Is it good for Poland as Sinn Fein will win today in Northen Ireland

Tell me more.


What do you mean by Irish?

you told me - it WAS - I can undersand it Poland lost lot of the land that WAS Poland.
Yet on this forum it is OK to claim the right to some territory in Irealnd and the same sentyment is revanchism if it comes to Poland. Duble standards as I see it.


I mean people who consider themselves Irish as in being a part of the Irish nation.

NI was only partitioned a hundred years ago - Ireland is Ireland and that's that. I'm just stating the fact that the six counties which comprise the state of Northern Ireland are part of the island of Ireland.


It's not that simple. Plenty of people up north consider themselves Northern Irish. There are more people in the North who identify as Irish/Northern Irish than British.

As I'm Irish I actually know what I'm talking about when it comes to NI.

Poland lost it land only 77 years ago.


Sure but the bias I'm talking about is in assumption that being part of the island of Ireland equals being a part of the same politcal state. One state = one island is nothing more than a political claim not a rule.


It never is.

You're making a few assumptions yourself. I grew up in Ireland and lived the reality of Irish politics on a daily basis. I really do understand the culture and I'm probably the only person on this forum who voted when the Good Friday Agreement was implemented. Historically Ireland had never given up its claim to the territory of NI. We refused to recognize it as part of the UK. Part of the peace deal meant giving up that claim. That was very difficult for me to do, to give up something I truly believed, that Ireland is an entire and whole nation which was unjustly partitioned. But I voted for the GFA. I did so because I wanted to see peace in NI for all of the good people who live there, whatever their heritage or religion.

One thing that matters greatly to me is that it still states on the Irish Passport:

'It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its seas and islands, to be part of the Irish nation."

I don't. I understand you think that you are in the right and that an island is this or that because reasons.
I'm only telling you that it is your bias, as the claim to a territory can't be based around one island one nation principle you seems to fall back on. There is no universal principle that back that claim. It makes it political claim.

What is so hard to understand?
You do undersand that I do not care which way it will go, do you?
I don't stand in the way of whatever political solution or a war you think there should be.
I'm only saying that you make a lot of assumptions based on your point of view or your nation point of view. Ok?
By the way are your children Polish or Irish?

Worth pointing out that the UK doesn't claim territory there because of any romantic ideal. Ulster insisted on staying in the UK rather than join the Irish Free State when it was formed. This was for cultural and religious reasons.

It's not a land grab, revanchism or Irredentism. Its a difficult situation which will only be solved by a majority vote by and the peaceful consensus of the people who live there. Not by nationalist sentiment from either the green or the orange sides in NI. Not by the south, not by the rest of the UK and certainly not by other countries misusing EU membership.

But there are individual cases and I understand this case far better than you do.


Well, not by the south alone, but by the people of the north and the south. Any referendum will be island-wide and the decision will be that of the people, not politicians which is how it should be.


Not Ulster - a minority of Unionists within the province of Ulster - and that's why NI comprises only six counties and not nine. The state was established by manipulation of electoral boundaries and omission of three of the counties in order to ensure a Unionist dominated state. I have to say I raised an eyebrow at your earlier reference to free and fair elections as NI was notorious for decades afterwards for gerrymandering in order to send enough Unionist MPs to Westminster.

Was it not established in large part because the protestants were threatening to kill the catholics?

It amuses me that Atch is the same person that wanted to ban all Russian-supporters from this forum and even started a whole thread about it. Now it emerges, that Atch is a bit of an irredentist herself. The dirty complaining about the unwashed. As you said - if Ireland lost a part of its land 100 years ago, then Poland only lost it 77 years ago. In Russia's case, it lost its key territories just 31 years ago.

Now this little slogan of yours... One island. One people. One state. Hehehehe.

Sounds a little like: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer - no?

That's not my slogan.



No similarity whatsoever to Ireland in either case. Lvov was annexed by Poland in the 14th century. The Crimea was annexed by Russia in the 18th century and was a melting pot of different tribes/groups. Ireland was always one country with a predominantly Gaelic population who shared the same language, religion, mythology, legal system, culture and ethnicity, 100%. The Gaelic culture has existed on the island of Ireland since pre-historic times. In Gaelic Ireland the four provinces each had their own king, with a High King who could be consulted etc. in times of dispute among the different chieftains. There was a complex legal system, Brehon Law, which was observed throughout the whole island. I could go on but I won't.

Ireland came under English rule in the 12th century - the whole of Ireland - and remained that way until 1921. NI was never separate or different to the rest of the island in that respect. It only became separated as a result of partition following the War of Independence.

And I don't believe in forcing anyone to be part of a nation.

@Atch

I should not be telling you about the unified legal codex of ancient Rus, the bonds of language, Orthodoxy, and dynastic marriage in an Irish thread... Neither that, three centuries before Ireland was conquered by England, Russian princes had already taken the land of Crimea from the Byzantine Emperors. Not even that, in 988 AD St. Vladimir was baptized in Chersonesus, signifying the beginning of the christianiziation of Rus. Truly - I suspect if I go on, Vincent will then boot me again for some days. Suffice it to say, Russians can just as easily employ the same arguments you are using now.

