So who wants to hear a brief history of NI, to try and explain what the fucks going on here?

nobody?

well too bad, fuckos, welcome to A Thread:

ok so a long time ago (in this galaxy, before you ask), the british decided to try and colonize ireland. there were many reasons for this, including military interests, resources, and others, but thats not important right now, whats important is it happened

so they set up a couple of colonies, the more successful ones being around the east of the province of Ulster (the north-east of the island)

over time, these colonies developed a distinct culture, having been filled with people from england and scotland, rather than the indigenous irish population

so now lets fast forward a few hundred years (lots of stuff happened in the meantime, but i mean, im not gonna sit here *all* fuckin day.... just, like, 80% of it

so around the start of the 1900s, ireland was officially part of the UK, having been fully conquered by the brits. this was starting to get pretty unpopular and the brits were feeling a tad, well, unpopular

in 1916 this started to boil over with the Easter Rising, where irish republicans (people who dont like british rule in ireland) staged an uprising.
predictably, it failed pretty badly, they were woefully outgunned, and the popular uprising they hoped for never materialized

the brits, keen to make an example of these traitors, went a *bit* overboard, and their heavyhandedness really kinda fucked them over when word got out theyd had to basically strap a sick man into a chair to shoot him
kind of a dick move

as tensions began to rise and republicanism increased in popularity, the brits scrambled to maintain control; they sent more spies to ireland and beefed up the police force with the Black And Tans (a reservist paramilitary force so called because of their hodgepodge uniforms)

meanwhile up north, the former plantation areas of northern ireland were, to put it delicately, freaking the fuck out at the prospect of ireland detaching from the UK. they didnt *want* to leave, they wanted to stay.
dont forget, theyre descended from brits more than the irish

so these Loyalists (loyal to the crown) start getting antsy, and as the Irish War of Independence starts kicking off, they settle in and wait for the dust to settle.

as the war drags on, it becomes abundantly clear to the UK that staying in ireland is a bad idea

this greatly worries the loyalists in the north, and while the peace treaty is being negotiated, they plead with the UK to keep the north under their control no matter what happens down south
so the UK and the new Irish Free State partition the country

so what we get is a 26 county Free State down south, and a 6 county Northern Ireland in the... uhh... North.

Well, technically North East, because Donegal goes further North, but its in the west and had too many nationalists/republicans, so NI didnt want them

this feeling of "fuck those guys" also helped shape the border into what i can only describe a "a cartographic clusterfuck", as the UK and loyalists drew the lines in a way to get as many loyalist enclaves in NI as possible, to ensure they could dominate it politically

so, come the first meeting of the new NI Parliament, nationalists/republicans say "well this is some bullshit, we refuse to legitimize this fuckery and wont take our seats!"
the unionist/loyalists, realizing theyve literally just been handed an absolute majority, cream themselves

they promptly gerrymander that shit so hard GOPers would be proud, ensuring permanent political domination of Parliament

they promptly brought in policies making catholics (who tended to be nationalist) essentially second class citizens

they had lower priority for social housing, were denied access to certain jobs, and, yknow, generally crapped on from a great height

now, during this time there were a few moments of civil unrest, but it *really* kicked off during the Troubles

at the time, the NI Civil Rights group was trying to emulate the tactics of black protesters in the US; they would stage peaceful marches and demonstrations

and, much like Priti Patel, the NI government didnt take too kindly to peaceful protest, and, to put it bluntly, battered the fuck out of them

but still, loyalists could feel the wind changing, and this worried them
for the last few decades theyd held pretty much total control

suddenly them there cafflicks (catholics, if you dont understand the NI accent - and who could blame you, its... unique) were starting shit, and thats just Not Cricket

so loyalists started torching houses
because, yknow
proportional response is for suckers

this escalated into The Troubles, with republican paramilitaries, loyalist paramilitaries, and the british army all basically hammering the utter crap out of each other

eventually, a fragile peace was reached; the paramilitaries would lay down arms, our parliament was disbanded, and a new system of government was brought in
this was called the Good Friday Agreement, and came into effect in the long ago days of 1998

... dear god that was meant to be a joke but i just realized 1998 was 23 years ago and now i feel Old... i remember getting a copy of the agreement (it was posted out to pretty much every house in NI)

sorry, back to The Thread

so ANYWAYS

we now have a Northern Ireland with Proportional Representation, and a government built to ensure the equal sharing of powers between nationalists and unionists to ensure nobody does a Dr Gerry Mander and fuck the whole thing over again

now youre probably thinking "well thats pretty sweet! everyones happy, right?"

