Originally Posted by
Burney
Right. If you think the Republic of Ireland is desperate to get its paws on Northern Ireland, you're wrong. Equally, NI leaving the union by democratic self-determination has never been a problem as far as the UK is concerned. The problem lay in it being dragged out by violence - something the British rightly refused to countenance.
The biggest mistake anyone can make in attempting to understand NI is to think that Britain and Ireland are fighting over it. They're not. Both sides are just dealing with it as an unwished-for historical legacy for which they feel responsibility and whose descent into chaos they are both desperate to avoid.