Slugger O'Toole

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smellybigoxteronye has commented 78 times (0 in the last month).

1. Comment on Flag wars over St Patrick’s Day in Downpatrick
   on 18 March 2011 at 4:55 am

   This is a fine example of how Sinn Fein view the only genuine Irish people as being those that conform to Irish Republicanism, and is a good indicator of what to expect with their “united Ireland”. It confirms how much BS any of their talk of “Unionist outreach” is, and reinforces the view that Sinn Fein are only interested in the subjugation of Irish Unionists, hijacking anything Irish to mean that it belongs to them and is therefore exclusively Irish Nationalist/Irish Republican.

   Most NI Unionists I know don’t at all regard St. Patrick’s Cross as being “Unionist” – quite the opposite in fact, cautiously acknowledging it as an all-Ireland symbol. Using the same logic as Sinn Fein the Scottish Saltire would apparently be “Unionist” because it’s also in the Union Jack – I wonder whether Alex Salmond would agree?!

   I even saw on TV a clip earlier on Hearts & Minds from an old apparently contentious and almost exclusively nationalist parade in West Belfast in the 80s where nationalists were carrying all 3 of the Tricolour, Ulster Flag and St. Pat’s Cross!!!

   If nationalists had any intelligence at all they’d realise that embracing things like St. Pat’s Cross more can only push their all-Ireland project further in that it is an ALL IRELAND flag that Unionists don’t mind, and has never been tarnished by any terrorist groups. Fortunately for Unionists, Sinn Feiners seem to be of very little intelligence and seem to want to tarnish St. Pat’s too!

   This often repeated argument that “the Irish Tricolour is displayed worldwide so it must be inclusive” is also more of a demonstration of worldwide ignorance concerning Ireland and St. Patrick than anything else.

   Finally, I might as well be talking to a brick wall here. Slugger is not the progressive place for sharing mutual understanding in Northern Ireland that it aims to be. The comments and attitudes on this thread demonstrate just how much the demographics of Slugger have become skewed SO unrepresentatively that the site has merely become a quagmire for obsessive and extremist Republicans to boost their own zealous egos. Slugger is now dead in my opinion; it has been deleted from my bookmarks; there is nothing for non-republicans to gain by debating on any issue with such unreasonably minded one-dimensional obsessives – let them obsess and drool amongst themselves alone.

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2. Comment on My Guess at the New 16 – Just for fun!
   on 9 March 2011 at 6:46 pm

   @Valenciano, yes I know that South Belfast would no longer exist. My point is in a previous post that I think Nicholas (or whomever it was) was proposing boundary changes that would maintain the current sectarian balance by losing 1 “Unionist” and 1 “Nationalist” seat. My point is that this isn’t really true and that it is a much more complex situation.

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3. Comment on My Guess at the New 16 – Just for fun!
   on 8 March 2011 at 1:11 am

   Nicholas Whyte, can you really count the South Belfast seat as an SDLP loss given the nature of unionist vote splitting. I woulddn’t count this as a “nationalist loss” given that this seat is pretty much anyone’s game.

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4. Comment on Home Rule for Wales
   on 6 March 2011 at 1:30 am

   That’s only 22.35% of the electorate in favour – pretty dismal!

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5. Comment on My Guess at the New 16 – Just for fun!
   on 6 March 2011 at 1:19 am

   … and as a more general comment I think the f*ck all this orange and green nonsense and stick to the local references. So far it generally looks excellent and much more natural than the current boundaries.

   The exception to that is maybe Belfast which has more in common with itself and harder to divide up into multiple constituencies. It’s also has special status as NI’s capital. Perhaps something radical such as dividing up both East and West Belfast with a line perpendicular to the Lagan – we’d then have North-East and South-West constituencies – something that might encourage integration and cooperation.

   … and come-on – Lisburn is not in reality a city – no matter what Jeffrey tells you it’s a suburb of Belfast!!

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6. Comment on My Guess at the New 16 – Just for fun!
   on 6 March 2011 at 1:08 am

   Some points on your revised Co. Antrim names.

   Firstly, “Antrim Plateau” isn’t an accurate name at all as the Antrim Plateau is almost entirely in your “Antrim Glens”!!!

   I’m not sure about “Antrim Glens” either. People in Carrickfergus aren’t really near the glens but are definitely on the coast. I suggested just “Antrim Coast” previously. The tourist board often use the phrase “Antrim Coast & Glens” – maybe a good compromise and offer tourist potential! (despite being a bit more of a mouthful)

   “Antrim Loughshore” is actually quite a clever name, in that the name of the Lough is left ambiguous in a typical NI diplomatic style! (most of it on the shores of Lough Neagh and Newtownabbey of the shores of Belfast Lough)

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7. Comment on Northern Ireland to lose two MPs…
   on 5 March 2011 at 2:22 am

   Great work there Drumlins. Seem to be mostly cohesive constituencies (not in the sectarian NI sense, but in the sense of a normalised wider cohesive “cross community” identity in many of the areas, defined by natural geographic features). Also love the traditional names – much better than the horrid “inner east” etc. names that were being proposed for the councils.

   As a suggestion, I’d rename your East Antrim to simply “Antrim Coast” as the constituency in effect would now include the whole Antrim coast from north shore of Belfast Lough to north Antrim coast. More tradition there with all of the Glens of Antrim under one constituency! (there’s definitely a common “cross community” Antrim Glens identity there).

   Love the “Kingdom of Mourne” too. Newcastle has the Mournes dominating it’s backdrop yet not associated with the “Mourne” constituency.

   Similarly, your “Sperrins” constituency much more accurately reflects the geography of the rolling Sperrin mountains, to which surrounding people have a common attachment.

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8. Comment on Friday Thread: The United Kingdom explained
   on 5 February 2011 at 5:43 am

   Agreed with qwerty12345.

   This was a good video – all fairly accurate except for the “Irish” and “Northern Irish” thing. We have de Valera to blame for this for trying to claim the island as the Republic’s territory, for attempting to name the Republic “Ireland” on its passports, and inaccurately calling the passport of the Republic an “Irish passport”.

   (note a certain political blog is also guilty following de Valera’s warped views, evidenced by its navigational links – cough!)

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9. Comment on London Letter: A new flag for Northern Ireland?
   on 20 December 2010 at 10:18 pm

   I think that this thread proves that somewhere like Slugger is probably not a good place to have a reasonable discussion on such an issue. Too many politics-obsessed zealots, too many old cynical curmudgeons, and too many of the nutters on the extremes who want to take the topic off on some random direction (the initials “CD” come to mind concerning the latter!).

   The more constructive approach by the young people on Facebook seems much more reasonable.

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10. Comment on This place, that place, the other place the rest…
    on 16 December 2010 at 6:44 pm

    Here is a map of Ireland in 1014:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Www.wesleyjohnston.com-users-ireland-maps-historical-map1014.gif

    Note that Ulster or “Ulidia” only consists of counties Antrim and Down at this time, therefore, it could be argued that it is quite valid to use the term Ulster to refer to Northern Ireland. However, given the inevitable squabbling that this will cause with the southerners nowadays how about actually renaming Northern Ireland simply “ULIDIA” instead of “Ulster”?!!

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