Scottish First Minister John Swinney has copied Sinn Fein by using the phrase “north of Ireland” instead of Northern Ireland to signal he backs Irish reunification after signing a pact with Sinn Fein and Plaid Cymru to break up the UK. The Telegraph has the story.
The memorandum of understanding between the three parties also referred to the “North of Ireland” rather than “Northern Ireland”.
Northern Ireland is the official name for the six counties that form part of the United Kingdom.
However, Sinn Fein uses “north of Ireland” to emphasise that it rejects the legitimacy of partition and to claim the province is part of one [Irish] nation.
The Tories said that Swinney’s language showed his “friends in Sinn Fein have already been in his ear” after the signing of the pact in Cardiff on Monday.
Speaking at First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, the SNP leader was forced to make clear that he opposed terrorism.
Sinn Fein was widely regarded as the political wing of the IRA during the Troubles, in which more than 3,600 people were killed, including Scottish soldiers.
Russell Findlay, the Scottish Tory leader, said that Sinn Fein had never condemned the atrocities carried out by the IRA.
But Swinney said he had “always expressed my sympathy” to the victims of terrorist atrocities, and “unreservedly” condemned such acts.
He argued that voters would be “surprised if I didn’t stick to the principal reason why I entered politics” – to gain Scottish independence.
The SNP, Sinn Fein and Plaid Cymru are all in power simultaneously for the first time in the UK’s devolved nations after May’s elections.
Worth reading in full.
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Well, well, well— it turns out that the SNP leader John Swinney is a Catholic, so it’s no wonder he’s happy to cosy up to the Catholic IRA Terrorist group Sinn Fein.
I couldn’t find any information about the religious views of Welsh Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth.
Swinney has first marriage annulled for RC wedding | The Herald
“JOHN Swinney, leader of the SNP, has had his first marriage annulled in order to marry in the Roman Catholic Church today. Mr Swinney has said that any children he might have with his new wife, Elizabeth Quigley, the BBC journalist, would be brought up as Catholics.”
“As a sign of his commitment to the woman he describes as ”my rock”, Mr Swinney, a practising member of the Church of Scotland, went to the Roman Catholic Scottish National Tribunal to have his first marriage annulled. The Church of Scotland marriage, which took place in 1991, was legally dissolved in 2000.”
“Mr Swinney, who is fighting a leadership challenge in September, attends Catholic mass regularly with Ms Quigley. He said he was ”very pleased” to receive the letter from the tribunal telling him he was free to marry in the Catholic… Read more »
And the difference it makes is? It is sometimes referred to as the six counties, or The Province. And I don’t think North of Ireland is exclusive to Sin Feint – I’ve heard it quite a lot in the past from various sources.
So now do we say Southern Ireland or South Ireland – or maybe West of England?
Does it matter if we say North England or Northern England?
Small minds making small differences, playing semantics and making fools of themselves.
Maybe we should refer to Scotland as North of England.
After 1603 Scotland was referred to as North Britain for political reasons so it’s more than just playing semantics.
Very interesting historical snippet! I did not know that.
Don’t read too much into the words “Northern Ireland” as opposed to “the north of Ireland”. I know what Swinney’s intentions were, but I can assure you as a native of Belfast from a Protestant Unionist family, we used the two terms interchangeably without any suggestion of political subtext.
Speaking as a Northern Irish non church going Protestant living in Northern Ireland after spending half my adult life in England, it’s only a matter of time before Ireland is reunited. The demographics driven by birth rates are inevitable, and it would appear that we (Northern Ireland) didn’t actually leave the EU during the deliberately/ maliciously fudged non exit containing mis named Brexit. Sinn Fein are also supporters of uncontrolled immigration, The bigger issue is what happens when the newly invited crocodile decides to eat the host. Mary Lou what’s her name and her roly poly fake blonde buddy will soon find themselves surplus to requirements. Better stand by your beds with your jizya tax, they’ll be coming for it.