WRONG! and dont interrupt a thread, its rude

loyalists have just seen their political domination get O B L I T E R A T E D and are *not happy*

sure, they generally accept the Agreement, begrudgingly, but then a small party starts making big waves, yes, you guessed it, the party we love to hate... the DUP!

the Democratic Unionist Party start sweeping up in the elections, taking over seats traditionally held by the Ulster Unionist Party. the DUP start out with a rejection of the GFA, insisting that power sharing is an awful idea and the old way was... better somehow?

they tap into that feeling of betrayal and the fear that them'uns (read: a Northern Irish-ism for the other side) are gonna take over control (like unionists had), and ruin that Good Protestant Way Of Life (yknow, like unionists had done to catholics)

eventually the DUP would come to dominate unionist politics. shit, they wouldve had the control of the NI government in general if it hadnt been for the power sharing arrangements

but once they got there they realized they couldnt go back to how it was before

so they basically forced all of NI to adhere to their views on shit like abortion (they hate it), same sex marriage (they also hate it), and, i dunno, being total fucking dickheads (they LOVE being dickheads)

but i digress
the problem is, while these views are generally popular with certain groups of grumpy people, its not exactly a sustainable political model for a party in the age of information, when new generations are growing up thinking "why are you being a dickhead?"

so the DUP doubles down on the sectarianism.
"its all them'uns fault!"
"we would have a golden economy if not for Them Cafflicks!"
'them'uns are "sub-human animals" (that one courtesy of Sammy Wilson, currently an MP, when talking about Sinn Fein voters)

so basically we had a country, fresh out of a decades long insurgent civil war, being fed more hateful rhetoric on top of the existent animosity

super fun and cool

so this is how things potter along, there are moments of tension here and there, like the ONH campaign, when a Real IRA splinter group tried starting some shit, or political scandals shutting down our devolved governments a few times, but overall it was... good?

but there was always tension floating about
in 2012 unionists had lost their majority control of Belfast city council, and a vote was held to stop flying the UK flag every day, and instead bring it in line with the rest of the UK who only fly it on special occasions and holidays

loyalists did NOT like that, seeing it as yet another compromise to nationalists and an erosion of their culture and ties to the UK

this led to a riot at belfast city hall and, im afraid to say, one of the best memes to come out of Northern Ireland ever

so now loyalists are feeling increasingly frustrated; theyve gone from total political domination to power sharing to what they see as direct attacks on the integrity of unionism in a couple of decades

then
and i cant sarcastically thank the UK enough for this,
along comes brexit.

to loyalists, it looks like a golden ticket!
finally heres something that will Definitely Not Backfire On Them, that will distance nationalists from Ireland, and draw NI back closer to Britain

theres no WAY this could go wrong!

then Teresa May gets in shit after her failed General Election and needs a coalition, in step the DUP! fantastic! now we have a seat in the Westminster Government and can steer things our way! silly Sinn Fein, not taking their seats in Westminster, theyve given us power AGAIN!

but then... something doesnt seem quite right...
May is talking about a backstop to protect NI... this isnt what loyalists want
then May is out and Johnson is in, he holds an election, promises no border between NI and GB...
ok this seems alright...
then he announces the Protocol

theyve been HAD!
turns out british electoral politics isnt interested in NI, and all that good faith loyalists gave them is for nought!

loyalists have been betrayed
AGAIN

plus, salt in the wound, theyre losing power in the NI Assembly too! with nationalists having, for the first time, more votes than unionists

this is an utter and complete disaster for loyalism

losing control of our devolved government is bad enough, but shit, maybe modernize a few policies, double down on sectarianism again and that can be reclaimed...
but to be abandoned by Britain?
thats...
thats Bad
that undermines the entire point of unionism/loyalism

after all, why would you be loyal to something that would treat you so badly?

so theres a loss of control, loss of faith, and the very real risk of a united ireland creeping over the horizon

and THAT is why loyalists are so pissed. its a dozen different factors coming to a head

oh shit i totally forgot one bit:
the Storey Funeral and Policing

so last year, defying lockdown rules, there was a huge public funeral for a republican called Bobby Storey. despite the fact it was a clear breach, nobody was prosecuted for it (i mean, its a fine, but still)

to loyalists, this is seen as another erosion of their control;
the police, who used to be called the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) had previously been a bulwark of unionism, but after the GFA they were reorganized into the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI)

and, while i have many (MANY) complaints about them, are much less dodgy than the RUC was, so loyalists see this as YET ANOTHER compromise they made towards republicanism

with the failure to prosecute anyone for the funeral, the DUP and loyalist leaders have pushed the angle that this is an example of "one rule for us, one for them'uns"
and while i agree its unfair, i think the exact same wouldve happened had it been a loyalist funeral

but to loyalists, its yet *another* example of unionism being relegated to the back pages, and a sure sign that theyre losing control over the country

now this, despite being long as fuck, is still just a summary of some shit and a lot has been missed out, like specific events during the Troubles, full detail of the Good Friday Agreement, the history before britain colonized ireland, and a HELL of a lot between that & the 1900s

*************************

if i did an AMA on Discord in a few hours about NI, would people be interested?

ok ill post the link in, what, 45 mins? (thatll be 5pm GMT), ill stick around for an hour or so, but if you wanna ask something and miss that window, let me know and i can stick around longer, sure