> It is absolutely false to say that NI is not part of the UK

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

The island or Ireland is one of the British Isles.

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.

Geographical names are political, there's nothing objective about them. Calling them the British Isles implies some kind of ownership, but Ireland is not a British possession. There's lots of other groups where you could apply the same logic, insisting on a name when it offends the people it applies to. Unless you've just bought a large quantity of atlases where Ireland is named as a British Island this would make no difference to you, so why would you argue for it.

> Northern Ireland is not part of the british isles.

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."

People from Northern Ireland can be British. I'm from Belfast and my passport says "British citizen." Being a British citizen and being from Britain aren't the same thing.

> The majority of NI wanted to remain part of the UK. There was a large segment of the NI population that wanted to become part of Ireland, but that was still the minority.

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.