Nearly had to kick my radio in listening to the Today programme this morning

[Burney]

Ah yes, that's right. I sort of used to confuse her with the Widdecombe harridan as well.

Fair to say that you wouldn't in either case. Although Widdecombe when younger might have been worth a punt.

AnneWiddecombe.jpg

[Ash]

To be fair, though, the idea behind partition was simply to keep Ulster Unionists from losing their shįt and beating the crap out of the rest of Ireland. There was no particular interest in retaining the province of Ulster for its own sake.

The big mistake everyone makes when thinking about the Troubles is thinking that it was solely about managing the republican problem. It wasn't. It was about the Brits managing the republican problem rather than the loyalists doing so, which would have been much, much uglier.

Another perspective might be that Britain had an empire at that point and losing your oldest colony doesn't look great, so some measure of authority had to be preserved. And not just over the colonial subjects; over the workers at home too, during a period of some instability.

[Burney]

Another perspective might be that Britain had an empire at that point and losing your oldest colony doesn't look great, so some measure of authority had to be preserved. And not just over the colonial subjects; over the workers at home too, during a period of some instability.

Oddly enough, I don't think they cared. Our empire had just increased massively post-1918 and we were hopelessly over-stretched in terms of manpower. The Irish Home Rule thing had been rumbling on in the background for 50 years at that stage and Britain had no stomach for dealing with it. It had been obvious Ireland was going to have to have some form of self-determination for ages. The only question was how.
In terms of the attitudes, it comes down to race. Whatever the issues, Ireland was a white 'colony' and thus regarded completely differently to the various non-white colonies. It's a common mistake to think they'd have been seen similarly. People at the time simply wouldn't have seen it that way.