews if they'd won.
There was ethnic cleansing in 1948 Palestine just as there was in 1990s Yugoslavia. This should not be controversial.
Well there would have been had Egypt and Jordan won, yes.
One thing to consider is the bigger picture in terms of deaths. Here are the weekly COVID deaths in England and Wales and the non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average (2015-2019):
Week ending: COVID deaths, non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average
Personally I think this puts the COVID deaths in context of more deaths happening anyway. I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that dodged the reaper during last winter when flu was limited by the restrictions. How many of those dying from COVID may have been picked off anyway is unknown, but I don't think the COVID deaths warrant any extra action.
No, it is now known and the strong majority of deaths were not what is called "forward displacement of mortality", especially not in the under-65s:
So it turns out excess deaths are not "people whose time was up anyway"?
Can we still blame the dead for being "fat and stupid" though? I think it's important we find some way of dehumanising them, because it's easier than wearing a mask on the tube or something.
What excess deaths?
Unless I'm very much mistaken those excess death charts are cumulative. Nobody sane doubts that there were excess deaths pre vaccines.
But the excess death rise in that chart stopped months ago. They've flatlined for the under 65s (and 10% of a small number remains a small number) and are trending down not up now for older groups.
We don't have a time machine and can't revive those who died pre vaccines. But post vaccination things have changed.
If we do invent a time machine, we should go back and save all those thin, young, and clever people who were unfortunate enough to die. Not the others, though, obviously.
Why do you keep throwing Leon's words at me? Are you incapable of telling us apart? I'll give you a tip, to the left of the comment is the posters name. If it says Leon then that is him. If it doesn't, and it has my name, it is me.
We didn't have a vaccine rolled out in the past. We do now. Lockdown measures were dubious but probably worthwhile pre-vaccinations. Post-vaccinations they're absolutely not.
If you can't wrap your head around the fact that different posters are different people ... Or that pre and post vaccines we might require different policies and priorities ... Then that is a limitation of your intelligence not mine.
Sometimes different posters are the same person... Although if it turned out that you were part of the Leon multiverse I think it would rate as one of the more surprising PB season finales.
Would be even funnier and more dramatic if @kinabalu was.
Maybe we all are? 🤯
I don't think @SeanT has it in him to do @kinabalu's perambulatory style without gnawing his own leg off
Maybe he could but he ("SeanT") hasn't posted for over a year. Just checked that. He's well & truly gone, which is a shame. His last conversation on here was a strange one with a poster called "eadric", that dreadful bloke who was kind of like a PB 'shock jock', which is a thing we don't really need imo, so maybe that was the final straw in his decision to leave the board. Can't really blame him if so.
Is just the sort of wittering that he would have stuck pins in his eyes before posting.
This is looking like a "last chance saloon" Press Conference to me. We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
What's happening?
Oh sorry. I was talking about Javid tonight. We need to keep our nerve. Followed by the inevitable. Maybe I'm being overly gloomy, but the messaging seems very familiar to me. We've been down this road more than once.
Complete and utter over reaction if there are any actual restrictions announced.
Yep. I am foreseeing this as being the Presser before that. The John the Baptist one as it were.
NEEDLESSLY CYNICAL POST FOLLOWS: It's generally been the case that restrictions are announced once we get to the point where infections are starting to decline anyway - then they can say "look, we brought in these restrictions and infections went down" - they'll need to be quick to get them in before they turn this time.
One thing to consider is the bigger picture in terms of deaths. Here are the weekly COVID deaths in England and Wales and the non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average (2015-2019):
Week ending: COVID deaths, non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average
Personally I think this puts the COVID deaths in context of more deaths happening anyway. I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that dodged the reaper during last winter when flu was limited by the restrictions. How many of those dying from COVID may have been picked off anyway is unknown, but I don't think the COVID deaths warrant any extra action.
No, it is now known and the strong majority of deaths were not what is called "forward displacement of mortality", especially not in the under-65s:
So it turns out excess deaths are not "people whose time was up anyway"?
Can we still blame the dead for being "fat and stupid" though? I think it's important we find some way of dehumanising them, because it's easier than wearing a mask on the tube or something.
What excess deaths?
Unless I'm very much mistaken those excess death charts are cumulative. Nobody sane doubts that there were excess deaths pre vaccines.
But the excess death rise in that chart stopped months ago. They've flatlined for the under 65s (and 10% of a small number remains a small number) and are trending down not up now for older groups.
We don't have a time machine and can't revive those who died pre vaccines. But post vaccination things have changed.
If we do invent a time machine, we should go back and save all those thin, young, and clever people who were unfortunate enough to die. Not the others, though, obviously.
Why do you keep throwing Leon's words at me? Are you incapable of telling us apart? I'll give you a tip, to the left of the comment is the posters name. If it says Leon then that is him. If it doesn't, and it has my name, it is me.
We didn't have a vaccine rolled out in the past. We do now. Lockdown measures were dubious but probably worthwhile pre-vaccinations. Post-vaccinations they're absolutely not.
If you can't wrap your head around the fact that different posters are different people ... Or that pre and post vaccines we might require different policies and priorities ... Then that is a limitation of your intelligence not mine.
Sometimes different posters are the same person... Although if it turned out that you were part of the Leon multiverse I think it would rate as one of the more surprising PB season finales.
Would be even funnier and more dramatic if @kinabalu was.
Maybe we all are? 🤯
I don't think @SeanT has it in him to do @kinabalu's perambulatory style without gnawing his own leg off
Maybe he could but he ("SeanT") hasn't posted for over a year. Just checked that. He's well & truly gone, which is a shame. His last conversation on here was a strange one with a poster called "eadric", that dreadful bloke who was kind of like a PB 'shock jock', which is a thing we don't really need imo, so maybe that was the final straw in his decision to leave the board. Can't really blame him if so.
Is just the sort of wittering that he would have stuck pins in his eyes before posting.
Perhaps @kinabalu has reached his quotient today? You don't have one do you Topping.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
Only if they move to Great Britain if the Nationalists win a border poll.
