Phew -- a bunch of reading. The Northern Irish Problem. It is easy to talk about but very difficult to experience, Alison - Remote consideration can lead to deep feelings - Mick - Two points of view equally wrong - Dai - History needs a place too - several posters. Looking at this from afar and having lived in various parts of the Islands - it seems to me now like a nightmare a bad horrid thing. I aggree with Penny too - You cannot blame the UK for the present problems.

Give peace a chance. The Orange Order IS trying to clean up their act, and the IRA is trying to do the same.

Mick It is nearly impossible to seperate out of this sad affair any part of the British Isles because most people born there have common lineage. There are old English families settled all thorough the Islands - old Scottish families the same - old Irish families similar - and so on. You'll find Murphys in Cardiff and Davis in Dublin, Smythes in Glasgow and Campbells in Birmingham.

So any remark on the issue will draw fire from all 4 traditions. Yes the IRA did cruel brutal and stupid things in England. Shame. Yes the Orange Order did cruel brutal and stupid things in N Ireland, Scotland and Liverpool. Shame.

I recall being in N Wales at the University of Bangor some years ago at a party where we all sang songs and drank large glasses of Ale. At that time there was no NI problem. Amoung the songs sung was 'We're all off to Dublin in the Green ....' If that had been today I doubt we would sing 'that' song.

To the thinking American the Loyalists would appear like their forebearers. Colonial. However there is one problem which makes it almost not work. The people in Ulster who were 'colonized' were white Europeans - some of em English families.

King William of Orange a Smoke Screen?

We forget that the situation was created after the Scots were finally subdued by the English, N Ireland was punished because O'Niell had made war upon the English in Ireland - presumeably to assist his kinsmen in Scotland. As punishment the English gave the land of the native people of Ulster - including Co Monaghan, Co Cavan and Donegal (not in Northern Ireland but ROI)to the Scots who had helped the English defeat their 'ain' King. Confused yet?

Now if you think the rogues were Scottish you'd be mistaken for as well as Irish in the O'Niell camp were Scots volunteers. So you can meet a person in Ireland with a Scottish name who could be descended from either tradition - also confusing is the fact that the Irish and Scots are the same race!

The N Ireland problem is really a Clan War?

The tradition certainly existed - perhaps the infusion of Highland genes into the pool of the Loyalists is finaly bearing it's teeth. I wonder how a culture so long under the Brehon laws will resist it's ancient ways? I suppose if the British pulled out of the North we'd have one heluva war there.

There is one problem though - it could spread all over Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, could involve Cananda, Australia, New Zealand, Holland and the USA as well a several S American Countries.

Sooo the USA MUST contain the problem.

The good thing about this is the realizatiuon by Irish people that the Orange Tradition IS an Irish one, that it has a part to play in the evolution of the country. Perhaps we are seeing the birth of that new Ireland which Pearse, etc dreamed.