Northern Ireland will either take 25 years to legalise it or their gonna have to be forced somehow. The place doesn't deserve the level of autonomy it has.
Yeah but it was basically either that or continue blowing eachother up. What would you rather the British government had done?
Having grown up in Northern Ireland during the "blow eachother up" phase I think re-instating the Northern Irish Assembly was preferable, as much as I despise most Assembly members. So far my house has yet to be shaken by another bomb blast, no husband of my mother's work friends have lost anymore body parts from people putting bombs under their cars for no reason other than they were a cop and no more children from the schools I went to have been shot dead for the crime of having a catholic friend. So that's progress. We may not have reached the 21st century yet but we'll get their some day. Probably when everyone else is in the 25th century.
I am serious by the way, those were the two options. There was a 3rd option - unify Ireland and give Northern Ireland back to the Republic but I don't think I need to explain why that would have been a disaster that would have caused the deaths of thousands of people.
'Back to the Republic'? It was never part of the Republic of Ireland.
For fuck sake, are you serious or are you winding me up? That's not what I meant and I think you probably knew that.
I do have a BA in History by the way, I don't need pedantic patronisations that in no way change the point I was making.
I said giving it back to the Republic as a turn of phrase. I simply meant giving Northern Ireland to what is now called the Republic of Ireland and re-uniting Ireland into being a single entity as it once was, before the Free State was established (albeit obviously with the whole of Ireland independant and not under direct British rule as the whole Island had been before 1921).
I'm perfectly aware Northern Ireland was never part of the modern state now known as the Republic of Ireland, nor was it part of the Free State and the the two have been separate since 1921 (and yes I do know the Free State didn't come into being until 1922 due to the cival war before you say anything) - although technically Northern Ireland was actually part of the Free State initially when it was first established but NI chose to remove itself. So there was probably a few hours at least where NI was part of the Free State if we want to get REALLY pedantic about things.
And yeah the political situation here is less than perfect or ideal and we have far too many fundies and former terrorists in government than I'd like (I'd like none of either) but it's a neceassary evil. And don't get me started on the fuckin' DUP. My dad is from the Shankhill and I went to school in Monkstown and Glengormley, but I'd vote Sinn Feinn before I'd vote DUP that's how much the DUP pisses me off. I'm dead serious.
Edit: I think I over reacted a bit here (I do that sometimes, I dunno if I'm bi-polar or something, do bi-polar people do that? I knew a girl once who was bi-polar and did similar things). But I'll leave this post as is as it seems dishonest to change it after people have already read it.