United Ireland?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

No. Nobody here wants it.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

What about secularization, does that play a role at all?

No; that would require two factors to be true: 1) that religion in itself is the cause of conflict in the NI and will disappear once the religious divide will disappear (whatever that means) and 2) that NI (especially Protestant NI) is secularizing rapidly. But neither of these are the case. As it happens, there was some quite significant secularization of NI society in the 1950s and 1960s and look where that ended up...

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No; NI isn't like anywhere really, but it is more like India-Pakistan than either of those two examples. Partition was not, unlike the above two but like India-Pakistan, solely the creation of outside powers where borders were arbitrarily* drawn in any areas were division had existed beforehand. Rather in Ireland the cause of partition were the divisions that existed inside the country which continued to exist to this day....

* - (Which isn't to say the borders of Ireland and India-Pakistan are not arbitrary. They are in large part, of course, but the division itself was not)

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No, what will mean is that the Stormont government will have a nationalist majority and nothing else. Now, I suspect that this is something that wouldn't actually trouble people in London or Dublin much* but it certainly would in East Belfast and The Antrim Jesus belt.

* (as opposed to say, actual talk of unification, which would and, in all honesty, would trouble Dublin more than it would London)

As it happens, there is no actual evidence that even a majority of NI catholics would support unification if it came to a referendum.

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Iain Paisley is perhaps the most successful unionist of all time - he convinced so many (southern) Irish people that we simply didn't want to unify with the North if it involved (and it would) unifying with the likes of Iain Paisley.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Well, I am a "Bobo" so I don't speak for - and can't claim to speak for - the man in Ballyheerin but I don't see much sentiment in favour of unification going around around the country. Rather I think the border has become far too well-entrenched for it to change without some form of upheaval in the way we consider "Irishness" taking place. The recent incident when Armagh GAA players were referred to as "British bastards" being a particular demonstration of that.

I'd agree though if a majority in the north was in favour of unification, it would happen. But I don't really see that happening....

[Tetro Kornbluth]

^^^^
Don't disagree with any of that.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Well, this leaves one more option. Upon Scottish independence the United Kingdom gets disolved and the Kingdom of Northern Island becomes a separate member of the Commonwealth. Would that be possible? Again, conditional on Scottish independence actually prospering.

No. Nobody is going to touch NI constitutional issues for a long time.. and with good reason.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Well, this leaves one more option. Upon Scottish independence the United Kingdom gets disolved and the Kingdom of Northern Island becomes a separate member of the Commonwealth. Would that be possible? Again, conditional on Scottish independence actually prospering.

No. Nobody is going to touch NI constitutional issues for a long time.. and with good reason.

Well, that might not be up to even the (Northern) Irish - or, for that matter, the English. If Scotland gets independence, the constitutional issues in the rest of the UK would have to be touched, wouldn't they? Even the decision to stay in the UK will not be exactly the decision to maintain status quo - it would be a very different UK.

The UK will be maintained regardless - it will just be the United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The economic situation - as well as other factors that don't need to be mentioned - will I think rule out the prospect of Welsh and NI independence in the short to medium term. I mean, despite Plaid Cymru, the actual idea of Welsh independence has never garnered that much support and I think we can rule NI independence out for the obvious reasons.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The economic situation - as well as other factors that don't need to be mentioned - will I think rule out the prospect of Welsh and NI independence in the short to medium term. I mean, despite Plaid Cymru, the actual idea of Welsh independence has never garnered that much support and I think we can rule NI independence out for the obvious reasons.

NI Independence is actually one of the more hilarious thoughts I've heard recently.  Move over, Moldova, the "Republic of Ulster" (minus Donegal) is here to take the role of Europe's Third World.

There is no way an independent NI would become a republic except over a lot of dead bodies. Here, I would like to remind people that the only people throughout the entire violence of the 1970s and 1980s who advocated NI independence (and had some popular support) were some of the hardline "unionist" (ironic, no?) organizations who basically wanted to turn NI into an all white but sectarian based version of South Africa.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Why would anyone assume that NI would be a viable state if it left the UK? It wouldn't merely be the economy which would be an issue (though, as it is, NI is an economic dependency of her Majesty's Treasury).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Well, in any case, the rump UK would, for all practicaly purposes, be the Greater England, in which Wales and Northern Ireland would, at best, be "autonomous entities" of sorts. While it may be possible, the nature of the UK would change radically

NI already is for all intents and purposes an "autonomous entity of sorts". Of course it was even more autonomous once, between 1920 and 1973. That didn't work out well.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

After 1973, it was essentially a colony, wasn't it? It wasn't as though Northern Ireland had much real say over the government that ruled it.

No, after 1972 (correction, 1972) it became, at least in theory, as a totally integrated part of the UK, similiar then to Scotland and Wales pre-devolution. However, in practice, as the British Army had a significant military presence in the country by that time, things were a little more complicated...

The thing is though when direct rule was imposed it was over the wishes of the Unionist Party (in one of its "falling apart" moment) and the protestant community as a whole. It was mostly moderate Catholics (and sometimes not so moderate ones) who wanted direct rule imposed despite the fact that by that stage the British military presence was hugely unpopular (only a few months after Bloody Sunday after all).

Also, what Al said. Someone needed to look over "those bloody people".