[redgolum]

As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, the smartest thing the Protestants of NI could do would be to unite with the Republic of Ireland. But they won't.

To much bad blood that has little to do with religion.

[wideawake]

The bad blood is mostly between Protestants and the Sinn Fein/IRA radicals.

The Fianna Fail and Fine Gael parties represent the great majority of the Irish population, and they are ideologically the parties that agreed to the partition of Ireland - as opposed to the bomb-throwing Sinn Fein deadenders.

If the Protestants were to vote to join the Republic, Sinn Fein would lose all rhetorical justification for terrorism and 500,000 new Protestant voters in the Republic would obliterate Sinn Fein's representation in the Dail.