Dairmaid Ferriter on the Irish Border - John Hewitt International Summer School

[@matthewbrady1562]

Fantastic speech, once we get going in terms of an Irish unification debate and a date for it, this man will be worth more than his weight in gold and could provide clarification for unionists and help sway the middle ground in how best to move forward with unification.

[@realdinho]

Love how it ends with that quote from the Gerry Rafferty song, class! ;)

[@patrickyoung3503]

Brilliant!y exp!aimed by Prof. Ferrither . Now how do you solve it . A bringing together of representatives of both governments to solve the problem so that we all can live in peace . Myself I'm very flexible to achieve it . Take a vote of e anybody & see are we in favour of solving the problem for a start . !!!

[@wilfredwilde9559]

I’m reading your book Ireland 1900 /2000 at the moment Mr F .I found it at a free bookstall in Acton Station three years ago.It’s over eight hundred pages long but so well written . John Banville Colm Toibin all lightweights compared to your brain . We are lucky to have this man .I’ll buy you a pint in Finnegans some evening. M

[@ajw9533]

David Davis referred to the UK's "internal border with Southern Ireland" which suggests that he does not know the Republic is a country in its own right.

[@jmccullough662]

Some Irish people don't use the term the Republic. If that's what they want to be called, they should just say so.

[@findbridge1790]

Ireland will be unified. Ireland will be free of colonial interference. Ireland will achieve its true greatness. Greetings from Italian-American Boston, where we love our Irish neighbors and friends.

[@findbridge1790]

@@arthurgoodness7865 You're globalist fools.It's not an accident by the way that all the recent big star writers from Ireland here in the US are all from Ulster including Seamus Heaney the overrated. Reason: they're spies. You people have to get a grip and stop sucking on either the UK or the US tit.

[@findbridge1790]

@@arthurgoodness7865 Fuck him. Paint by numbers stuff. Compare P. Kavanagh.

[@mikki3562]

@@arthurgoodness7865 You are talking about unrealistic abstractions of the actual situation. When Britain withdraws from Ireland it can only mean one thing; the country will be reunified. Polls are only an aspect of the process, and they are organised and controlled by the existing powers who would want a certain outcome but in the end have to comply with the compelling realities of the historical, economic and demographic conditions. These are the deciding factors.

[@mikki3562]

Firstly, there is only one country, not two Irish countries. You speak of the unionist paramilitaries as if they were autonomous and legitimate when in fact they are no more than unofficial proxies (death-squads) of the British military. And unionism as a whole amounts to a maintained settler community based on caste privilege and supremacy as a colonial entity in a country in which its role was to never assimilate. And I say this not as a pejorative term towards unionist people, but only because it is how political unionism describes itself as being a settler entity in Ireland. The threat of violence you speak about in relation to the unionist paramilitaries has always been there, but again it only exists as an extension of the British state and occupation in Ireland. Without the British state these proto-fascist elements will dissolve and the community in which they breed will reject them. The sectarianism which they are based on will go too, along with all the other trappings of British colonialism and a normal society will replace it. This is the historical necessity, it is the future; it is driven by the natural human progression against colonial domination, which is the essence of the situation. It is made obvious now in view of the demographic and economic realities, and these are the determining factors that will win out. The six-county state in the north of Ireland is not a country or a nation or a natural, geographical entity, it is a British colony in another country, hostile to the nation it occupies, and in which it tries to mask all of these things in so much double-speak nonsense about there being two countries in Ireland. You should remember, it was British military intelligence who carried out the series of bombings culminating in the Dublin/Monaghan bombings in 1974 using the UVF. That is how it was then, and that is how it is now. This will end when Britain is removed from Ireland, when they finally agree to an orderly withdrawal. As for innocent lives lost, British colonialism is responsible for all of it, whether directly or indirectly. And it threatens more through its proxies in the orange death-squads as its hold is questioned. To suggest it is not Britain, but its settler death-squads acting outside British control is just not tenable. Britain has to agree to leave and stop pretending they are impartial in some Irish conflict. We will never have any lasting peace so long as Britain remains in Ireland.

[@mikki3562]

@@arthurgoodness7865 Yes we can agree to disagree and that's fine. None of us have a crystal ball, and no doubt many of the aspects you and I refer to are valid at least to some extent. It's just a fact of life that all conflicts are ugly and innocent people are killed, but I have no difficulty in attributing all of Ireland's casualties of war and even those outside Ireland for that matter, to Britain's continued colonial interference and occupation of Ireland, including up to the present. None of it would have happened without British colonial domination and control. And there will always be the same threat of death and violence from the proto-fascist proxies of the British state as long as they are maintained by that state. There is no other solution to the system of sectarian hatred, the extant British empire existing in certain enclaves in parts of the six-counties, other that the removal of its source ie, British occupation. You are right of course to mention the huge difficulties involved in the transition, but Ireland can and will do this, it will receive enormous financial, political and strategic help internationally, in addition to unprecedented goodwill from the entire world. It was Britain's first colony and it is the bitterest of national independence struggles over the longest period with the profoundest consequences historically speaking. I don't place much store in a border poll as I've already said, I see it as much more than that, and I look forward to seeing Ireland becoming a totally free country and nation. I hope I live to see it.

