"The boundaries were deliberately chosen to include as many unionists as possible within the union,"
Three counties were originally proposed, then hastily dropped when it was calculated that they would provide a Catholic majority - it was a deliberate and stated policy to create a Protestant state.
There was no question of there ever being anything but a Catholic majority in the rest of Ireland.
The creation of a sectarian state immediately instigated anti Catholic feeling which led to regular violence, and erupted into open warfare in the seventies.
The violence has remained a reality in the State right up to fairly recently.
One of the unwritten laws of nationality is that if you draw a line across any country, you sign up for generations of violence until that line disappears - that will remain the case in the six Northern counties.
"Neil Kinnok"
about as reliable guide as Tory Blur
Jim Carroll