David Trimble gave up that right on behalf of Unionists in 1997.
In exchange Ireland and the Nationalists agreed that NI would remain in the UK unless the voters in NI determined otherwise. But if the voters in NI determine otherwise, then that's it, it goes to Ireland.
My plan 1 student loan interest: lower of RPI or the base rate +1%
Current interest rate = 1.1%
Massive difference between those two figures. I doubt the treasury envisaged such a difference when they designed the plan 1 student loan system.
From a slightly different angle: who the hell is buying bonds/mortgage backed securities right now?
Seems insane to lend money at just above the base rate for a guaranteed loss. A sign the economy is still deeply dysfunctional, surely?
Rishi's problem of current too-low-interest-rate no student loans, and the high student loan interest rate scandal, could be resolved by setting the interest rate to RPI or CPI.
If it wasn't for the sodding antivaxxers and denialists (there's a huge overlap between those groups), this would have been over by now.
HART pressuring the JCVI and MPs, bringing the CRG onside and spewing their misinformation and fearmongering into the mdeia, ably assisted by Julia Hartley-Brewer and Toby Young.
Hesitation by the Government and JCVI, a belated decision and even more belated overruling, tentative and slow movement on the vaccination of 12-15s and incompetence in rolling out the boosters.
Other countries have completed their 12-15 rollout by now, and we were at the front of the vaccine rollout field; there's no excuse for it, and the rampant infections in secondary school ages which are driving the entire thing wouldn't exist.
Delusional wankers pushing their ignorant fantasies and too many frightened people accepting them without applying any coherent thought.
Thanks, antivaxxers and lockdown sceptics. Thanks so bloody much. We were free and clear and you've fucked it all up for all of us. Well sodding done.
There were always going to be antivaxxers. We knew this.
We have vaccines which are more efficacious than we dared hope for when vaccines were absent and we have a take-up far higher than envisaged. We knew vaccines wouldn't be 100% effective and some would refuse, and we still sold the vaccines as the silver bullet to ward off further authoritarian measures. We also knew that vaccines would wear off and boosters would be needed.
We need to trust the vaccines and keep to the plan.
Unfortunately there has been a well-organised misinformation campaign stoking fears and concerns, coupling with sheer denialism.
The HART leaks are pretty eye opening. Craig and co, for all their vileness, did get well organised and know where to pressure politicians and JCVI members as well as know how to get their message out into the media and amplified.
There is a free newspaper doing the rounds. The Light or summat. Claiming 40m vaccine deaths amongst other bollocks. And that any ailment subsequent to the vaccine is causal. Have had that figure quoted back at me. And blame for illness, including sepsis.
Can be darkly amusing asking them about some of the more absurd Yellow Card reports.
People need to be warned about the incidence of these: - Fetishism - Penile size reduction - Low Income - Flooding - Water pollution - Retirement - Soliloquy {now this one made me just stop for a moment] - Teething - Bed bug infestation - Spinal fracture - Verbal Abuse - Anal Sex - Kosher diet - Illiteracy - Job Dissatisfaction - Hair Injury - Tattoo - Homosexual Parent - Screaming - Hangover - Animal bite - Chlamydia
... and the rest.
Because if they're taking everything in VAERS and the Yellow Card system as definitely causally connected, I'd be very interested at the way they get the causal link to these.
One thing to consider is the bigger picture in terms of deaths. Here are the weekly COVID deaths in England and Wales and the non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average (2015-2019):
Week ending: COVID deaths, non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average
Personally I think this puts the COVID deaths in context of more deaths happening anyway. I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that dodged the reaper during last winter when flu was limited by the restrictions. How many of those dying from COVID may have been picked off anyway is unknown, but I don't think the COVID deaths warrant any extra action.
No, it is now known and the strong majority of deaths were not what is called "forward displacement of mortality", especially not in the under-65s:
So it turns out excess deaths are not "people whose time was up anyway"?
Can we still blame the dead for being "fat and stupid" though? I think it's important we find some way of dehumanising them, because it's easier than wearing a mask on the tube or something.
What excess deaths?
Unless I'm very much mistaken those excess death charts are cumulative. Nobody sane doubts that there were excess deaths pre vaccines.
But the excess death rise in that chart stopped months ago. They've flatlined for the under 65s (and 10% of a small number remains a small number) and are trending down not up now for older groups.
We don't have a time machine and can't revive those who died pre vaccines. But post vaccination things have changed.
If we do invent a time machine, we should go back and save all those thin, young, and clever people who were unfortunate enough to die. Not the others, though, obviously.
Why do you keep throwing Leon's words at me? Are you incapable of telling us apart? I'll give you a tip, to the left of the comment is the posters name. If it says Leon then that is him. If it doesn't, and it has my name, it is me.
We didn't have a vaccine rolled out in the past. We do now. Lockdown measures were dubious but probably worthwhile pre-vaccinations. Post-vaccinations they're absolutely not.
If you can't wrap your head around the fact that different posters are different people ... Or that pre and post vaccines we might require different policies and priorities ... Then that is a limitation of your intelligence not mine.
Sometimes different posters are the same person... Although if it turned out that you were part of the Leon multiverse I think it would rate as one of the more surprising PB season finales.
Would be even funnier and more dramatic if @kinabalu was.
Maybe we all are? 🤯
I don't think @SeanT has it in him to do @kinabalu's perambulatory style without gnawing his own leg off
The remarkable thing about SeanT - for someone supposedly not a totally obscure writer of fiction - was his complete inability to adopt any alternative character with any credibility. Thus Eadric was supposedly a remainer, until he found that within just a few days such pretence proved impossible for him to maintain….
All of his reincarnations have been blindingly obvious within moments.
One thing to consider is the bigger picture in terms of deaths. Here are the weekly COVID deaths in England and Wales and the non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average (2015-2019):
Week ending: COVID deaths, non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average
Personally I think this puts the COVID deaths in context of more deaths happening anyway. I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that dodged the reaper during last winter when flu was limited by the restrictions. How many of those dying from COVID may have been picked off anyway is unknown, but I don't think the COVID deaths warrant any extra action.