I like the idea of self determination but the devil is in the detail here – which “self” are we talking about. Should the large minority of Protestant people in Northern Ireland have a right to a homeland in the lands they have lived in for centuries, where they are the majority and shall forever remain so? Lots of people think Palestinians have that right, and lots of people think that Jews do too.
Its irrelevant. Ireland will reunite perhaps in my lifetime due to changing demographics. As I said, the real issue is EU driven immigration which will subsume all previous political, social and religious fault lines, rendering them irrelevant, as it will in GB, destroying both, at least as we recognise them.
You are probably right but there other paths that could be taken, including a smaller Northern Ireland which would be a guaranteed homeland for loyalists
But the Catholics will never stop harassing the Protestants of Northern Ireland and causing endless trouble for them and everyone. The Catholics will never accept even a tiny guaranteed homeland for loyalists, and the Protestants could never feel safe there and just get on with their lives in peace.
When it comes to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholics and their Vatican Jesuit masters don’t do “peace”. They hate Protestants even more than they hate Muslims. Even mention the word “Protestant” and watch their hackles rise.
That’s why the Popes keep kissing Muslim feet, and encouraging the Muslim Army Invasion of the West, in order to destroy the nations founded by Protestants, which became the most prosperous on earth, thanks to the Protestant Work Ethic, and the blessings of Almighty God. We do not worship the Impostor Goddess instead of Him who made us.
You are assuming that children born after 1990 still have the same sectarian attachments and are full of the old religious rivalries and feuding.
Evidence suggests otherwise – and they won’t like having to pay to see a GP.
The South’s biggest export is its educated young. Young people of the North won’t want to be in a union with poor prospects.
And. The money transfer from UK would stop. The South can’t afford to take over and the EU is skint.
Demographics I doubt will play much part.
Perhaps. I certainly remember Sinn Fein representatives talking about the “block grant” if it were their own personal salary earned by the sweat of their brow. Yes there would be (one assumes) a dramatic fall off of funding which the politicians and citizens of what was the Northern Ireland and then the north of Ireland would feel in their living standard.
Northern Ireland
~85%–90%Budget Funded by UK Block Grant
~33% of total public spending is a net deficit funded by the UK
~£11B net annual fiscal transfer from UK Total Spending vs. Tax Revenues
People forget – Ireland was united until 1923. It was partitioned earlier to prevent one million Ulstermen recently demobbed, hardened by WWI battle experience, most still with their army issue rifles, marching South and settling the issue of who governed, Britain or the Catholic Church, who was sovereign the King or the Pope.
The mistake was stopping them.
Both Catholic and Protestant are on the wain in the South with Islam being the predominant religion.
The clever indigenous young are doing as they have always done and leaving for American and the U.K.
The Republic is a sad place now with no future.
Diversity can be its strength.
The Partition of Ireland was in 1921. At least in part recognition of the debt owed to the volunteers of the 36th Ulster Division which was the original UVF essentially an armed militia formed under Lord Carson and who volunteered en masse as a ‘Pals’ Battalion as happened all over the UK many of whom fell in the first hours of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916.
Geographically correct statement.
Perhaps but it’s also a shibboleth designed to smoke out United Kingdom loyalists. That combination of words means more than just geography.
Of course it is.
You could say the same for The Island of Great Britain, negating the separate identity of the Scots, by only referring to Scotland as “The North of the Island of Great Britain”.
How would that go down, do you think?
James V1 and 1 would have agreed with that definition.
If the 100-year-old democratic nation of Protestant Northern Ireland is to be handed to Catholic Southern Ireland, then Muslim Pakistan & Bangladesh must also be handed back to Hindu India, from whose territory those two Muslim nations were carved 70 years ago.
Alternatively, if Northern Ireland votes to be glued onto the South, All Protestants in Northern Ireland must be welcomed into Britain as REFUGEES,
and All Irish Catholics in Britain must return to the newly glued Ireland, to occupy the former homes of the Protestants. Then both Ireland and Britain shall have peace at last.
We used to joke at school “There will never be peace in Ireland until we have a Protestant Pope”.