"The challenge is when two groups of people claim the same land. The Jews clearly lived in what is now Israel many years ago. They want it back."
Bay jaysus. I have no idea how bringing Israel into the question is supposed to support your point. By your logic and exoressed empathy for the Irish Catholic experience over time you cannot be anything other than a Palestinian sympathiser without looking like an hypocryte. (The IRA have always been bosom buddies with the Palestinians for just that reason).
"Any Indian in the US can own land, become a citizen, vote or continue to live on a reservation. Or open a casino. Or live the life of an alcoholic. Far more freedoms than the Irish Catholics in Ulster, that led to the development of the modern IRA."
When you say the 'modern IRA' are you talking about the 1920 version or the 'Provisional IRA' of messrs Adams and McGuniness. If the latter then I think you have a reality gap in your understanding of what life in Northern Ireland is like. I suggest you visit. It's great! And hey - the catholics vote, own houses, buy land, start businesses, and all the other things free people do. Both the UK and the Irish Republic are members of the EU so, for better or worse, we both even share the same supreme judicial arbitrator now.
"I say I want the Brits out of Ireland, I mean the government."
You mean you want to take a province of people who have democratically expressed their wish to reamain a part of the UK - the nation they have been a part of their entire lifetimes and for generations before that?
Again - like me saying I want the US out of California. It belongs to Mexico. It's chucklesome.
"But please don’t deny history and say that England did not occupy Irish land and drive out the Irish, confiscate lands and pass repressive laws."
Have you heard me say anything other than there are episodes in history that don't paint the UK in a good light? Like I say - my grandparents were driven from their homes by the troubles. That's how I ended in GB!
"The birth rates of the Irish and Catholics will overtake that of the Brits and the protestants. (Although the Irish economy of Ireland is actually attracting labor from the North, this may slow the birth rates.) I believe reunification will happen. Probably not in my lifetime."
I only differ from your view in one respect on that point. I DO think it will happen in our lifetime.
"My original post that started this string was my response to a statement that the Brits killed fewer Irish than the IRA. I took a longer term view to the arithmetic"
Which kind of winds up people who have lived with death close to us from the troubles IN LIVING MEMORY. Going back to the potatoe famine to find some moral equivalence to the pain of widows and children whose grandparents weren't even on the planet at the time just sounds lame.
The Jews were there first. It was their homeland. Jordan was created as a homeland for the Palestinians. Yet they fight over the same piece of land. Each claiming it as their own. It is you my friend, who takes the Palestinian position in this debate. The Palestinians want to occupy the traditional Jewish homeland. The British in northern Ireland occupy the traditional Irish homeland. Two different peoples, different religions, fighting for generations over the same piece of land. How can you not see the similarity?
Imagine this scenario. Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor. Hitler and Stalin became friends, and partitioned Europe. America never enters World War II. England is conquered by the Germans. Does it end there? After one generation of German rule, does England ceased to exist? Would you not fight to get back your homeland? Would you not want your son, your grandson and your great-grandson and their sons to continue the fight? Brian Boru was born a generation after the Vikings first established colonies in Ireland. It took 85 years to drive the Vikings from Ireland.
The Normans first arrived in Ireland around 1167. It took close to 800 years for the Irish to regain their freedom and their lands from the British.