Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
I don't remember claiming to be an advocate for the Irish state.

I'm merely stating facts as I perceive them. When I was growing up and holidaying with my family in Ireland, contraception, pornography, homosexuality and for some reason a whole variety of British sweets were all illegal, priests and nuns were everywhere, the church effectively ran large parts of education and welfare provision and the telly used to show masses.

Today, they can barely get enough seminarians to fill Maynooth, gay marriage is legal and - god help us - they've given us Mrs Brown's Boys. Yes, abortion is a stumbling block, but to suggest that Ireland is the same priest-ridden sh1thole it was in the 70s is simply to prefer one's prejudices to reality.

Equally, as regards NI, I'm making no guarantees, but I simply don't see the catalyst or the will for a return to violence there. Your assessment - much like your assessment of the Republic - seems to me to be based on a wholly outdated idea of the situation and the attitudes there.
Bearing in mind the political split continues to be almost exclusively a religious one I believe the attitudes there are more outdated than you credit them.

The catalyst (if it ever happens and I hope it doesn't) will be the calls for a referendum to leave the Union.