No, it is now known and the strong majority of deaths were not what is called "forward displacement of mortality", especially not in the under-65s:
So it turns out excess deaths are not "people whose time was up anyway"?
Can we still blame the dead for being "fat and stupid" though? I think it's important we find some way of dehumanising them, because it's easier than wearing a mask on the tube or something.
What excess deaths?
Unless I'm very much mistaken those excess death charts are cumulative. Nobody sane doubts that there were excess deaths pre vaccines.
But the excess death rise in that chart stopped months ago. They've flatlined for the under 65s (and 10% of a small number remains a small number) and are trending down not up now for older groups.
We don't have a time machine and can't revive those who died pre vaccines. But post vaccination things have changed.
If we do invent a time machine, we should go back and save all those thin, young, and clever people who were unfortunate enough to die. Not the others, though, obviously.
Why do you keep throwing Leon's words at me? Are you incapable of telling us apart? I'll give you a tip, to the left of the comment is the posters name. If it says Leon then that is him. If it doesn't, and it has my name, it is me.
We didn't have a vaccine rolled out in the past. We do now. Lockdown measures were dubious but probably worthwhile pre-vaccinations. Post-vaccinations they're absolutely not.
If you can't wrap your head around the fact that different posters are different people ... Or that pre and post vaccines we might require different policies and priorities ... Then that is a limitation of your intelligence not mine.
Sometimes different posters are the same person... Although if it turned out that you were part of the Leon multiverse I think it would rate as one of the more surprising PB season finales.
Would be even funnier and more dramatic if @kinabalu was.
Maybe we all are? 🤯
I don't think @SeanT has it in him to do @kinabalu's perambulatory style without gnawing his own leg off
Maybe he could but he ("SeanT") hasn't posted for over a year. Just checked that. He's well & truly gone, which is a shame. His last conversation on here was a strange one with a poster called "eadric", that dreadful bloke who was kind of like a PB 'shock jock', which is a thing we don't really need imo, so maybe that was the final straw in his decision to leave the board. Can't really blame him if so.
Is just the sort of wittering that he would have stuck pins in his eyes before posting.
Perhaps @kinabalu has reached his quotient today? You don't have one do you Topping.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
CNN JUST IN: The White House releases its plans to roll out Covid-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, pending FDA authorization
When it's approved by the MHRA, how many months will the JCVI wring it's hands over this one for before chucking it back to the CMOs ?
Hmm, I've been very much pro vaccination for everyone down to 12, but is there really a need to do children under 12 given how mild it is in them?
By the time we actually get round to doing under 12s I imagine the vast majority of them will already have been exposed, with or without their parents' knowledge.
I heard this about the 12 - 15 cohort, but the subsequent (colossal) infection rates don't really support that it was the case prior to approval. The risks of vaccination are much smaller than Covid for 12 - 15. I'll await the CDC, FDA and MHRA reports on 5 - 11 but if they think we should go for it then we definitely should.
If this was three months ago then I'd have said yes, but I don't think in the UK we'll see any approval for 5-11 year olds this side of Christmas. Even then it'll probably be another anaemic pace rollout as the government doesn't seem to learn from mistakes.
By that point, I imagine given the current infection rates in kids then we might actually be at the stage where it's of limited usefulness and it probably won't make a difference this winter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing that age cohort, I just remain to be convinced it's needed/will have an impact at the moment.
Given that Javid steamrollered JCVI about 12-15 and the boosters rapidly, when he got the post, I would be surprised if he doesn't push the 5-11 forward as well.
Pity he isn't so active and determined about actually getting the 12-15 year olds jabbed. Nor about boosters lagging way behind the weekly newly eligible.
The problem with the boosters is people not rushing to take them up.
I got
(i) a SMS from my GP practice about 10 days ago asking me to make an appointment for a booster, which the GP practice actually don't do, so they've booked me into a vacc centre in Leiston (but the one where I had my original two vaccs doesn't seem to be operating any more).
Today (ii) I got a SMS from NHS-Noreply (which was how I originally got notified for my original vaccs) asking me to book through the NHS booking system.
Now, it seems to me to be a real lack of joined-up admin. Will the fact I've had a booster get recorded? How come I got an earlier notification from my GP than from the NHS-noreply booking system? I wouldn't be at all surprised if the apparent lack of progress on boosters may have something to do with administrative cock-ups.
My wife got contacted 3 different ways for her booster. Instead of wondering, she went and got it. And it shows up on the NHS app for her.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
The Brexit deal we now have is a clear and unambiguous first step towards a united Ireland. I know you regret this, but proper Tories such as the PM and his Cabinet applaud it.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
Brexit points to a united ireland being an almost certainty, in time.
An independent Scotland is 50/50, I’d judge.
The Tories still don’t appreciate the implications of what they have done.
In 2014 before Brexit Scotland voted 55% No to independence, 45% Yes. At the 2019 general election after the Brexit vote 55% of Scots did not vote SNP.
In 2019 in NI after the Brexit vote and Boris' deal 43% of voters voted for Unionist parties and only 38% for Nationalist.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
Absolute nonsense. All the Palestinian Arabs who wanted to stay in Israel did so, unmolested by their Jewish neighbours, and they and their descendants now form a large part of Israel's Arab minority. The refugee crisis happened in 1948 because the rest were terrified that the Jews were going to do to them what they were planning to do to the Jews if they'd won.
There was ethnic cleansing in 1948 Palestine just as there was in 1990s Yugoslavia. This should not be controversial.
I don't think it should be controversial either. And in turn, Arab governments were petty blunt about what they intended to do, had the fortunes of war favoured them, either then, or in 1967.
This is looking like a "last chance saloon" Press Conference to me. We've seen this pattern before I'm afraid.
What's happening?
Oh sorry. I was talking about Javid tonight. We need to keep our nerve. Followed by the inevitable. Maybe I'm being overly gloomy, but the messaging seems very familiar to me. We've been down this road more than once.
Complete and utter over reaction if there are any actual restrictions announced.