Regarding Ireland being some ethnic, and religious monolith - you need to get back to your history books. Yes, being an insignificant island in the middle of nowhere did lead to relatively fewer waves of migration, but not zero.

That is a nonsense. Right to it was inherited by the Polish King and the call to take it over came from the people who lived there. There was no annexing of any kind.


Ireland was an island not a one country, with a tribal system and differnt tribes from there to a nation is rather a long ride. Nations formed in 18th and 19th centuries, some in 20th century. Talking about a one nation in the acient tribal times is ahistorical legend not a fact.


By the Russian Empire and now there is no Russian Empire but Russian Federation that was created about 30 years ago about the same time Ukrainie was created. They even signed agreement in 1997 that regognized each other territory. The same one Russia broke in 2014.

That was a reannexation. As mentioned above, the first time Crimea came under Russian control was in the 900s, when it was won in war from the Byzantines, who inherited it from the Roman Empire. By the 1000s it was firmly in Russian control, and marriage links were established with the Byzantine emperors to secure the peace. It was lost during the 1300s to Mongol invasion. Later, when the Mongol Empire collapsed, it became the possession of one of its successor states - The Golden Horde. Through the weakness of the Horde, Genoese and Venetian merchants established a large number of trade posts and controlled substantial land there during this time. When the Golden Horde itself collapsed in the 1440s, Crimea became the center of the state of the Crimean Tatars, vassals of the Ottoman Turks. Then, finally, in the 1700s we took it back from them.

During the 450 years or so that the mongols and their Crimean descendants controlled Crimea, they made it into one of the world's largest slave trade centers. Tens of thousands of Slavs were kidnapped and sold into slavery through the ports of Crimea annually. The Tatars made constant devastating raids into Russian and Commonwealth territory, that hampered development in the affected regions for centuries. Do you think they deserve to have the Crimea returned to them?

Bottom line: Russia controlled Crimea when Gaelic chieftains we're still running around in sheepskins, living in holes in the ground.

I know the history of my country very well - and it's a very long history. Any waves of migration to Ireland are very ancient and the Gaelic culture emerged over thousands of years.


About five hundred years after Christianity arrived in Ireland.


You really are very ignorant aren't you ? :)) The mass of people at that time wore woollen clothes, the nobility wore silk and satin which was imported. Banners and flags were made of silk. There was a strict ranking system regarding the wearing of colours etc.

As far back as the seventh century this was how the Gaelic people dressed.


Please don't try to educate me regarding the history of my country, in which I am very well versed and of which you know next to nothing. Those different tribes were all related to each other and practised the system of fostering to boot. Those tribes observed the Brehon Law, the same religion and shared the same mythology. They were one people ethnically.

Ireland has long been a relatively unified entity with links to what is now Western Scotland. Due to its size and relative homogeneity it can't easily be compared with Poland in the middle ages.

In Ireland they were building monasteries, producing beautiful illuminated manuscripts and creating a literary history of their people when the ancestors of today's Poles were barely standing upright and living in a swamp.


Migration yes, however it was still remarkably homogenous. It is not a huge island and the population is small.

There was a Norman French ruling class who eventually assimilated, and settlers from England in County Wexford who spoke a language called Yola (an Anglic language related to Middle English) until the nineteenth century. The English language caught on relatively late: the medieval ruling class didn't much use it and any settlers from England or Scotland were relatively few and localised apart from the Ulster Scots in the North who have their own traditions and are all too assertive about that.

There's migration now, especially from Poland. It's too early to say what changes that will bring, however Ireland is not in any sense a melting pot. The south is very rural and Belfast is post-industrial.

The current situation with customs borders and the EU is about balancing the needs, Anglic and rights of the different communities there. It isn't Donbas.

The protestants in the North rightly object to a hard border with the rest of the EU and silliness like paying tax on parcels and the catholics rightly want seamless access to the south. Hence a workable solution being sought.

If we've learnt one thing in our long shared history, it's that we both like common sense and prefer peace to acrimony.

As I say, we aren't France or r*ssia.

I was speaking figuratively, in response to your very dismissive take on Russia's history and unity. I'm well aware of Ireland's relatively high state of development in the aftermath of the collapse of the Roman Empire. You were lucky that the English took on the brunt of the Saxons and Danes, and your little island became somewhat of a safe haven.

It is though.

Ulster is separate for tragic but practical reasons. Neither the rest of the UK nor the ROI like that situation however Ireland is still Ireland.


Luckier still that they're next to Britain and not France or r*ssia. If they were, there would be no Ireland.

Projecting 19th century world view onto the past that what it is. Tribal Ireland and Irish nation are not one and the same and countinuity is in the mind of beholder.


