You wrote:
“You make the classic mistake of thinking because the Protestants wish still to be part of Britain that they therfore deny their Irishness. They dont.”
Incorrect. I made no error at all. This was already posted in the thread. I guess you were not paying attention:
A survey in 1999 showed that 72% of Northern Irish Protestants considered themselves “British” and 2% “Irish”, with 68% of Northern Irish Catholics considering themselves “Irish” and 9% “British”.[22] The survey also revealed that 78% of Protestants and 48% of all respondents felt “Strongly British”, while 77% of Catholics and 35% of all respondents felt “Strongly Irish”. 51% of Protestants and 33% of all respondents felt “Not at all Irish”, while 62% of Catholics and 28% of all respondents felt “Not at all British”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_and_politics_of_Northern_Ireland
Thus, only 2% - that’s TWO PERCENT consider themselves Irish. TWO PERCENT. 51% felt “Not at all Irish”. That means 49% might feel somewhat Irish, but still only 2% consider themselves Irish. I made no mistake at all.
“They are proud to be British, but equally and fiercely proud of their Ulster identity, just as I can be proud to be Scottish and also British. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
They apparently are for a huge portion of the Northern Irish population - if you believe them. I guess you could assume they are lying about their feelings. Will that be your theory?
“Remember that the Catholic pop in NI votes every election to stay in the UK, yet do they deny one iota of their Catholic Irish identity?. Not a bit of it.”
Actually they do not vote to stay in the UK. They vote for representatives to a government which clearly most of them do not wish to be subjects of. Again, “62% of Catholics and 28% of all respondents felt “Not at all British”.”
“If you had ever been to NI, you’d realise this and realise that the identities there are more complex than myth and the media portray.”
I am not relying on any myths or MSM media at all. You were wrong again.
Firstly, I have more experience of NI than you, who seems to rely on wikipedia polls. I have been there, I have relatives there (as I do the ROI), so I know how the identities mesh into one another, or dont. Have you ever been to NI, or the ROI or even Britain or Europe?.
Secondly, you miss an obvious point: what type of ‘Irish’ identity the respondents responded to. And for over 150 years since the days of Daniel O Connell, ‘Irish’ has meant an obvious Catholic identity (in fact the naked bigotry of much of the Irish Nationalist/Republican identity, which ignores and degrades the Ulster Protestant identity) dates back to that time, as O Connell declared only those who were Catholic and Irish were true Irish, a sad bigoted idea many still hold in the Nationalist/Republican community.
So should we be surprised that many NI Protestants instinctively reject such an identity?. It would be the same as say asking Scots or Welsh to say yes to a British identity that was very heavily English, with little Scots-Welsh input.
Again, I will say that whilst proudly British, the NI Protestants are first and foremost Ulstermen and celebrate their Ulster heritage and culture, from its history to its language and literature. So they DO define themselves as Irish, and celebrate an Irish identity, but not in the strict and cliched Irish identity you have alluded to.
‘Actually they do not vote to stay in the UK. They vote for representatives to a government which clearly most of them do not wish to be subjects of’.
47% of Catholics in 2009 wished to stay in the UK as opposed to 40% who wanted a United Ireland. With another 5% wanting an independent NI. So thats 52% of NI Catholics who reject a United Ireland, with another 8% possibly to be added to that total.
http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2009/Political_Attitudes/NIRELND2.html