>>I think the Irish have the right to throw the Brits out. By that I mean the occupying army and police force.<<
So to be logically consistent, CB, you would also argue that native Americans have the right to throw the English, Irish, Lithuanians, etc., etc. out of the US & Canada, right?
Your/our recent ancestors engaged in continent-wide genocide in the nineteenth century, directly or indirectly causing the deaths of millions of native Americans, a little fact that is conveniently forgotten here in the US. (How much personal responsibility do you feel for that?) The native Irish on the whole received far better treatment at the hands of the British. Unfortunately for the Irish, when you are a medieval feudal society located right next to the world's biggest (eighteenth and nineteenth century) industrial superpower, the outcome is predictable.
The realpolitik is that the large majority of the population of Northern Ireland (not the Republic of Ireland) are Protestant, loyalist (to the UK government) and are largely descendants of immigrants from the North of England.
It's a funny thing, too, but the current "occupation" of Northern Ireland by the British Army which began in 1969 was initiated in order to protect the minority (Catholic) population of Northern Ireland from an escalating wave of Protestant violence. The (mostly Protestant) Royal Ulster Constabulary was not doing the job, for some reason.
Don't get mad at me, I didn't create this mess. |
