Ah Big Mick answer the following questions regarding how the people of Ireland have clearly shown their attitude to the question of Northern Ireland.

By the will of the people has the Republic's constitutional claim on the North been abandoned?

A simple YES will suffice as that is the answer to that question, a simple matter of record.

Have the people of Ireland clearly stated their opinion that violence has no place in Irish politics?

A simple YES will suffice for the answer to that question as well.

Have the people of Ireland clearly stated their opinion that it is up to the population of Northern Ireland to determine how and by whom they are governed?

A simple YES answers this question as well.

And as you put it so well I will return your sage advice - Those are the facts of the matter - Live with them.

Harking back into history is irrelevant, it is what the people who are directly affected now want that counts, otherwise Big Mick, talking of "plantation politics" one hell of a lot of people currently living in the good ol' US of A had better pack their bags or be prepared to make some mighty restitution regarding ownership of the land that they stole. "Pot"; "Kettle"; "Black" link those words in a well known phrase or saying, that would apply.

Oh Jim the "Black and Tans" were not formed to terrorise and threated the people into acceptance of any boundary. They came into being because Sinn Fein tacitily agreed with the policy of killing Government workers, Policemen and Postmen throughout Ireland. The reality of the boundary commission was that a border had to be agreed, the fledgling Irish Free State and the later Republic of Ireland could not have fought the civil war that would have resulted had the North been forced against its will into a United Ireland in 1921.