Ireland's Brexit Trouble - Brexit Frontline - Brexit lays bare old animosities in NI

[OnDoutside]

This gives a bit of the flavour of the issues in Northern Ireland today. As someone from the Republican of Ireland, I shudder at the thought of being in a United Ireland with this lot. In a US context, imagine (knowing what you know now) creating a United States but being told you have to take the Evangelicals etc, would you ? Well I have similar dread about a UI. So when you here about a Northern Ireland Backstop, this is what it's trying to prevent.

[zipplewrath]

1. WE did

When the US was formed, there was extensive discussions about whether Catholics should be allowed in government at all. There was also concern about religious liberty to the extent that the Puritans of the North and the Baptists of the south would use the government of suppress each other. The result was our First Amendment specification of religious liberty.

Your situation is a bit different than ours. We were already "united" when our revolution was over. We just had to write the rules. Your situation is such that there is no unity, and no agreement on how the rules should be written. Brexit has created an unanswerable question where the Republic of Ireland won't put up a border, the EU wants a "hard" border of some sort, and Northern Ireland insists on remaining in the UK. There aren't alot of answers here. It is made worse by the fears that once out of the EU, the protections that were assured all residents of NI will begin to erode.

I hope everyone sorts this out and they do so peacefully.

[OnDoutside]

2. The problem on our island is that they have never addressed the past, the hate and their

relationship with each other, as much as both their relationships with us in the South. I would fear a UI without that being resolved. That's the danger of Brexit, and the danger of scum like Johnson and Mogg, pushing for a Brexit without a backstop.

[Bradshaw3]

3. Seems insurmountable, like the Middle East

Perhaps if, back in 1922, they had offfered the Unionists a chance to emigrate to the British Empire the way many loyalists did after the American Revolution, and united the country then it might have worked. I don't know but I can see why you are fearful of a united Ireland after listening to some of those Unionists. I don't think evangelicals were a force in America's colonial times but if they were raptured away today I wouldn't mind.

[OnDoutside]

4. A good portion of those Unionists are Old Testamenters like the Evangelicals, and as nutty. What

was happening by not addressing the past, was letting time pass where new generations would grow up feeling as much European as much as British or Irish, thus having a commonality. Brexit threatens to bring the hate and division back to the surface, that's the problem. Worse that the nutjob Brexiters are trying to kill the Backstop, ignorant and selfish.

[Bradshaw3]

5. I'm afraid it's going to bubble to the surface again

I admit a limited knowledge about the situation even though my father's side of the family came from the Londonderry area in the 1700s and I am supposedly one of two million descendants of Nialls of the Nine hostages. But the video you posted was very informational so thanks for that. I had just assumed there was more of a general rapprochement after the agreement than it appears there was. Those walls and the two completely divided communities is just sad. Just have to hope that things are sorted out without growing violence.

[OnDoutside]

6. Or as we used to say in school "Niall of the Nine Sausages" ! I felt there would be another

Referendum on the morning after the last one, and I'm more confident than ever that it is inexorably moving in that direction. The North needs a truth and reconciliation conference (as South Africa did), but England needs a similar one for themselves, to sort out their own identity.

[Granny M]

7. I hope you're right about a second referendum.

Bad MPs and TDs can be voted out, but Brexit will be pretty hard to get rid of once it's done. It's too serious not to have a people's vote.

And that video scared the hell out of me. I live in Sligo, and we're already feeling the effects of the devalued pound. People aren't coming over to spend on this side of the border. And we're just too close to NI if the troubles kick off again.

[OnDoutside]

8. May has form for blocking, until she does it ! So I wouldn't pay any attention to her

saying that there will be no 2nd referendum. There are only 3 options, and one of those is her deal which she's afraid to put before parliament. She was 200 votes short last time.

Sligo is lovely part of the country, we spent a couple of nights at the Radisson after visiting relations near Cloone during the crash. I was struck by the number of boarded up businesses then, so that is worrying about the current situation.

[Granny M]

9. Things have improved a lot here.

But there is a long way to go to get more investment for the Northwest. I just hope we don't get pushed off the cliff.

[OnDoutside]

10. That's great to hear. If there's Brexit, we'll all suffer. I do a lot of my work for UK companies,

so I'm as desperate for them to remain as anyone else.