[@jasonrflash]

What he says from 4m30secs to 6m are the distillation of the exact problem with the border, any border

[@ardakolimsky7107]

I'm not sure you can argue that all borders engender the same problems. Some, yes. But this border is particular.

[@boilingwateronthestove]

What I never understood is how Unionists are even loyal to a country or government that doesn't even care one bit about them.

[@jmccullough662]

What I never understood is how Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland could be loyal to an Ireland that literally sold them out.

[@ClannCholmain]

@@jmccullough662the people of the island of Ireland were threatened with total destruction by Westminster. What would you expect to happen?

[@johnnotrealname8168]

@@ClannCholmain If you were following the lecture you would notice that there was a wilful ignorance of Northern-Ireland mostly until 1969.

[@johnhuston1731]

Superb

[@joeoconnor5400]

Even were the NI Protocol were to be resolved, the DUP will never go back to Stormont because of Sinn Fein having a First Minister. The DUP don't seem to see there are other communities in Northern Ireland who moved there to be safe and just want public services that are working.

[@johnnotrealname8168]

I think the true shock is the pragmatism (Not using it positively here.) of both sides. The British supposedly in an Union disregards part of the Union (Reminiscent of the attitudes in An Drochshaol (1845-1852).) and the Irish state disregards the North and indeed has not even prepared for the potential of it being re-unified.

[@paulgray2387]

I’m very English and I believe that Ireland should be united and a new peaceful chapter should begin for the Island of Ireland.

[@conallgeneral8136]

@It'z all gon be kay but what about the people who lived there? where was democracy in the partition of Ireland?

[@Drifty40]

@@conallgeneral8136 Democracy was they got 26 counties back and their own currency. You completely disregard the majority British citizens in NI, which has been their home for 5 generations. This is the 21st Century, not the 12th Century !

[@MB-pe1dw]

@Pale Rider you are talking shit. Did you call the Indians your people when it was ruled by Britain?

[@nigelmurphy6761]

@Pale Rider half of them aren't dude.

[@nigelmurphy6761]

@@MB-pe1dw great point dude.

[@extanegautham8950]

only one ireland exists. the island.

[@nigelmurphy6761]

exactly.

[@coolmacatrain9434]

Britain is an Island .. should the majority (The English) then claim all of it should be "United"?@@nigelmurphy6761

[@jerryfields4837]

historians should be politicians....not the other way round

[@conorfields506]

Alright jerry maybe lost cousins

[@jgg59]

Éamon de Valera and FF painfully shortsighted

[@KimPhilby203]

You can have your United Eire , but the whole country will be in flames .

[@ClannCholmain]

Explain.

[@minui8758]

Jesus those Thatcher quotes @38:38! 😳 Makes me embarrassed to be English that a PM could say that - albeit a pro Irish Republican socialist Englishman. Really hammers home even more how amateurish and disrespectful we’ve been - as if it needed to be

[@royalirishranger1931]

Absolute tripe, its not going to happen, the EU itself is coming apart at the seams. Ireland iis probably destined to be subsumed by its migrant influx and the native Irish will soon become an irrelevant minority in its own land and all that , may entail. The nationalist birth rate in the Northern Ireland has collapsed and passed its peak in 2011, and their share of the vote has a diminished considerably. In the last two elections the pro unionist parties ie Alliance , UU,DUP, TUV and independents secured approx 60% of the vote, with the combined national vote SF, SDLP and odds and sods gaining only 38% approx. It should also be understood that the gains that SF made were at the expense of the SDLP. Our futures both North and South are is in some question, and May be settled by people who are not Irish , they may vote for all sorts of unpalatable changes in their interests not ours. One of the biggest groups of migrants into our English interesting isn’t it.

[@matthewbrady1562]

I think Britain has a far more major problem with migration than Ireland does. And what you deem as "tripe" was a well researched, thought out speech showing the private thoughts of both British and Irish ministers. Nowadays, it is unionist politicians that are showing how the Northern state is ungovernable under the status quo, whether in or out of Stormont the nationalist argument only strengthens and persuades those of the middle ground that looking at an economically strong country in the EU is far better than a misguided, socially divided Britain still coming to terms with the financial loss and ease of trade with Europe.

[@jmccullough662]

​@@matthewbrady1562Wow, how wrong you have proven to be on this point. Irish people are pushing back on immigration because of the huge numbers accepted by Ireland.

[@ClannCholmain]

@@jmccullough662 are you pining for the 1950s?

[@ClannCholmain]

@@matthewbrady1562 Unionism has forfeited its right to govern. They’d rather see the island burn.

[@ClannCholmain]

@@royalirishranger1931 have you ever read either of the last two censuses of the Republic of Ireland?