Yep. I am foreseeing this as being the Presser before that. The John the Baptist one as it were.
NEEDLESSLY CYNICAL POST FOLLOWS: It's generally been the case that restrictions are announced once we get to the point where infections are starting to decline anyway - then they can say "look, we brought in these restrictions and infections went down" - they'll need to be quick to get them in before they turn this time.
Hasn't been in the past. Usually needs to be accompanied by all sorts of contortions to try to explain them away, but even these never work for the second lockdown (cases started to drop around the 11th of November)
On the third lockdown, cases followed regional lockdowns (London and the South East started their "Tier 4" lockdown in late December.
And in the first one, whilst we can't track cases, hospitalisations peaked on the 3rd of April, and these are usually around 7-10 days after cases.
Lockdown announced on 23rd March to come into effect 26th March. All restaurants, nightclubs, gyms, bars, play centres, schools (other than for the children of essential workers) had been closed by the 20th of March.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
Well, if Andorra can manage on tourism I suppose they’ve got the Giants Causeway!
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
Every part of the UK has the right to stay part of in in exactly the same way: until by lawful constitutional process it isn't. England is no different.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
Only if they move to Great Britain if the Nationalists win a border poll.
David Trimble gave up that right on behalf of Unionists in 1997.
In exchange Ireland and the Nationalists agreed that NI would remain in the UK unless the voters in NI determined otherwise. But if the voters in NI determine otherwise, then that's it, it goes to Ireland.
No Antrim would declare UDI first and rightwingers like me would press the Tory leadership to push to keep Antrim in the UK too even if Nationalists won a border poll across NI as a whole.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
The Brexit deal we now have is a clear and unambiguous first step towards a united Ireland. I know you regret this, but proper Tories such as the PM and his Cabinet applaud it.
No the EU imposed an Irish sea border for a GB trade deal.
If it is not removed then Unionists will withdraw from the Stormont executive and Westminster will impose direct rule over NI again in response
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
What do you think the UK government would do about this? Prop up the Antrim People's Republic?
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
The Brexit deal we now have is a clear and unambiguous first step towards a united Ireland. I know you regret this, but proper Tories such as the PM and his Cabinet applaud it.
No the EU imposed an Irish sea border for a GB trade deal.
If it is not removed then Unionists will withdraw from the Stormont executive and Westminster will impose direct rule over NI again in response
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
How do you know? What about the Catholic bits of Antrim like the Glens?
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
Only if they move to Great Britain if the Nationalists win a border poll.
David Trimble gave up that right on behalf of Unionists in 1997.
In exchange Ireland and the Nationalists agreed that NI would remain in the UK unless the voters in NI determined otherwise. But if the voters in NI determine otherwise, then that's it, it goes to Ireland.
No Antrim would declare UDI first and rightwingers like me would press the Tory leadership to push to keep Antrim in the UK too even if Nationalists won a border poll across NI as a whole.
The UK already agreed that the whole of NI stays in the UK, or the whole of NI departs. Repartition isn't an option. And the GFA is British law already, and don't forget the USA is a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement too.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
Antrim will fight ... and Antrim will be wrong
No it would be right to declare UDI and I would fully support it if it had its wish to stay in the UK ignored.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
That is quite frankly bollocks.
The Arabs that chose to stay in Israeli land became Israeli citizens. Many did move though to the new Egyptian and Jordanian territories (what is now called Palestinian land). But Israel never forced them out, if they had there'd be no large Arab minority in Israel today - and if they had forced them out of the bits of Egypt and Jordan they occupied into the rest of Egypt and Jordan there'd be no "Palestine" today.
Why scare quotes for Palestine? It's really odd. It's what the land was called before 1948.
The West Bank was Jordan and the Gaza Strip was Egypt.
Had Egypt and Jordan won either 48 or 67 there'd be no such thing as either Israel or Palestine today. All the "Palestinians" of today would be Egyptians or Jordanians.
Had Israel treated their Arab aggressors they were defending themselves from as the same way the Germans were treated in the Sudetenland there'd be no such thing as a "Palestinian" today, they'd all be Egyptians or Jordanians.
If Charles Martel had lost the Battle of Tours then there wouldn't today be a country called France or a people called French, but that doesn't mean it makes any sense to refer to the French people of France as "French" and "France".
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
Brexit points to a united ireland being an almost certainty, in time.
An independent Scotland is 50/50, I’d judge.
The Tories still don’t appreciate the implications of what they have done.
In 2014 before Brexit Scotland voted 55% No to independence, 45% Yes. At the 2019 general election after the Brexit vote 55% of Scots did not vote SNP.
In 2019 in NI after the Brexit vote and Boris' deal 43% of voters voted for Unionist parties and only 38% for Nationalist.
So wrong, it made near zero difference
"Scots". What's that mean, then? Including the ones outside Scotland?
You were going on the other day about the joy of 'English' immigrants in Wales voting Tory.
O/T but Ann Selzer has produced a truly horrible poll for Biden, showing his approval rating down to 37%. The RCP average gives 42%. If it's at that level by the mid-terms, the Republicans will win both Senate and House by a country mile.
Gosh, if only there was some wildly popular legislation with huge bipartisan support across cutting party lines amongst the electorate that the Dems could pass to help.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
Antrim will fight ... and Antrim will be wrong
No it would be right to declare UDI and I would fully support it if it had its wish to stay in the UK ignored.
Oh really, it's OK to declare UDI from Ireland, but ...
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
How do you know? What about the Catholic bits of Antrim like the Glens?
They can move to the Republic and the remaining Protestant bits outside Antrim, eg East Londonderry and East Belfast and Upper Bann, can move to Antrim
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
Brexit points to a united ireland being an almost certainty, in time.
An independent Scotland is 50/50, I’d judge.
The Tories still don’t appreciate the implications of what they have done.
In 2014 before Brexit Scotland voted 55% No to independence, 45% Yes. At the 2019 general election after the Brexit vote 55% of Scots did not vote SNP.
In 2019 in NI after the Brexit vote and Boris' deal 43% of voters voted for Unionist parties and only 38% for Nationalist.
