Mary-Lou "United Ireland is within touching distance"

[Sister Sara]

I don't get your point. The risk was mostly of espionage.

Yes, like I said, suspicion and paranoia....at factory working Catholics trying to make a living to bring home the bread and butter, just exactly as working class Protestant people were trying to make a living and bring home for their families.

You have to ask yourself - who instilled this paranoia in ordinary working people? In whose interest was it to divide the working class of Catholic and Protestant?
You only have to look at the system of governance and power that prevailed at the time, supported wholly by the British government - Lord Brookeborough (again).

 

[Sister Sara]

By the time the GFA came around most if not all the grievances of the Nationalist had been addressed.

No they had not. As you said yourself, NI was under direct-rule from London.

i.e.- citizens of NI had next to zero say in how their province was to be governed.

Politicians without a single vote would decide.

Mostly Tory, and Unionist leaning. So when RUC and B-Specials violence erupted on the civil rights movement at the behest of the Unionist Party ("its a front for the IRA") the British response was not to chastise those in authority but to re-enforce the Unionist domination by bringing in the British Army and direct-rule. Then internment, curfews, torture programs, slaughter in Ballymurphy, Derry, criminalistion, shoot-to-kill, collusion, cover-ups, etc, against the Nationalist/Republican/Catholic community.
And lets face it, the RUC enjoyed next to zero confidence from the Nationalist community until eventually Unionists and the British government faced the reality of police reform through all-party negotiations.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

at factory working Catholics trying to make a living to bring home the bread and butter

Yes of course this would be the situation of the vast majority. But then there is the fanatic, possibly even indirectly in the employ of the Fuhrer, passing on info to granda Haughey or the equivalent.

who instilled this paranoia in ordinary working people? In whose interest was it to divide the working class of Catholic and Protestant?

Ahh the well worn cliché of the left - divide and conquer the working people.

supported wholly by the British government

Yes I have already alluded to this. Why oh why did the Brits give NI devolved powers long before that was de rigueur to be administered by a Protestants ascendant class for a Protestant people from a grand newly built castle on a hill overlooking Belfast. From my home in Andersonstown totally on the opposite side of the city I could see this impressive symbol of Protestant domination. There's me using the language of the fanatics. I actually didn't fare badly and whilst the stats demonstrated an unequal society (twice the unemployment rate amongst Catholics) there was nothing to justify 3,000 deaths.

 

[Sister Sara]

Yes of course this would be the situation of the vast majority. But then there is the fanatic, possibly even indirectly in the employ of the Fuhrer, passing on info to granda Haughey or the equivalent.

But you can say that about anyone, at anytime.

@Purple has expressed similar suspicious sentiments. If in a UI referendum, it was likely that the Irish people were to vote in a government that was leaning more to adversaries of the UK/US alliance that it would 'probably be right' to deny Irish people their democratic and constitutional right to self-determination.

Ahh the well worn cliché of the left - divide and conquer the working people.

Nothing cliché about it all, it is a standard political practice to obtain power by coercion rather than through open civic discussion.

Why oh why did the Brits give NI devolved powers long before that was de rigueur to be administered by a Protestants ascendant class for a Protestant people from a grand newly built castle on a hill overlooking Belfast.

Because Irish Unionists threatened a Civil War on the island of Ireland if Home Rule were to be enforced. This, at a time of Britain's need in Europe.

As John Redmond said, "I say to the government that they may tomorrow withdraw every one of their troops from Ireland. I say that the coast of Ireland will be defended from foreign invasion by her armed sons and for this purpose armed nationalist Catholics in the South will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant Ulstermen in the North."

Ireland was betrayed.

They call themselves 'loyalists', but loyal to who? Ireland? no. The British Crown? No.

They are traitors. Traitors to Ireland, Traitors to Ireland and Britain.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Because Irish Unionists threatened a Civil War on the island of Ireland if Home Rule were to be enforced. This, at a time of Britain's need in Europe.

The partition was long decided by the late twenties and the threat of Unionist civil war a distant memory. They would have been happy with Direct Rule as before. What mystifies me is why the Brits went for devolved power to a sectarian and dysfunctional society, as far as I know there was no pressure to do so. It was clearly done by the Brits for their own sake, it seems with hindsight a big mistake.