I suppose it's got something to do with shared culture - after all, Britain and Ireland are virtually indistinguishable; if you were teleported into one at random you'd only be able to tell which it was from the accents and the money (all right, and the newspapers, the motorway signs, just asking people, etc, don't try to be clever). Ireland as a place is clearly far, far more like Britain than any other countries with ties to Britain such as the US or Australia (if you were teleported into any part of America you'd never think for a moment that you were in Britain!). To that extent, they are much of a muchness and I suppose one could say that Irishness is a subset of Britishness in that respect. But it would be a weird way to put it. Surely better to say that they are two countries that are very closely linked culturally.
Is Irish Unification in the near future?
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Bast
Protector of Cats
Yes, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. United under the one Crown. 
Bast
Protector of Cats
Sweetie, I could respond with that one liner to so many of your posts, it ain't even funny. Really.
RedRalph
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Sweetie, I could respond with that one liner to so many of your posts, it ain't even funny. Really.
Oh yeah? Care to provide some examples?
Winner
Diverse in Unity
RedRalph
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But it should
I know you don't think that.
But Bast, you genuinely seem to. What advantages would you see in Ireland having a monarchy as opposed to the Republic we have now? Why are you so pro-monrachy in general? Is there a philosophical or political reason that you hold this view?
Quackers
The Frog
I wish Ireland would join back again they provided us with a good supply of soldiers.
I entirely agree. I was just trying to think of a sympathetic way of understanding what he was trying to say.
It was tried. The divorce was a mess. Let's not do a Liz Taylor on it, eh?Yes, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. United under the one Crown.
You'd think that and of course, up to a point it's quite correct. That said, many of my UK-born colleagues found that the devil is in the detail in that regard. Simple things like a much more Mediterranean attitude to time keeping, a greater appreciation of the "greyness" of the human condition (double-edged sword that...) and (IMO) a somewhat more spontaneous nature. That's just some of the compare/contrast differences I can think of. I'd dispute to a degree that you'd not be able to tell the difference. Ireland looks different to the UK or the continent, certainly in terms of architecture be it rural or urban. There are house forms here that you simply would not find in the UK and vice versa. If you showed me two bog-standard three-bed semis; one from Britain and one from Ireland then I'd be fairly confident of guessing which was which. Personally, it think our boundary ditches in agriculture are different too (whin bushes and blackthorn being more commonly used here I think) though this isn't so much the case in north Wales or parts of Scotland.
I don't have a problem at all with the notion that our cultures bear more than a passing resemblance to each other mind. That's fairly self evident.
Good God, that bait tasted terribleBut it should
TheLastOne36
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I misread the poll. I thought it was for the future in general, which I have voted yes. Any time soon? I don't think so.
~Corsair#01~
Deity
There are perfectly good arguments for and against including Ireland in Britain. In the end it just comes down to whether you want to or not. I do, so I do. You don't, so you don't.
In Northern Ireland, where "British" and "Irish" live together you can see just how little difference there is. Where there is separation, it stems from xenophobia and sectarianism and it's nothing that I could have any part in.
RedRalph
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Well in that case any two reasonsbly-similar nationalities could be called the same thing, it really isn't as simple as what you want and don't wat. For me, the fact that the overwhelming majority of Irish people would consider themsleves as a distinct nationality from Britishness is enough to make it so. It really is a self-identification issue.
My wife is from Chiswick in London so believe me I'm not motivated by some stupid xenophobia. But This really is a subjective issue, and I'm estimating 95% of Irish people would consider themselves as distinct from British, and I bet about 80% of people from the island of Britain would consider Irish people as distinct from them, so to be honest I don't think both arguments hold equal weight.
jessiecat
Divine Monarch
Yes, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. United under the one Crown.
Sure. We'll all be singing "Land of Hope and Glory" and waving our little Union Jacks again. It'll be the Last Night of the Proms" every night of the week, will it?
To be honest, I doubt very many people from Britainthink about it much and don't really care. I suspect though that many do, subconciously at least, lump us in as members of the British "family" insofar as they think of us at all whilst perhaps realising that this is a dodgy shorthand...
That is hopelessly reductive IMO. Ireland had a distinct culture, language, legal system and way of life up until the Cromwellian settlement and even up to the 1840s famine the culture and language and way of life was almost totally at odds with Britain. Sure, we're anglophone(ish) but in many other respects we are quite different and closer to (say) the Spanish than the English.
The single overiding argument against including us with Britain is that it was tried and it was a disasterous failure. We are much better off with a "Good Neighbours" rather than a Sovereign-Subject relationship. That said; I'd be delighted to see us back in the Commonwealth.
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