So wrong, it made near zero difference
"Scots". What's that mean, then? Including the ones outside Scotland?
You were going on the other day about the joy of 'English' immigrants in Wales voting Tory.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
Antrim will fight ... and Antrim will be wrong
No it would be right to declare UDI and I would fully support it if it had its wish to stay in the UK ignored.
Should such radical talk stop you taking holidays to see your family?
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
That is quite frankly bollocks.
The Arabs that chose to stay in Israeli land became Israeli citizens. Many did move though to the new Egyptian and Jordanian territories (what is now called Palestinian land). But Israel never forced them out, if they had there'd be no large Arab minority in Israel today - and if they had forced them out of the bits of Egypt and Jordan they occupied into the rest of Egypt and Jordan there'd be no "Palestine" today.
Why scare quotes for Palestine? It's really odd. It's what the land was called before 1948.
The West Bank was Jordan and the Gaza Strip was Egypt.
Had Egypt and Jordan won either 48 or 67 there'd be no such thing as either Israel or Palestine today. All the "Palestinians" of today would be Egyptians or Jordanians.
Had Israel treated their Arab aggressors they were defending themselves from as the same way the Germans were treated in the Sudetenland there'd be no such thing as a "Palestinian" today, they'd all be Egyptians or Jordanians.
Not sure why you claim that. It implies that either Jordan or Egypt (or Syria for completeness) would have chosen to take control of the Palestine mandate after the destruction of Israel. We have no idea if they would have done that or if they would have set up a client state or even an independent Arab state.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
That is quite frankly bollocks.
The Arabs that chose to stay in Israeli land became Israeli citizens. Many did move though to the new Egyptian and Jordanian territories (what is now called Palestinian land). But Israel never forced them out, if they had there'd be no large Arab minority in Israel today - and if they had forced them out of the bits of Egypt and Jordan they occupied into the rest of Egypt and Jordan there'd be no "Palestine" today.
Why scare quotes for Palestine? It's really odd. It's what the land was called before 1948.
The West Bank was Jordan and the Gaza Strip was Egypt.
Had Egypt and Jordan won either 48 or 67 there'd be no such thing as either Israel or Palestine today. All the "Palestinians" of today would be Egyptians or Jordanians.
Had Israel treated their Arab aggressors they were defending themselves from as the same way the Germans were treated in the Sudetenland there'd be no such thing as a "Palestinian" today, they'd all be Egyptians or Jordanians.
If Charles Martel had lost the Battle of Tours then there wouldn't today be a country called France or a people called French, but that doesn't mean it makes any sense to refer to the French people of France as "French" and "France".
What an odd and sinister thing to do.
There is a state called France.
Egypt and Jordan killed the state of Palestine at birth in 48 annexing that land and then attempting to destroy Israel. They kept that land for themselves until Israel took it off them (not Palestinians) after they attempted to wipe out Israel for a second time in 67.
It bemuses me that people are angry at Israel for there not being an actual state called Palestine today, when Israel offered to have Palestine exist repeatedly - but it was Egypt and Jordan that prevented its creation and the PLO who rejected its creation under Arafat too.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
Antrim will fight ... and Antrim will be wrong
No it would be right to declare UDI and I would fully support it if it had its wish to stay in the UK ignored.
Oh really, it's OK to declare UDI from Ireland, but ...
Constitutionally Westminster gets the final say on Scotland.
Though if the Nationalist and Yes voting bits of Scotland did try and declare UDI that would not be too bad, the rest would be solid for staying in the UK
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
Brexit points to a united ireland being an almost certainty, in time.
An independent Scotland is 50/50, I’d judge.
The Tories still don’t appreciate the implications of what they have done.
In 2014 before Brexit Scotland voted 55% No to independence, 45% Yes. At the 2019 general election after the Brexit vote 55% of Scots did not vote SNP.
In 2019 in NI after the Brexit vote and Boris' deal 43% of voters voted for Unionist parties and only 38% for Nationalist.
So wrong, it made near zero difference
"Scots". What's that mean, then? Including the ones outside Scotland?
You were going on the other day about the joy of 'English' immigrants in Wales voting Tory.
What is a true Scotchman?
No idea. But 'voters in Scotland' is much more accurate in that context, given that HYUFD certainly uses the word 'Scot' to include people in Epping. .
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
Antrim will fight ... and Antrim will be wrong
No it would be right to declare UDI and I would fully support it if it had its wish to stay in the UK ignored.
Just to let you know, there is no longer an administrative entity called "Antrim".
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
Thanks; thought-provoking post. It's odd about Iberia, isn't it; AIUI, simply falls back to local loyalties as the Moors were driven back toward Andalucia. And reading Forgotten Kingdom and similar reminds one of the fluidity of 'national' borders, particularly in Eastern Europe. Compare and contrast a map of Eastern Europe, especially showing Germany and Poland today with a pre-WWII one. Did everyone move? I have, of course, to concede the point about differences between the populations across the island of Ireland, particularly in the NE, but in the 18th and 19th Centuries that was getting blurred, largely for economic reasons, and some of the significant people in Irish nationalism ate the time were Protestant.
'Did everyone move' - yes, pretty much. The mass movement of Germans back to rump Germany at the end of WW2 is interesting but little commented-on. Was it voluntary or forced? There was certainly an understandable mass-fleeing of Germans westwards as the red army advanced. Most of those who didn't flee were moved westwards at the end of the war - presumably forcibly, though the extent to which staying as a foreigner in what was now Russian-occupied Poland was an attractive option was probably minimal anyway.
The process by which a body of people comes to identify as a nation in an interesting and slightly mysterious process. Catalans never came to identify as Spaniards even 500 years after the union by marriage between Castille and Aragon. But there is no question about English identity despite the different statelets it formed from just over 1000 years ago. Yet Germans and Italians have managed to form a coherent nation despite their respective states being only a couple of hundred years old. My theory is that to form a nation what is really needed is either an oppressor or a campaign against a foreign force.
