from the time of the Spanish Armada up to the Falklands , Catholic Ireland was often seen as a back door for military powers to get at Britain.

Like the vietnamese, the peasant farmers in Ireland found themselves as pawns in a struggle of superpowers of whom they had little acquaintance.

Even now, with Brexit negotiations being troubled, little Leo Varadkar the irish PM is acting as Merkel's attack dog. Making everything much more difficult than needs be for Westminster. Varadkar is a disgrace and should resign.

And as for Derry/LondonDerry , i love the idea of being in one country having a pint...barman calls 'last orders' so you walk 100 yards to continue drinking in the other country.

Kayla did Anfield & Old Trafford

Cromwell did unforgivable things in Ireland.

And the orange takeover of the north is a headache most of us wish hadn't happened.....along with partition.....and I'm a unionist of course.

However, Ireland staying neutral in WW2 pretty much wipes most sympathy away for me personally.

Even though I completely recognise the individual Irish who chose to fight for an independent and democratic Europe......even though they were shunned by their own disgrace of a government on their return.

Edited by Stirlingsays (25 Nov 2018 3.38am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

And also, of course, the process of suppression of the Anglo-Saxons began in 1066.

Katie Hopkins bangs on about us not being a 'multicultural society' but actually being a series of disconnected ghettoes. Love her or hate her, on this point she has identified an imbalance at the core.

the lessons from Northern Ireland need to be learned if mainland England is not to fall to the same sectarian madness.

Integration and assimilation is desirable. Otherwise madness ensues.

In places like Luton, what proportion of white english boys have a muslim girlfriend ?

what is the gender profile of refugees/asylum seekers ? is it 50:50 male female ? or more like 95:5 ?

in places like Belfast, what proportion of married couples are mixed Catholic/Protestant ?

in London is the number of couples 'black man with white woman' matched by an equivalent proportion of couples 'black woman with white man' ? there was a black woman on the telly going nuts about this last week.

'white men with chinese women ? and white women with chinese men ?' are both types of couple balanced 50:50 ? on your high street ?

For the purposes of social cohesion, it is desirable that different backgrounds all mingle without bias. Otherwise there is a loss of confidence in the whole game.

it didnt happen in Ulster, and we all know how that played out.

Edited by PalazioVecchio (25 Nov 2018 11.45am)

Kayla did Anfield & Old Trafford

I agree entirely.

Still what Cromwell did was way beyond the pale.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

'the Pale' was Dublin County. Cromwell's biggest genocide was Drogheda, which is 30 miles North of the Pale.

so , yes. Correct.

Having a statue of Cromwell at Westminster is about as offensive to irish people as the Statue of Bomber Harris is to any people from Dresden.

Kayla did Anfield & Old Trafford