perpetual motion machine

I've never been one for politics, but I try to stay informed, which is one of the many reasons I joined the UL Debate Society. The Irish Times Debate Final was last night. It's a big to-do, and the motion made me realize how much more informed I could be.

"This House believes the partition of Ireland should remain permanent."

Whoa. It's a heavy topic. I'm going to attempt the briefest summary I can muster of Irish history now. Bear with me.

432 - Ireland is Christianized by St. Patrick whose influence lead to cultural/educational growth. Catholicism is the thing to do.

800-1100 - Vikings! They show up and say, "We wanna fight!" but then decide to hang out and become farmers and stuff. Everybody seems cool until...

One of the Irish kings gets a little gung-ho about seizing power and land and stuff, so he asks the Normans from England to do him a solid, but Normans show up at the party and decide not to leave for about 400 years. Not only do they overstay their welcome, but they rearrange the furniture, eat all the food, don't chip in for beer, and set up the feudal system which makes everybody pissed off in a passive-aggressive way.

1536-1685 - Henry8@England writes: Hey Ireland! What's up? Listen, that Catholic platform you've run your system on for like, a thousand years, isn't working for me. I like this other platform, Protestant much better. Try it. No? Fine, then I'm gonna crash your system and delete a bunch of your stuff. Then, I'll send my friend Scot over to do a re-install. He's kinda like me. You'll like him. Promise.

1685-1690 - SOMEHOW a Catholic (James) gets the throne in England, but he only has it for a little while before William of Orange snags it. Willie follows Jimmy to IE and wins The Battle of Boyne. There's this Protestant organization in the North called the Orange Order that really like Willie.

1691-1793 - Oppression, oppression, oppression. Exploitation. Oppression.

1798 - The United Irishmen! Catholics, Protestants, liberty, freedom, and equality are on one side, while the Big, Bad Brits are on the other side. The Brits kick everybody's ass (sorry, I mean 'arse') and make Ireland part of Britain with The Act of Union.

1800s - Struggle, struggle. Tenancy system breakdown. Struggle, struggle.

Famine. I will make no attempt to joke about this, as it is one of the most horrifying events in history.

1912 - The Brits decide to throw IE a bone and offer up Home Rule which would give them (a little) independence. The Protestants in the North don't want to be outnumbered by the Catholics, so they say, "Um... no thank you." Then, these other guys, the Fenians, say, "Hey, we really want full independence and we're gonna fight for it. So there." They fight, but get their asses handed to them by the Brits.

1919-1922 - The War of Independence finally gets everybody's attention and negotiations between Irish Nationalists and the Brits result in the division of IE (North: Ulster and The Rest: Irish Free State) which causes a civil war. Finally, the division is solidified, and IE becomes The Republic of Ireland in 1949.

1925-1950 - But wait! There's more! The IRA! Guerilla activities against the Brits in the North are carried out by the minority Catholics until the Brits decide to send in some troops to straighten things out and make it all proper and shit.

1998 - The Belfast Agreement becomes the hesitant move toward peace by way of reform, reestablishment, and reducing the British military presence in the North. The IRA also decides to put the guns down. Phew.

Now, back to the motion from the debate. Partition should remain permanent. The debate was a history lesson from every side. I got a chance to hear opinions from both sides of the fence, and I think I learned more in those two hours than I could have in a semester of class. I hope you learned something just now, too.

The funniest thing is how this debate was structured. It was in the style of the Irish Times, which is distinctly different from British Parliamentary style. Then again, why on earth would you want to argue in the style of a country that caused the debate in the first place?