Yes; the millions of DP’s were a feature of the immediate post-war years, although I must admit I hadn’t realised it was such total Clearance. (capital intended) On reflection what was then known as East Prussia was almost completely repopulated.
Agree about ‘national identity’; is it associated with language? ‘English’ has always been fairly comprehensible to anyone between the Tweed and the Tamar, although sometimes some effort is required. Conversely, of course, Scotland is divided between two or three languages. Catalan is distinct from Spanish.
What happened after WWII was systematic and organised ethnic cleansing.
The populations were moved to match the lines on the maps.
Indeed. This is the dirty secret behind a Europe of clearly defined nation states that doesn't fight about borders anymore. Luckily the Germans have largely accepted what happened to them after WW2.
The reason for no more war in Europe
1) Eiltes who believed in war as a continuation of politics destroyed. With the death of Hitler, the last people who believed in that were dead 2) Ethnic enclaves in the "wrong" country. Fixed by expelling the minorities involves. Yes, Yugoslavia.... and look what happened there.... 3) The Americans, Russians (and to lesser extent the British and French) jointly conquered the whole of Europe and imposed a peace. Using Hitlers body as a negotiating table.
The dirty secret is that ethnic cleansing works.
The lack of it is why there's no peace in the Middle East.
Egypt and Jordan twice tried to wipe out Israel and divide the whole land of Palestine between the two of them. If they'd won either war the Jews would have been ethnically cleansed and the land would all be Jordan and Egypt and that would have been the end of the matter.
Second time around Israel took land off Egypt and Jordan and rather than expelling the Arabs to be relocated elsewhere in Egypt and Jordan they stayed in the land taken and now call themselves Palestinians.
Had Egypt and Jordan won there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing. Had Israel done the same as they'd intended there'd be 'peace' because of ethnic cleansing.
Because Israel won but didn't engage in ethnic cleansing, they're vilified around the world.
That's an inaccurate portrayal of history. There was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. This is still resented in the region today and was in large part the cause for the later conflicts.
That is quite frankly bollocks.
The Arabs that chose to stay in Israeli land became Israeli citizens. Many did move though to the new Egyptian and Jordanian territories (what is now called Palestinian land). But Israel never forced them out, if they had there'd be no large Arab minority in Israel today - and if they had forced them out of the bits of Egypt and Jordan they occupied into the rest of Egypt and Jordan there'd be no "Palestine" today.
Why scare quotes for Palestine? It's really odd. It's what the land was called before 1948.
The West Bank was Jordan and the Gaza Strip was Egypt.
Had Egypt and Jordan won either 48 or 67 there'd be no such thing as either Israel or Palestine today. All the "Palestinians" of today would be Egyptians or Jordanians.
Had Israel treated their Arab aggressors they were defending themselves from as the same way the Germans were treated in the Sudetenland there'd be no such thing as a "Palestinian" today, they'd all be Egyptians or Jordanians.
Not sure why you claim that. It implies that either Jordan or Egypt (or Syria for completeness) would have chosen to take control of the Palestine mandate after the destruction of Israel. We have no idea if they would have done that or if they would have set up a client state or even an independent Arab state.
Well they actually did annex the land they occupied for themselves.
I see little reason to believe they'd have done otherwise had they won the war.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
Only if they move to Great Britain if the Nationalists win a border poll.
David Trimble gave up that right on behalf of Unionists in 1997.
In exchange Ireland and the Nationalists agreed that NI would remain in the UK unless the voters in NI determined otherwise. But if the voters in NI determine otherwise, then that's it, it goes to Ireland.
No Antrim would declare UDI first and rightwingers like me would press the Tory leadership to push to keep Antrim in the UK too even if Nationalists won a border poll across NI as a whole.
A somewhat less ambitious Carson is reborn Less Edward, more Frank Carson.
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
What do you think the UK government would do about this? Prop up the Antrim People's Republic?
Tory rightwingers would back it much like they backed Iain Smith's Rhodesia when it declared UDI but unlike Rhodesia a majority of the Antrim population would back UDI, unlike Rhodesia where it was only the white population
I see there's to be an interdenominational service to mark a century of Partition in N. Ireland. HM Queen and Johnson will be present, but not the Irish President. Can't help feeling this isn't a good idea.
It is a good idea. If Michael D Higgins wants to refuse his invitation to commemorate the 100 year centenary of NI (which also of course created the Irish Free State which became the Irish Republic he is now president of) to make a political point and have a sulk that is up to him
As I said, I'm not at all sure. What we now know as N.Ireland was created as a response to a 'quasi' revolution fostered by a small religious minority and encouraged by divisive politicians in England, and as a consequence of different economic treatment of said religious minority.
It's been a cause of at least simmering hostility ever since.
Well I am sure. If President Higgins wants to throw a tantrum tough, he was sent an invitiation, if he refused it why should we care?
Northern Ireland was created to respect the wishes of the majority Protestant and Unionist population of the province who wanted to stay part of the UK and anyone who disrespects that is a traitor to the UK as far as I am concerned
Well, I for one regard the artificial division of the island of Ireland as a something to be regretted. And I regard the policy of the Conservative party 120 or so years ago as devious and, in some aspects at least (the Curragh Mutiny) as at least bordering on treasonable.
Just to dig into your first sentence: A slightly pedantic point, because I don't think this is exactly what you mean, but there's no real reason why nations should follow 'logical' divisions of geography. Do we regret the 'artificial' division of the Iberian peninsula into two countries? Or applaud the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia to make a neater division between Greece and Turkey? Of course not. Nationalities tend not to be geographically neat, and our insular experience gives us a slightly misleading impression that this is the case more often than is true. There are clearly two nationalities in Northern Ireland. Now, if those two nationalities were neatly split - all the unionists in Antrim and Down, say - I don't think anyone reasonable would have had any problem with partition. The problem is that the two defied simple geographical division. Indeed, it should be noted that pre-partition there were numerous unionists in what is now the republic - what happened to them? Presumably civil war Ireland was somewhere unionists were highly motivated to leave. Which perhaps illustrates why partition was perhaps considered a least-worst option - the civil war and unionist exodus would have been rather worse had independence been given to the whole island of Ireland. I'm not saying that partition was a good solution. But it's not obvious to me that that any of the other solutions were obviously any better - certainly not at the time. There may have been a window in the nineteenth century when home rule might have been supported by everyone in Ireland (or there might not - my understanding of nineteenth century Irish politics is hazy). But by the early twentieth century, that moment appeared to have passed, if it was there at all.
