There has never been a vote on the question of whether to remain as part of Britain,
Ireland was a colony until 1922, then it was partitioned and six counties were retained as part of Britain - that's what the 'troubles' were about.
Catholics, who made up one third of the country, had no say in its running.
"Sir James Craig, later Lord Craigavon, was prime minister from 1921 until his death in 1940. J. M. Andrews, his successor, had been in cabinet since 1921 and Lord Brookeborough was prime minister from 1943 to 1963.
Craig had unambiguously declared that the Northern Ireland government would be 'a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people' and partition had indeed guaranteed a large in-built Protestant majority. Catholics made up about one third of the population, but with the removal of proportional representation, the Unionist Party soon came to dominate both local and central government. Where necessary, as in Derry, blatant gerrymandering was employed to ensure that there would always be a unionist-controlled council, despite the city's Catholic nationalist majority."
Every drop of blood shed from 1922 is down to British rule.
Jim Carroll