Keith, you have taken nothing from Saville if you still think Boody Sunday was down to three of four rogue squaddies. Have a look at what Saville says about General Ford (re deploying the Paras to Derry) and the odious Colonel Wilford (re disobeying orders).

Jim has a fair point (too subtle for Teribus) about partition. The border was indeed drawn carefully (and in fact logically, if there had to be a border at all) to ensure that as far as was reasonable Northern Ireland would be comprised ony of people who wanted to be in it. That simple fact undermines the credibility of any referendum carried out only in Northern Ireland.

The downside of Jim's position is that through most of the history of partition, any referendum undertaken across the whole island of Ireland would also, in all probability, have supported partition.

Various factors point to this conclusion. First partition was supported by Ireland's elected parliament when Collins took the deal back to the Dail. (Had it not been for Dev's refusal to accept parliament's will (a refusal which tore the state apart) partition would have ended generations ago, exactly as Collins had intended.) Second the anecdotal evidence that anyone can glean by travelling around the republic (and far more so "beyond the pale") is that indifference and apathy towards the whole question of Northern Ireland is huge. Third, there is the evidence of the republic's referendum in 1998 about whether to abandoning the constitutional claim on the territory of Northern Ireland. It produced a majority of 94 per cent in favour of amending the constitution, unpalatable as Jim must find that fact.

To answer jim's question about referenda in Northern Ireland, there was one in 1993 specifically on the status of Northern Ireland. The vote in favour of staying in the UK was 57 per cent, with less than one per cent against. (It was obviously boycotted by nationalists.) In 1998 there was a referendum on the Good Friday Agreement, contemporaneously with the one in the republic. The vote in favour of the agreement (which of course recognised NI's status as part of the UK) was 71 per cent.

At the time of the 1998 referenda, Ireland had one of the fastest-growing economies in the developed world. More recently its fortunes have been dramatically reversed, making it even more unlikely than it has always been hitherto, that Dublin would be even slightly interested in taking on the challenge of several hundred thousand belligerent prods. Likewise unification must look at least a little less attractive than previously to the Northern Ireland population. Jim has quite a lot of canvassing to do before he can claim any kind of democractic support for a united Ireland.