shocking racial taunts at spain v england

[CollegeTillIDie]

Well for instance of the ten other people where I work, three hold dual nationality. There is a reference here

They are all people whose parents had moved from Ireland to Britain.

Approximately 100 Irish people living in Britain take out British citizenship every year. In the 60's it was about 700 a year.

Actually for those people who feel in their heart and soul they are British check out

Ok The results of the 2002 census for the Republic of Ireland are available on www.cso.ie and there are a load of different tables covering these very areas we have been debating!

[lopez]

I have to say I find it astonishing that 15% of the Republics population hold Irish/British - Dual nationalities.

Im not saying I don't believe it, just would never have guessed it - do you have a source to your stats. (By the way Dav I know you haven't so I won't bother asking you!! )

Personally, the figures don't add up. On the one hand the (relatively meaningless) status of being a British 'subject' is passed on no further than the 2G, while those taking up British citizenship in Britain (in which, unlike Germans or Spaniards, they do not lose their citizenship and cannot be deemed as a wholehearted embracement of Britishness) would all have to return to Ireland to make up the numbers quoted. The figure of 100 Irish people a year - in comparison to those that migrated up until recent times - is quite pathetic. The only reason to mention it is to reiterate how few Irish people take British citizenship, an issue which the Reform (sic.) Movement demands should be extended to everyone in Ireland.

Try comparing it with this: My son's Foreign Births Certificate (these are only needed for Irish citizenship when both your parents are born outside Ireland) number is 8*** and is dated June 1994. My eldest daughter's is 19*** and is dated March 1998. 11,515 documents were given to 3G (a status that the British won't even consider granting citizenship to) Irish citizens in the Irish embassy London alone in less than four years. Between my eldest daughter and my youngest (her FBC was issued in March 1999) there were 7,112 issued in just one year. FBC by the way are not handed out like Guinness mats on St Patrick's day, as the critics of our foreign born footballers like to joke. They cost me about €60 for the last one I got. More importantly, they are a real hassle because they officially take 3 to 6 months to issue. Despite the obvious trouble, 70 times more were issued in a 12 month period between 1998 and 1999 to 3G Irish citizens from one embassy (there are consulates elsewhere in Britain) than British citizenship was issued to Irish people as a whole.

I'd like you to consider what is the agenda of the RM. Sounds to me they clearly wish for the 26C to return to the sh*te and discredited status it had between 1801 and 1922 and to which it has only just recovered. Far from the Republic facing 'up to the reality that as a state it is closely linked to the United Kingdom socially, culturally and economically' it need do nothing of the sort. British citizens enjoy full rights including the right to vote. With the exception of language, Ireland's own social and cultural health (music and sport are two examples) are in better shape than most other countries and its economy (and its success) is not down to links to Britain but to Europe as a whole, something that the neo-imperialists of the RM are mysteriously silent on.

Either the number of 600K British passports is a figure of the imagination or it is made up of
i) British exiles in Ireland (Beleive there's quite a few moved to West Cork in recent years)
ii) British people (including those from the North) who for one thing or another got a passport in Dublin (students, temporary workers, tourists etc)
iii) 2G and 3G who were born in Britain and have gone to Ireland with their families.
iv) Certain Unionists from border counties.
iv) The negligible ammount of people born outside Ulster that feel British which includes those that got British citizenship while living in Britain.

BTW: For those that think that Protestants are the 'fifth collumn'/desperate for the British citizenship cruelly denied by successive weak-kneed London governments, may I recommend 'Untold Stories: Protestants in the Republic of Ireland, 1922-2002' by Lynne Adair which puts the 26C Protestant population in a different light. Or else you can discuss this with my good friend on here, Davros.

[Plastic Paddy]

Well for instance of the ten other people where I work, three hold dual nationality. There is a reference here

They are all people whose parents had moved from Ireland to Britain.

Approximately 100 Irish people living in Britain take out British citizenship every year. In the 60's it was about 700 a year.

Actually for those people who feel in their heart and soul they are British check out

Between your straw poll and the rhetoric of the Reform Society, your numbers just don't add up Eoin. I'm not saying I entirely disagree with your point, just that your argument appears to carry little by way of veracity.

That said, Dav knows how I feel about his views. I don't think I could ever look any future fils de PP squarely in the face and tell him that he's not entitled to feel both Irish and British. Dav, me old mucker, 'tis the twenty-first century now. We're all moving on from the mutually-exclusive nation-state construct of identity. Look at your horizontal-tricolour-with-wheel for proof positive should this be required...

