One final thing...the (mostly Scots Irish Americans--an irony which never fails to escape notice of some of us) Southern segregationists were ideological brethren to today's Orange Order in the UK. They too were afraid to desegregate. They too said "not one inch" and "never surrender" and all those absolutist terms. They too believed the backlash against them for decades of lynchings, etc would be substantial. They too had their Ian Paisleys and their David Trimbles (ie George Wallace, Lester Maddox, etc). But yet, we know just how wrong they were about everything, just as the unionists and loyalists are now. First the American abolitionists, and then the desegregationists DID change and transform a much larger nation, the United States, and end slavery and segregation in the US once and for all.

Ireland will do it too, but it won't happen, like I said, until the British government allows the unionists and loyalists to walk out, and continues the institutions without them.   THAT is when the true, meaningful change will happen in Northern Ireland.