On NI cultural identities: as a lockdown activity, some friends and I have been listening to albums from before our time and discussing them. We've recently done Van Morrison, a man and his work I previously knew little about, except that he was Northern Irish and (with a name like that) probably Protestant. It turns out that yes, his background is Belfast working class Protestant - in which respect it's fascinating how 'Irish' his music is. Now it's ridiculous to draw too many inferences from a sample of one, but it made me question again how great the gulf actually is between the communities of Northern Ireland.
I watched an interesting 2-part documentary about the partition of Ireland. Road to Partition I think it was called.
If I'm remembering correctly the reason NI didn't include all 9 Ulster counties was because the NI Protestant leadership thought that would mean the province would have too small a Unionist majority for comfort (plurality? I get mixed up). So 3 counties were left with the Republic and the Protestants in those did feel abandoned/betrayed. I think 2 of the 6 NI counties did have Catholic majorities (Fermanagh + ?) but the NI leaders felt that they could handle the overall balance of the 6.
There was supposed to be a referendum in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Which was never held.
Tyrone and Fermanagh have SF MPs now as does most of Armagh and South Down and half of Belfast. Derry has an SDLP MP.
All the rest of Northern Ireland outside Belfast has DUP MPs with 1 Alliance MP.
In 10 years probably makes sense to redraw the boundaries again on those lines
There is going to be a Sinn Fein government in the 26 counties at some point in those 10 years. FG/FF cannot keep the most popular party out of government indefinitely. They are not going to settle for anything less than a 32 county Ireland.
FG and FF combined still win comfortably more votes in Ireland than SF. However even if SF won every single vote in the Republic of Ireland and every single seat it would not make any difference to NI's and Antrim's right to self determination and stay part of the UK if they wish.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
If a section of a significant political party this side of the Irish Sea didn’t encourage the hard-line Unionists, but instead suggested they accept reality, then there might be more hope.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
They don't actually, the right is significantly watered down by the border poll provisions in the GFA.
Only if Nationalist parties combined win more votes than Unionist parties combined at Stormont which is not the case now.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
The Brexit deal we now have is a clear and unambiguous first step towards a united Ireland. I know you regret this, but proper Tories such as the PM and his Cabinet applaud it.
No the EU imposed an Irish sea border for a GB trade deal.
If it is not removed then Unionists will withdraw from the Stormont executive and Westminster will impose direct rule over NI again in response
The EU didn't impose anything. That was part and parcel of Brexit. Everyone knew that and the people who thought Brexit was a good idea which I appreciate doesn't include you or me decided to pursue it anyway.
Over the past decades and including the GFA we had grown to become interdependent on various states (small "s") one of which was the island of Ireland being a near-homogenous whole.
Brexit tore that apart and this was an entirely foreseeable consequence. And as I say cheered on by Brexit supporters which is of course their right.
Comments
I have said before that, since vaccines came in, continued lockdownism is a branch of antivvaxxery, as it strongly implies scepticism of vaccine efficacy.
Focus on the vaccinations, not on restrictions.
I'm not a denialist. Covid exists. I wouldn't go out of my way to get it. But the extent to which we are hiding from it is ridiculous.
We're all going to get it at some point. May as well be now as later.
(Easy for me to say, having had it. But still.)
"ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant"
https://www.everythingasterix.com/latin-jokes-content/2015/3/31/asterix-and-the-cauldron
Bit supererogatory given the nature of much of the 'Stan.
Force Antrim in particular to have direct rule from Dublin imposed on it as well as the border in the Irish Sea against its wishes then Sinn Fein would create the conditions for a return of loyalist paramilitary violence, Protestant Ulster will never accept direct rule by a Sinn Fein government. So we would be back to the Troubles again
Claire Craig. Mike Yeadon. Their "man on the inside" Robert DIngwall.
Julia Hartley-Brewer and Toby Young who gave them a platform and amplified their message.
The MPs and journalists who listened and were "friendly" to them.
https://twitter.com/shipbrief/status/1450704896282484736?s=21
Bactria and Sogdiana rebelled against him, which turned out not to be an especially bright thing to do.
I can see from his profile that he's still with us. Just not posting. A shame.
How can we lure him back?
We also seem to have lost @FrancisUrquhart
The Arabs that chose to stay in Israeli land became Israeli citizens. Many did move though to the new Egyptian and Jordanian territories (what is now called Palestinian land). But Israel never forced them out, if they had there'd be no large Arab minority in Israel today - and if they had forced them out of the bits of Egypt and Jordan they occupied into the rest of Egypt and Jordan there'd be no "Palestine" today.
The John the Baptist one as it were.
When tyranny is law, revolution is order. That's from Far Cry 6 so it must be true.
https://goodlawproject.org/news/they-let-covid-rip-through-care-homes/
The HART leaks are pretty eye opening. Craig and co, for all their vileness, did get well organised and know where to pressure politicians and JCVI members as well as know how to get their message out into the media and amplified.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
But if Israel having successfully won a defensive war in either 48 or 67 had treated the Arabs attacking them in the same way as the Germans were treated in the Sudetenland then there'd be no such thing as "Palestinians" today. The Arabs would have been resettled in Egypt and Jordan like the Germans were resettled in Germany.
Among other things, Matthew Shaddick (ex-Ladbrokes; now Smarkets) discusses betting markets' Conservative bias.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQLVNwu_WSY
(i) a SMS from my GP practice about 10 days ago asking me to make an appointment for a booster, which the GP practice actually don't do, so they've booked me into a vacc centre in Leiston (but the one where I had my original two vaccs doesn't seem to be operating any more).
