Quote:
Originally Posted by
BonnieShels
That's borderline parody. Other selected gems of nonsense:
"[The border] was created in 1922 when Ireland became a Free State and Ulster remained British."
"This crow's foot on the bridge [in Pettigo] marks the exact spot where I can step out of Britain and into the Irish Republic."
"That meant that the people of Pettigo suddenly found themselves split by an international border. On that side [Fermanagh], they were British in largely-Protestant Ulster and on this side [Donegal, which is also in Ulster], Irish, in the largely-Catholic Free State of Éire."
"True enough, a few Protestants headed back over the border from this side into Britain."
:rolleyes:
The claim that Fermanagh elected to stay in the UK is ridiculous. Fermanagh's county council actually expressed the exact opposite. They refused to recognise partition and pledged allegiance to Dáil Eireann, but their protest and voice was quickly suppressed by the northern authorities: https://itsapoliticalworld.wordpress...-six-counties/
"Fermanagh CC passed the following motion on 21st December 1921;
'We, the County Council of Fermanagh, in view of the expressed desire of a large majority of people in this country, do not recognize the partition parliament in Belfast and do hereby direct our secretary to hold no further communications with either Belfast or British local governments, and we pledge our allegiance to Dáil Eireann.'
The RIC seized their offices, sacked officials and the County Council was dissolved and replaced by Commissioners. Armagh, Keady and Newry Urban Councils, Downpatrick Town Commissioners, Cookstown, Downpatrick, Kilkeel, Lisnaskea, Strabane, Magherafelt, and Newry 1 & 2 Rural Councils as well as some Boards of Poor Law Guardians were all similarly dissolved and replaced by commissioners by April 1922. Derry remained.
To permanently deal with the problem, for the following local elections, PR was abolished, and all councilors were obliged to swear an oath to the crown. Our friend Dawson Bates then appointed Sir John Leech as the man to redraw boundaries, which he did at a rapid pace often giving locals only one week to make submissions – nationalists tended to boycott this absurdity. The plan worked excellently – after the 1924 local elections only 2 of the eighty councils were nationalist. Gerrymandering went on, Armagh Urban Council (Nationalist) was dissolved in 1934 and was only set back up again in 1946 with new wards and a unionist majority. Over these years Derry was re-jigged on a number of occasions."