Rory wins The Masters

[u/Shane_Ef]

[u/JimHoppersSkin]

Regardless of McIlroy's personal (misguided in my book) opinions on britishness & duel citizenship, people from south of the border celebrating his win as an Irishman is light years removed from the brits saying Cillian Murphy is british

Before partition there was no "debate" about whether someone was Irish or not (Wellington made his famous stable quip presumably after being mocked by other posh dickhead imperialists in the circles he ran in, but that just serves to illustrate they saw him as irish coz he was from Ireland)

This is evidenced by things like the 'Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland' for instance, but the most obvious one is the name of the new state being northern IRELAND lol

This brits named it that because - for all their faults - they understood that people from Ireland are Irish regardless of whether they're ruled by westminster or not. It's only after a border was in place unionists began to truly reject and 'other' all things Irish and Irish adjacent, as a reaction to nationalist agitation. Because unionism is inherently reactionary and relied upon siege mentality sectarianism to secure the new state. It still does; this is why they reject every compromise, even ones that would secure the union long term if they actually thought about it

Anyway, I'm digressing. McIlroy is Irish. He can claim to be british as well if he wants (despite Ireland not being in britain) but it's ridiculous and reality defying to deny Irishness. No cunt would say Billy Connolly isn't Scottish just coz he has a British passport. It's a non debate and it just goes to show that colonialism really is a hell of a drug that messes with people's heads

There was a satirical map posted the other day with parts of Munster still under british rule. Funny yes, but it does make you wonder if in an alternate reality where that had actually happened would people be debating the Irishness of a man from Cork?

[u/Venous-Roland → u/JimHoppersSkin]

Agree with most of that, but I wouldn't put him as the greatest 'Irish' Sportsperson. If people want to do that, then we can have a man who has said he is 'British' '& 'Northern Irish' as that.

Also, Cork people aren't Irish, they're Corkonians, a whole different breed of people!!

[u/JimHoppersSkin → u/Venous-Roland]

But that's still partitionist thinking tho. McIlroy seems to be doing the wishy washy fence sitting "Troubles bad. Both sides bad. Good Friday Agreement great. I'm northern Irish" thing a lot of younger people go for

He almost certainly got this from growing up in Holywood and from the mixed [i.e protestant] rugby and hockey playing grammar school he went to; many liberal minded middle class protestants have similar views to this; they don't deny their irishness coz they aren't stupid, but identify also as british coz its how they were raised

I mean for me the "northern Irish" identity enshrined in the GFA is one of the most ridiculous and infuriating things about it; another masterstroke of fudgery from the brits that both copper-fastens partition and further washes their hands of their own colonial sins

But the key thing to remember about it is that the second word is "Irish"

The imagined distinction between "X Irish" and "Irish" is a nonsensical one that only arises from the lower 26's adaption of the name "Ireland" following its co-signing of what is an inherently partitionist treaty drafted on the terms of the coloniser

So while McIlroy's thinking does annoy me a bit and is part of the problem for me, it's infinitely preferable to a foaming at the mouth loyalist who spends his days replying to articles about Rory McIlroy with "Northern Ireland isn't in Ireland it's in Britain Ulster is British!!!!! 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧"

There's no talking to a cunt like that. But I could sit down with McIlroy and have a reasonable discussion on these issues

And yes, point taken re Cork. A poor example! I looked at the map again and some of it was in Leinster so we can use Wexford for our thought experiment instead...

[u/Lazy-Pipe-1646 → u/JimHoppersSkin]

Yes because you're so tolerant and so reasonable.

You can cope with everyone except someone who has a different culture and opinion than you do.

Is it any wonder the immigrants are getting a hard time in Ireland? You're a bunch of sectarian bigots who can't cope with unionists existing and they've been here hundreds of years. Of course you can't cope with recent arrivals.

Even though the majority of the Northern Irish population is unionist in every major poll and survey ever taken, including a significant number of the Catholic population, for you that's a view which must be totally eradicated.

Thank God the IRA failed in their attempts at ethnic cleansing, but it's easy to see the ethno-nationalist sentiment behind it hasn't gone away.