Today
(ii) I got a SMS from NHS-Noreply (which was how I originally got notified for my original vaccs) asking me to book through the NHS booking system.
Now, it seems to me to be a real lack of joined-up admin. Will the fact I've had a booster get recorded? How come I got an earlier notification from my GP than from the NHS-noreply booking system? I wouldn't be at all surprised if the apparent lack of progress on boosters may have something to do with administrative cock-ups.
Had Egypt and Jordan won either 48 or 67 there'd be no such thing as either Israel or Palestine today. All the "Palestinians" of today would be Egyptians or Jordanians.
Had Israel treated their Arab aggressors they were defending themselves from as the same way the Germans were treated in the Sudetenland there'd be no such thing as a "Palestinian" today, they'd all be Egyptians or Jordanians.
Ulster Protestants have as much a right to stay part of the UK as they did 100 years ago.
That is non negotiable and if leftwingers like you dislike it, tough
erm no the good friday agreement provides that in the event of a border poll win for nationalist NI will no longer be part of the UK
And I’m proud to be a left-wing patriot.
Edit: subject of course to a poll under the GFA. Thanks folks for reminding me.
Have had that figure quoted back at me.
And blame for illness, including sepsis.
A trip to the GP for the annual diabetic checkup, and the nurse to tickle my feet.
- The practice has done more than half it's current quota of booster jabs.
- Bit short staffed as this time round they are doing the visits to Care Homes.
- Jabs for children going rapidly - more than 50% again.
- Yes, the nurse who graduated in the last year (I am in North Notts) is aware of numbers of friends fairly routinely hassled in Night Clubs, sometimes comments / assaulted, but herself was a mum doing her degree home-based so not really a clubber.
- Freestyle flash monitoring of glucose levels (the sensor Theresa May had visible on her upper arm, that you wave a scanner at rather than doing a finger-prick) is being rolled out quite widely, and is quite transformative for diabetic control for many people.
- They are having trouble with constant date changes on batches of Pfizer vaccines delivery. The current lot due soon has been rearranged 7 or 8 times.
- Interesting comment that they regularly now have people diagnosed with Type II diabetes who manage to roll it back into remission by lifestyle changes.
An independent Scotland is 50/50, I’d judge.
The Tories still don’t appreciate the implications of what they have done.
But they didn't.
It's generally been the case that restrictions are announced once we get to the point where infections are starting to decline anyway - then they can say "look, we brought in these restrictions and infections went down" - they'll need to be quick to get them in before they turn this time.
My plan 1 student loan interest: lower of RPI or the base rate +1%
Current interest rate = 1.1%
Massive difference between those two figures. I doubt the treasury envisaged such a difference when they designed the plan 1 student loan system.
From a slightly different angle: who the hell is buying bonds/mortgage backed securities right now?
Seems insane to lend money at just above the base rate for a guaranteed loss. A sign the economy is still deeply dysfunctional, surely?
David Trimble gave up that right on behalf of Unionists in 1997.
In exchange Ireland and the Nationalists agreed that NI would remain in the UK unless the voters in NI determined otherwise. But if the voters in NI determine otherwise, then that's it, it goes to Ireland.
Don't tell anyone.
People need to be warned about the incidence of these:
- Fetishism
- Penile size reduction
- Low Income
- Flooding
- Water pollution
- Retirement
- Soliloquy {now this one made me just stop for a moment]
- Teething
- Bed bug infestation
- Spinal fracture
- Verbal Abuse
- Anal Sex
- Kosher diet
- Illiteracy
- Job Dissatisfaction
- Hair Injury
- Tattoo
- Homosexual Parent
- Screaming
- Hangover
- Animal bite
- Chlamydia
... and the rest.
Because if they're taking everything in VAERS and the Yellow Card system as definitely causally connected, I'd be very interested at the way they get the causal link to these.
All of his reincarnations have been blindingly obvious within moments.
However even if there was a border poll and a majority for a United Ireland Protestant dominated Antrim would declare UDI rather than accept Dublin rule
https://twitter.com/ZemmourEric/status/1450820456496386049
In 2019 in NI after the Brexit vote and Boris' deal 43% of voters voted for Unionist parties and only 38% for Nationalist.
So wrong, it made near zero difference
I don't like his politics at all but he certainly looks like he's having fun!
Usually needs to be accompanied by all sorts of contortions to try to explain them away, but even these never work for the second lockdown (cases started to drop around the 11th of November)
On the third lockdown, cases followed regional lockdowns (London and the South East started their "Tier 4" lockdown in late December.
And in the first one, whilst we can't track cases, hospitalisations peaked on the 3rd of April, and these are usually around 7-10 days after cases.
Lockdown announced on 23rd March to come into effect 26th March. All restaurants, nightclubs, gyms, bars, play centres, schools (other than for the children of essential workers) had been closed by the 20th of March.
If it is not removed then Unionists will withdraw from the Stormont executive and Westminster will impose direct rule over NI again in response
Unless....
Repartition can't happen. Its against the law.
What an odd and sinister thing to do.
You were going on the other day about the joy of 'English' immigrants in Wales voting Tory.
If only.
Regardless, they're going nowhere.
Egypt and Jordan killed the state of Palestine at birth in 48 annexing that land and then attempting to destroy Israel. They kept that land for themselves until Israel took it off them (not Palestinians) after they attempted to wipe out Israel for a second time in 67.
It bemuses me that people are angry at Israel for there not being an actual state called Palestine today, when Israel offered to have Palestine exist repeatedly - but it was Egypt and Jordan that prevented its creation and the PLO who rejected its creation under Arafat too.
Though if the Nationalist and Yes voting bits of Scotland did try and declare UDI that would not be too bad, the rest would be solid for staying in the UK
I see little reason to believe they'd have done otherwise had they won the war.
Less Edward, more Frank Carson.
Over the past decades and including the GFA we had grown to become interdependent on various states (small "s") one of which was the island of Ireland being a near-homogenous whole.
Brexit tore that apart and this was an entirely foreseeable consequence. And as I say cheered on by Brexit supporters which is of course their right.