It's trendy these days to be anti colonialism, but as soon as you mention ireland all the support fizzles out. Fucks up with that? Most young people hate tories, hate british empire, etc etc, but then you say IRA and everyone gets scared. It's not even like my generation has an emotional attachment to it either - it's before our time
I absolutely disagree that the current state of Northern Ireland is what the rank and file of the IRA killed and died to achieve. Your PPS shows exactly why the armed conflict concluded in abject failure, distilled in the form of the Good Friday Agreement. The GFA, whose resulting Northern Ireland Assembly is permanently teetering on the brink of collapse, with the prospect of a return to direct rule from London ever present?
Did all those people have to die and waste their lives in prison for a toothless regional assembly that is even more of a concession to British rule than the Sunningdale Agreement from a full 25 years earlier? What a waste. Don't forget that the Assembly is at its foundation a sectarian establishment - members upon joining the assembly must designate themselves as unionist or nationalist. United Ireland, indeed!
Speaking of which, I have really strong doubts that a united Ireland would be voted for now, or any time soon. Whatever they're worth, polls indicate that is a long way off.
The British, experienced colonisers that they are were smart enough to encourage a strong, educated Catholic middle class during the Troubles, by pumping billions of pounds into NI and building a relatively strong economy compared to the Republic of Ireland. The cultivation of this Catholic bourgeois, deeply entwined with the legal and security apparatus of the British state has resulted in a population, who unlike their forbears, do not have much interest at all in a united Ireland and are quite happy with their lot, thank you very much. Their allegiance is to the status quo. And with the absence of any class-conscious politics whatsoever, the working class are left adrift as always.
So, apart from 30 years of armed conflict resulting in a failed political agreement that is as far from a United Ireland as ever...another reason to not idolise the IRA is that they were absolutely and thoroughly infiltrated by British intelligence. One must conclude that their military campaign was a complete failure that achieved little beyond enriching their political leadership .
As has been said before elsewhere, polls like that are misleading. "Would you support Irish Unification if a referendum was held tommorow" is not indicative of how the actual scenario would work. As for the political stagnation, it had to happen eventually, there was always going to be a fallout period after the conflict ended. I don't think you can really decry it as dysfunctional until we see what the generation of politicians after the current ones are like, who were not directly involved and affected by The Troubles.
Secondly, I have no idea what planet your on if you'd call NI's economy "strong" especially compared to the Republics. The UK's pumped billions of pounds into this country to keep it from basically collapsing in on itself after, unsurprisingly, 30 years of civil war kinda stunted economical growth.
The GFA's a ramshackle thing but armed conflict could only bring the reunification cause so far and the IRA knew that. Who knows what might've been, but all we know for sure is the actions of the IRA caused the GFA, and the GFA allows for a Unified Ireland. Polls should always be taken with a pinch of salt but most of them have shown a consistent rise in the willingness to consider a United Ireland among the Ceasefire Generations as time goes on, and I'm confident that given time we'll reach a state were a large majority will be willing to consider reunification not on the basis of national identities, but on the actual benefits of reunification. I'm sure you've noticed just as I have the increase of centralists and unionists who, thanks to Brexit, have said they would consider it based on the actual benefits. Once the Tories dissassemble the NHS once and for all it will drive even more people towards it.
Because if theres one thing thats certain, its that the English will keep fucking over Northern Ireland until eventually enough people will be pushed towards reunification.
At the height of the troubles and well into the 1990's (pre celtic tiger), the North was a significantly stronger economy than the Republic. They did not suffer the same levels of mass emmigration during the 1980's.
Artificially so, for sure. That's the point. That's when a complacent, Catholic middle-class was nurtured by the British. A generation who thought less of a united ireland and more about a solid job working for the state. Their children's generation thinks even less so of a united ireland.
What exactly is the current political movement towards a united ireland? What form does their activism take?
I don't know what to tell you other than as a child of that said generation, I think you're somewhat misinformed. Anecdotally speaking I dont know a single person who fits that description that isn't on board with a United Ireland. The Troubles bred apathy, yes, but I would never say complacency. The issue of the modern Irish middle class is brain drain. People leaving to find better work in other countries, which has the side affect of them becoming somewhat disconnected from Northern Irish politics.
Me too :) As I write this in a land far from home, having grown up with fellow children of professional catholics, I can easily tell the opposite story. The notion of a United Ireland just isn't something that's taken seriously by my cohort. We can compare anecdotes all day and polling data may be flawed, but the depressing reality is that only 25% of us consider ourselves nationalist and 40% are neither. Sure those labels may be stigmatised by recent history, but the signs are not pointing in the right direction.
It's all moot though. The Republic wouldn't take us anyway!