Posted on 12/17/2002 7:56:26 AM PST by dead
It's bad news for the Protestants. Census figures due out tomorrow could show that for the first time in the 81-year history of Northern Ireland they are in the minority. And what's worse, those fecund Catholics are younger and breeding faster.
The dawning realisation has prompted one Ulster Unionist MP to declare that Protestants should be allowed to veto a united Ireland, even if Catholic voters become the majority.
Forcing Unionists to join the republic would cause political instability which would be in no one's interest, Jeffrey Donaldson said on Monday.
But even if the census results do show a Catholic majority, the youth of the Catholic population compared to the ageing Protestant community means it could be at least 20 years before the rise in the number of Catholics translates into a voting majority.
At the same time, the simple equation of Catholicism with Irish nationalism does not take account of how many Catholics might vote to remain with Britain or Protestants to leave it.
But Thursday's revelations will be pored over and debated by politicians.
Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's minister of education, has said his party would hold the British Government to its promise of a united Ireland, if the majority votes for it in a referendum. Another spokesman said the Unionists faced a challenge in accepting the democratically expressed will of the people and encouraging a peaceful transition.
But Mr Donaldson argued that because the suspended Stormont assembly requires separate majorities of Unionists and nationalists to pass legislation, the dual consent principle should apply to any vote on a united Ireland.
He insisted the Unionist population would not be eclipsed in the near future, but warned: "It's not in anyone's interests to force Unionists into a united Ireland.
"It would be a recipe for great instability and constitutional disaster."
Since Northern Ireland's formation in 1921, the Protestant descendants of Scottish and English planters, concentrated in the six counties to the north-east of Ireland, accounted for two-thirds of the population.
Catholics made up the other third, giving unionists a seemingly in-built majority and leading to domination and discrimination which reinforced Catholics' feelings that they were second-class citizens.
But now a mix of factors, including underestimation of Catholic numbers because of the nationalists' refusal to co-operate with previous surveys, has led some statisticians to believe that the Catholic population could be anywhere from 40 per cent to 45 per cent and Protestants somewhere between 47 per cent and 51 per cent, with other religions and the non-religious making up the rest.
Four of Northern Ireland's five cities, Belfast, Derry, Armagh and Newry, now have Catholic majorities. Only Lisburn does not. Last year there were 173,000 Catholic schoolchildren, 146,000 Protestants and 22,000 others.
Did you mean to say, to paraphrase what was said above, diabolically operating fecund Catholic breeders?
Regardless...victory by fecund breeding is victory none-the-less. (Insert sinister we're-gonna-take-over-the-world laughter here.)
A traveller was walking through the streets of Belfast early in the morning after a long night at the pub. Inadvertently, he steps into an alley, and is grabbed from behind, feeling the blade of a knife pressed at his neck.
"Be ye Catholic, or be ye Protestant, mate?", an unseen voice hissed into his ear.
"Crap", the guy thought. "If I say Catholic, then this guy will cut my throat, because he'll be Protestant, if I say Protestant, he'll cut my throat because hes Catholic. This is a no-win for me without knowing more."
All of a sudden, inspiration hits and he says "neither one. I'm jewish".
With that, he hears the voice chuckle and say "Jesus, Mary and Joseph - I must be the luckiest Muslim in all Belfast".
That would require them to set aside ancient prejudices in favor of their own enlightened self-interest. Judging by the run of human history, the odds of that happening seem...slim ;)
Divide et impera
It is not blood that we changed when we arrived on these shores but values, and those values have been the only demarcation between the German and German American, Italian and Italian American, etc. Vacuum of values has never existed, and once you give up yours, someone else will fill the empty space. And it was the "white" people in power that precipitated the current decline.
So get off the racialist bandwagon please. Look at the white Americans that have no clue about history, geography, or current events in their own country, who cannot even speak or right English. Don't blame birthrates for the moral decline: your mother must have told you that children and morals emanate from different places.
If people wanted a white homeland, then they would have ten children and close-knit communities and there would be no market for cheap immigrant labor.
But people don't want this - they want instant self-gratification.
If white Americans, as you say, retained strong moral values, then Wallace T.'s white homeland would be an unintended byproduct of a moral society.
If white people disappear, they have no one to blame but themselves for squandering their birthright (Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian culture) for a mess of pottage (endless social programs and entitlements).
ping...
who cannot even speak or right English…
LOL!
Like that time.
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