Ireland.

O Ireland my first and only love
Where Christ and Caesar are hand and glove!
O lovely land where the shamrock grows! (Allow me, ladies, to blow my nose).

It certainly is a hell of a place to write beautiful lyrics and poetry about and sure 'tis no wonder as the place is a mythical mixture of fact, fiction and fantasy.

But Ireland is two places; the north and the south, just as I am three men: the dreamer, the fantasizer and the pragmatist.

The dreamer in me would like to see one Ireland with the north and the south joined together as it used to be, like conjoined twins separated not long after their birth; in my fantasies I see that but the pragmatist in me knows this will never be.

It's true that the Republicans will one day out number the Loyalists and why wouldn't they? The Republicans are mainly Roman Catholic who are not supposed to practice birth control - so go figure!
But how many Republicans, living near the border in the 'so called' Northern Ireland, even though they would die for Ireland, would want to live there? That's a question I heard recently.
The Republic of Ireland, the South, have no National Health Service like the north so how would the Northern Republican fancy paying fifty Euros (€50) per visit to go to the doctor? How much is a Euro (€ )? About 80% of a pound (£) which is about 50% more than the dollar ($).
If they take two children to the doctor they will pay €100 whereas in Britain, which currently rules the 'so called' Northern Ireland, no money changes hands. Health care is not dependent on your job and if you have no job, or you are a child or a senior you still don't have to pay. In fact when tourists go to hospitals here in emergencies I have heard that there is no paraphernalia or logistics to even charge the tourists.
You will never know how much a visit to the doctor costs, how much you have to pay for surgery, blood tests or even hospital stays or outpatient visits living in Britain; and the 'so called' Northern Ireland, as I have mentioned, is ruled by Britain.

They know all these things in America but not in any part of Britain. In some parts of Britain like Wales, and I think Scotland, prescriptions are free too, as they are for the over 60s in the rest of the kingdom.

If there ever would be a vote in Ireland for ridding the place of the partition there would also have to be a vote in the South and how many people in the South would welcome a further million people with a certain percentage of them being on welfare. You couldn't just take their welfare away so they would need to be compensated; so would the tax payer in the south welcome this further burden? The Celtic Tiger is resting so who knows?

I have heard people in America say 'Get Britain out of Ireland' without knowing the facts. A lot of people have died for Ireland and all that has been won didn't come without bloodshed. I think over two thousand people died in the province during the troubles from about 1969 to 1994; these were from both sides with additional deaths in England – or the mainland as some people call it.

Louis Mountbatten

I think The Queen said, when she visited Ireland, that no one hasn't been affected in one way or another; she lost her uncle who was assassinated off the coast of Ireland when he was holidaying there. There was talk at the time (conspiracy theorists) that he was assassinated by the British Government as he was a CND supporter but the people who believe that are the same ones who think Princess Diana was murdered.

By the way she was never Princess Diana; her official title was Her Royal Highness The Princess Charles Philip Arthur George, Princess of Wales and Countess of Chester, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, Countess of Carrick, Baroness of Renfrew, Lady of the Isles, Princess of Scotland. Bit of a mouthful aye?
So back to Ireland: certain surveys taken in Ireland say that the majority of the island of Ireland would not welcome a 32 county country so maybe all those people from the hunger strikers to rest of them died in vain.
However before the troubles, in 1969, civil rights were terrible in the 'so called' (you know where I mean) and if you were a Roman Catholic you would find it hard to get a government job or even a job in the police - so some good came from it, I suppose.