That is not a good-faith position. "British" is universally understood to mean "relating to the people of the United Kingdom". Hence "British passport", "British citizen", etc.
The people of Northern Ireland are therefore British by nationality, being citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, under UK law.
They are also Irish, in the sense that they are inhabitants of the island of Ireland; and also (prior to 2005) on the basis that everyone born on the island of Ireland was an Irish citizen by birth.
Maybe what is wanted by the majority in NO is different now - 20+ years is obviously a long time, and society can change so maybe they no longer wish the connection. The Good Friday agreement acknowledges that possibility and explicitly states that if the majority of NI wish to become part of Ireland then the UK is required to accept that choice.
Now, to the awful things that happened: Do I think that members of the RUC who killed civilians should have ended up in jail? of course. But I think the same thing about members of the IRA.
Finally: no I don't know what it is like to live with the "other side", but I am sure that there are many of the "other side" who lost friends and family, and also had to accept the Good Friday agreement despite their loss.
with respect, thats not what I said. I said they are not British. Northern Ireland is not part of the british isles. They are part of the united kingdom of great Britian and northern island. I know its semantics, but alas its important.
> Now, to the awful things that happened: Do I think that members of the RUC who killed civilians should have ended up in jail? of course. But I think the same thing about members of the IRA.
agreed, but it cannot come at the cost of peace. I personally dislike the fact that civilian killers are in parliament. But if that means we can have lasting peace, that is a price that must be paid.
if we take the example of germany after the war, there were committed nazis in power for many many years after 1945. However Germany is not a country riven by nazis anymore (excluding AFD)
we must work together in order to maintain peace. The alternative is just not worth contemplating
That's a fact of geography not politics, much like the UK is part of Europe but no longer part of the EU.
If you find the word British offensive then you'll need to come up with an alternative for the British Isles but it will be plainly obvious that the geographic collection of islands you are describing is still called the British Isles by everyone else.
My recollection is that the "British Isles" refers to the islands of [Great] Britain and Ireland (among other smaller ones), so that while Northern Island is not part of Great Britain, it is still part of the "British Isles."
Beause the British carefully drew the border in such a way as to take as much territory as possible while still having a majority who wanted to be British, much like the Russians in South Ossetia or Donetsk.
The IRA (well second/third gen by this point) had an army that was being funded partly by american's "fighting the fight of the old country". They bombs, shot, and tortured anyone they thought who were dodgy.
On the other side, the Loyalist paramilitaries were kidnapping and shooting people in a similar way.
One could make the call to say the reason why the loyalists wern't so keen on bombings (they did do them) was because you could argue that the RUC(the police in NI) and the army were acting on their side.
For example the republicans rarely called the fire brigade/ambulance because more often than not, the army would be pretending to be them. There were "murder squads" of SAS/others who would go out and "stop" people based on informer intelligence.
So yes, its brilliant that we(NI, ireland, UK) have managed to stop this. If that means that people have to live with the murder next door, so be it. Its far better than another generation of killings that has poisoned NI since the 1920s.
on a side note, do you know how hard it is to forgive/live with the "other side" when you personally know a dad, uncle, relative that was murder by the state/paramilitary?