And on another point altogether, meself and the good lady Mrs PP were out walking today in Windsor Great Park when who should we see but Brenda, driving a Jag very fast down the Long Walk with bodyguards struggling to keep up. For a split second, I contemplated throwing myself onto the bonnet and suing the bitch for every last penny. Just to see what Claims Direct would have made of it all, like...

PP

[eoinh]

I shouldnt have put in the link to the reform society (whoever they are) as it really has no connection to the amount of Irish people living in Ireland who hold British citizenship.

The figure of 600,000 is propably an exageration. But the figure that Davros estmates (less than 1000) is obviously ludicrous.

It doesnt really bother me at all what the figure is. Most societies and country's are very rarely made up of one homogenous group. I would find that actually abnormal. If one group tries to dictate to another group what being Irish is then that will never work - (as we have found out). A fact also that needed to be sorted out in NI (you coudnt force people to be British if they didnt want to be), even Ian Paisley knows this now (I think).

[sylvo]

And on another point altogether, meself and the good lady Mrs PP were out walking today in Windsor Great Park when who should we see but Brenda, driving a Jag very fast down the Long Walk with bodyguards struggling to keep up. For a split second, I contemplated throwing myself onto the bonnet and suing the bitch for every last penny. Just to see what Claims Direct would have made of it all, like...

PP

PP between you and me and whoever else reads this on the net, i'm up for a bit of the compo culture with yer, how about you take a trip up to tanfield i'll be in a battered ould red van with jaggered hat logo on the side going about 2mph with foot on the brake, you do yer best Michael Owen style dive infront of me company van and we'll share da booty out of the nice German lady's purse, plus i'll take a while off with stress.
OH come on you know you won't to.

[lopez]

I shouldnt have put in the link to the reform society (whoever they are) as it really has no connection to the amount of Irish people living in Ireland who hold British citizenship.

The figure of 600,000 is propably an exageration. But the figure that Davros estmates (less than 1000) is obviously ludicrous.

Of course Davros is being disingenuous about being British and Irish but he does quantify his remarks. As we have seen, it's not simple for someone born and living in Ireland and not having lived in Britain to get a British passport (which only entitles them to being a Subject).

As PP points out, Davros clearly feels partly Indian and I feel half Spanish even though I have not taken up the recently made offer of citizenship to foreign born children of Spanish women. The same is shared with those of mix British-Irish parentage. What I find irritating is people using Ireland as a (joint) nationality in some sort of argument, when in reality its merely a regional identity (cue Unionists) to which Irish nationalism (and nationalists) mean nothing.

I do have a little sympathy with the RM. In an all-Ireland state, those currently holding British citizenship in the 6C should have British nationality for ever - providing that link isn't broken which is the same with the FBC. But extending that right to all of Ireland is ridiculous. It's backdoor re-colonisation, unfair to other more 'loyal' but darker countries (those that didn't leave the commonwealth), and highly unlikely that the British will do it anyway. The Irish can always counter that their citizenship will be extended to everyone in Britain. There's certainly more, both percentage and pure numbers, of Irish descent than of British descent in Ireland and also it should improve the national team even further.

[lopez]

Ok The results of the 2002 census for the Republic of Ireland are available on www.cso.ie and there are a load of different tables covering these very areas we have been debating!

Many thanks College.

Table M covers nationality in Ireland. There were on Census night 103.5K British citizens in the 26C with 49.3K dual Irish/other citizens. That means that 2.7% of the population of the Republic is British. A possible further 1.3% has dual nationality, but no one can seriously suggest that this number is solely made up of British duals. However look at table L: The percentage of the population of the 26C that was born under British jurisdiction is 6.4% (that includes 5.1% in Britain and 1.3% in Northern Ireland).

Source: http://www.cso.ie/census/pdr_comment.htm#mig

[eoinh]

You didnt take into account multiple nationality or not stated, Lopez.

[lopez]

There's a whopping .1% for multiple nationality which could mean Irish plus two other citizenships or British or US and other. As for not stated, perhaps these are the minority of Ireland that are just too scared to mention their true allegiances. Perhaps they just couldn't be a*sed answering (See also Religion (Table Q)) or are in the words of Aragones merely a 'citizen of the world'. I'm taking the view of the second view because that's what it seems like to me, especially as there is a section for Irish, UK, dual and multiple nationality for people to give a sepcific answer.