"Threat of invasion? No, the English invasion had happened before Cromwell's time. "
Oh dear - not again.
The proposed border was first drawn up to include the nine counties of Ulster, until the British realised that this would give the nationalists the majorty vote, so they hastily dropped Monoghan, Cavan and Donegal.
After a debate on the terms of the agreement Lloyd George informed the Irish delegation that if it was not signed Britain would invade Ireland within to weeks and impose a settlement.
Result = a gerrymandered sectarian state deliberately planned to give the Protestant two-thirds majority overall control. Whatever say the Nationist minority had was almost immediately diluted down by changing the existing voting system from proportional representation to first past the post = result; sectarian anti-Catholic rioting, demands that employers should only employ Loyalists (newspaper cuttings if you care to look them up), Catholics burned out of their houses and forced to flee south - permanent sectarian unrest.
Pehaps you should borrow Terrabyte's book, should he ever get round to buying one.
Keith:
"your four days of rioting started before any march."
The marches are an annual event and the build-up towards them is always a tense period - do you think it is a coincidence that the trouble invariably happens at this time of the year, and do you think the abuse on the marches has no effect on the people it is aimed at?The rioters were not locals opposed to a march.
"They were outside dissidents opposed to the peace process, and the local children they enlisted for cover."
This is as crap a statement as Mrs Thatchers 'rent-a-mob'. The riots were mainly by Belfast people with the support of outsiders; I put up the newspaper quote yonks back - but you appear not to read what others have to offer.
The partition was created under threat of invasion - I put up the relevant letter to Michael Collins but you appear to have missed that one as well.
Jim Carroll