Gerry Adams unveils seven-point plan for a United Ireland

@STEVENSTAR is your caps lock key broken?

RedBranch, there is a move now to remove the Catholic Church from ownership/oversight of the schools in Ireland. Of course the Catholic Church wants enormous amounts of money for the buildings which the Government plans to take over. Integrated schools are very popular in Ireland. Integration in most places in the US in the 60s was rife with problems but demographics have changed there in the interim.

Curitiba: There have been dozens of attempts to bring the community together both on the small screen and on the ground costing millions and making a good living for a few. Jokes about the Peace Process lasting twice as long as WW I & II combined arn't jokes. On education we currently have three state funded school systems, with three accompanying infastructures to maintain. They are as follows: the Catholic schools, the State schools, and the Integrated. No politician has yet, to my knowledge, made a serious move towards amalgamation. The recent decision to stop academic selection at 11 by SF was most strongly resisted by the Catholic grammars, who consistently turn out some of the best results in the UK and with some justification are resistant to change. So there you have it. You want to change education, you'd better have the panzers lined up. Anyone remember bussing in Boston? Happy days I don't think.

HAHA!!! DONT MAKE ME LAUGH THE IRISH GOVERMENT AT THE MOMENT CAN BARELY MANAGE TO KEEP THE SOUTH OF IRELAND AFLOAT...WE BORROW 40MILLION A DAY TO KEEP THE SOUTH OF IRELAND GOING.. I LIVE IN ON THE SOUTH COAST OF IRELAND MY MATE IS PROTSTANT FROM N IRELAND WHAT THESE REPULICANS NEED TO DO IS HAVE A GOOD LOOK AROUND AND REALISE MOST OF US NORTH AND SOUTH ARE HAPPY THE WAY THINGS ARE..... PLEASE I ALSO REALISE AMERICANS SEEM TO BE VERY SUPPORTIVE OF GERRY ADAMS BUT IM SORRY IM IRISH I LIVE IN IRELAND AND YOUR OPINIONS DO NOT MATTER TO ME ....

Thanks for that BytheBay. The boys from Templemore in riot mode are to be given a wide bearth, I too speak from experience. More tomorrow.

Curitiba - not sure if being Orange4aDay would work...much of the Orange marching 'culture' seems to be triumphalist, not just in NI, but west Scotland as well...while they have a right to peaceful assembly, I just don't see them as ready to embrace inclusivity...neither indeed do many AoH...can't see many outsiders joining either club anytime soon...

Finally Nationalist and Orange marches must be more inclusive. Just as a lot of non-Irish can be "Irish for a day" during the St Paddy's day events, why can't we engineer it so that everybody can be "Orange for a day". Some of the more overt anti-Popery would have to be toned down, of course, and it should be promoted as a celebration of Protestant/Unionist culture, rather than a triumphalist thing. Would that be a way forward?

What you will end up with is older people with diehard, unshakeable attitudes towards the other community, but the younger people will have that view broken down by education and media influence (programming), and so will be more accepting of each other. Works in England.

RedBranch-culture change is the key to getting people to accept a lot of things. For instance, in the UK, media such as TV, magazines and books and also education are used to program people with the prevailing values of the day. So, we could have a soap opera where the plotline could involve Protestants and Catholics being mistrustful and hostile to each other, but as time goes by they warm to each other. In schools, they could teach diversity and acceptance, just as they do in England.

Hold your horses Curitiba, We're only on point # 6. 'Protestants are assured all their rights, including peaceful assembly'. Now I personally find a little Orange goes a long way and choose to view the annual 12th demonstrations about once a decade. I do however believe strongly in peaceful assembly. Should local lodges wish to march respectfully along a predetermined route then they should be allowed to do so. I am reminded of the Love Ulster march in Dublin a few years back which led to the biggest civil unrest in Dublin for decades with hardly a northern foot setting foot on the ground before getting back on the bus. Some inclusivity there I don't think.

Hello RedBranch, if you are still following this thread, I would have thought that a new national anthem reflecting the two majority peoples of Ireland would have been the least contraversial and the least important obstacle to a United Ireland. I would have imagined that in the event of a union of North and South, the old anthem would have been quietly buried, and Van Morrison and Big Tom could have written another one to reflect the New Ireland (not that one next to Papua New Guinea). Ready to join forces now?

and Seano’s a couple sandwiches short of a picnic, as usual…

Dano eats irrelevancy sandwiches for breakfast each day and regurgitates it on IC.

lol.*Gets popcorn

Seano - you are the NITPICKER IN CHIEF - remember your referendum debacle, or the more recent inaccuracies over the PSNI insignia...a 'version' is a modification of something original...in this case the original work was in English...so any translation (eg into Irish) is a version...so not at all a chicken/egg story...maybe you need to engage that important body part of yours (ie your brain) before typing your next post?