Not because it is an island of Ireland that is my point.


Did not give a F about it. They had their own culture not christanity and along with that absorbed material achivemnts of the Roman Empire, bastrdised and with the local spin.

Yes Poland took Christanity and absorbed it culture somewhat latter. Still, a mirrow that claims to be the sun sound cheap!

Being a unified entity is not of the 'nineteenth century world view'. Nor is it 'Projecting'.


It is a country.


Cultures rather than culture. Over a diverse area and they were diverse groups.

As for taking Christianity late, Yes, late and in stages however little that survives predates it and there are few cultural or built taxes of ours first few centuries. Ireland however has a tangible cultural history that survives from those times.

Not that it's necessary to have one in order to be a country: r*ssia doesn't either. We can't all be Britain, Italy or france.

Ireland has maintained its identity as a nation rather well given that it's a country a small population next to a large and week resourced one. That is a credit to both places.

Not especially. Ireland however, as you were told, has always been Ireland. The forebears of most of today's Poles didn't consider themselves Polish at all until the 1920s. Only the szlachta and a few (very often Frankist) urbanites had that identity. Ireland however has always had a distinct culture and sense of nationhood.


Not for as long as Ireland and nothing tangible before a surprisingly late date, as you know.

Perhaps wooden construction had its role in that, perhaps a spare population and lack of educational or cultural institutions, or perhaps the venality of the szlachta and their lackeys.


Most people.

News to me. Really lol?


That is not true. Due to partitions I would say it was from 1870 to 1905 that preocess took place. Otherwise in the 1920 Poland wouldn't have milion people in the army.


In folklore and religion they did differ from England but I would say that 1848 was that impulse that set a curse of their nationhood for good.

Isn't everything?


Before the partitions, did you really think that the illiterate and geographically isolated peasantry that comprised most of the population identified themselves as Polish, like the venal szlachta?

In Ireland there was however always a firm cultural identity, one which grew considerably after the Reformation.

The army is neither here nor there. Footsoldiers were historically rabble until well into the nineteenth century and were there through desperation or b self-defence and/or ecause they had to be. National identity did not come into it.

But then again, you are just trying to argue for the sake of it.


Not that much, especially in folklore, however they have always had a distinct national identity, as have we and as have Wales and Scotland.

Their road to independence has much to do with he decline of the ascendancy, the home rule movement in both Ireland and the UK Parliament the rise of Chartism/socialusm and Catholic emancipation.

I was being nice, to put it other way - you are delusional!


nosense - not always but from the 18th century.

You weren't. You were being argumentative.

And inaccurate.


Much longer than that and with a particularly rich corpus of literature to prove it.

The issue however is current regulations relating to customs control and their proposed amendment.

This is something that is far from finished and involves several parties as well as several different issues.

I was being honest. I never met anyone who would say they want to be this or that, I think you made it up or confuse it with something else.


look, you don't know what you talking about, some form of self-indetification exsisted in the middleages, in Poland as well and they were writting in latin about natio and attachment to this or that land and people, kingdom.

I'm talking about modern concept of a nation and that started in the 18th century, before you had something else. Just read on this some.

No, you weren't.


Not much at all, even very little. I doubt the majority of the peasantry in that territory had even heard the word.

You are however going off topic.

Ireland, as you know, had a distinct cultural identity with infrastructure and literature to prove it.its geography strongly favoured that too. It was less developed than Britain (as most places on the planet were/are) however many medieval buildings survive in Ireland to this day.

It is a country, despite you trying to pretend that it isn't

Where are you getting this idea from? You mentioned 1848 and I think you're confused by the ideals of the Young Irelanders and their paper 'The Nation'. The concept of a distinct sense of national identity existed long before the 18th century. It's hard for an outsider to understand though Jon actually gets it :)) The sense of Irishness has always been powerful. It's in our stories, our songs, our music, our sports, our customs. We have always known we are Irish. And it includes the Norman English, the Cromwellian settlers and all who assimilated into Irish society.


The Vikings did actually come to Ireland you know. They founded the capital city of Dublin. Haven't you heard of the Battle of Clontarf?


Yes indeed. And the original topic of the thread which was how Sinn Fein's success in the elections would affect Poland, which is, not at all - not in my opinion anyway.

No, the thing is you don't pay attention and try to show off with a little that you know. I said that one island one nation concept is political, there is no general principle that states that on an island can be or should be only one nation or a state.

I never denied that Ireland is a country or a nation. You should have said it first before going into argument for argument sake just because you didn't like what you thought that I had said.


You can doubt all you want. Many peasants at the time around 1500 could read and write.


You know better than I. OK my honest reaction on what you wrote there was like : WTF is he trying to pull!?

Really?

"Ireland was an island not a one country[/quote]"
Looks like you just want to try to argue. A shame, because the politics there is a serious matter which affects a lot of people.


Hardly any in fact. Not until much later.


For once we agree.