Northern Ireland Poll...

[Notre Dame rules!]

If I lived in Northern Ireland, I would much rather be under the British government than the Irish government, since the Republic of Ireland is waaaaaay too socially conservative. They only legalized divorce 10 years ago! And birth control is still difficult to get in some areas.

Besides, I'm a Protestant.

Not a bomb thrower I hope.


Just kidding!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The economy of NI isn't lagging so much as dead. Killed by the Troubles basically... there's a small textiles industry left but even that is a shadow of it's former self...

[minionofmidas]

IIRC the Republic was something like 6% Catholic in 1921...and that figure halfed within the next twenty years (people moved to England), then slowly bottomed out and is now stable somewhere round 2 or 2.5 percent. Most are middle class Dubliners (I actually met a woman like that once, married to a Catholic btw), there's a couple of pockets with rural Protestant minorities too - I think in Cavan, Monaghan, Louth, Wicklow and some peninsula at the far SW end of the Republic.

Red, it's even more complicated. In Assembly elections (not Westminster ones) Northern Ireland uses STV (combination of PR and preferential voting). So you'll have to rank the parties.
Basically how I'd vote if I were Northern irish is something like this
1) Alliance
2) SDLP
3) SF
4) assorted nutcases, part one
5) UU
6) assorted nutcases, part two
7) DUP

[minionofmidas]

IIRC the Republic was something like 6% Catholic in 1921...and that figure halfed within the next twenty years (people moved to England), then slowly bottomed out and is now stable somewhere round 2 or 2.5 percent. Most are middle class Dubliners (I actually met a woman like that once, married to a Catholic btw), there's a couple of pockets with rural Protestant minorities too - I think in Cavan, Monaghan, Louth, Wicklow and some peninsula at the far SW end of the Republic.

Red, it's even more complicated. In Assembly elections (not Westminster ones) Northern Ireland uses STV (combination of PR and preferential voting). So you'll have to rank the parties.
Basically how I'd vote if I were Northern irish is something like this
1) Alliance
2) SDLP
3) SF
4) assorted nutcases, part one
5) UU
6) assorted nutcases, part two
7) DUP

I'm sure you mean 6% Protestantin 1921.
For current info see: http://www.cso.ie/statistics/popnclassbyreligionandsex2002.htm

And strictly speaking, in the Assembly elections, one ranks candidates in order of preference not parties (most of which would nominate more than one member in each the 6-seater constituencies).

Yes, sorry. And yes, I know that.

[Notre Dame rules!]

The Irish based ESRI (Economics and Social Research Institute) has released polling data regarding attitudes to Northern Ireland's prefered status, broken down by religion (Catholic/Protestant) and domicile (Republic/North).

Republic, Catholics:
United Ireland 54.9%
Independant NI 32.5%
Continue in UK 9.1%

Republic, Protestants:
United Ireland 41.9%
Independant NI 23.3%
Continue in UK 23.3%

North, Catholics:
United Ireland 65%
Independant NI 21.1%
Continue in UK 11.2%

North, Protestants:
United Ireland 3.8%
Independant NI 5.1%
Continue in UK 87.7%

Generally, I'm in favor of a united Ireland.  However, union  would drag the Republic down at this point, especially considering how Red the parties in NI are.  The only decent party is the UUP, and in any case, they  really aren't for a united Ireland.