Fable

The British are a force of occupation in Northern Ireland.

Fact

Northern Ireland is part of the UK because the majority Ulster-Scots Protestant population democratically expresses their wish for it to remain so. Ireland was partitioned 80 years ago to prevent a bloody civil war between the Protestant Ulster-Scots majority in the north (Ulster) who wished to remain in the Union with Scotland, England and Wales and the majority Catholic Irish in the south of Ireland who wished to become an independent Catholic state. Northern Ireland today has a population of 900,000 Ulster-Scots Protestants and 750,000 Irish Catholics. The British Army is in Ulster to prevent a war between the two peoples.

Fable

The IRA have been fighting a war of liberation against the British.

Fact

The IRA have been carrying out a campaign of murder, terror and intimidation against the Ulster-Scots Protestant population to drive them out of Northern Ireland. Those overseas who make donations to the IRA are contributing to the deaths of Northern Irish Protestants. Indiscriminate IRA bombs have killed more Ulster Protestant men, women and children than they have British soldiers. The IRA and their Protestant Loyalist counterparts the UDA and LVF (who have been carrying out a similar campaign of terror against the Irish Catholic population), run criminal empires in their own communities, controlling drugs, prostitution and protection rackets. The IRA also has close links with world terrorism, especially the PLO, ETA and now FARC in Columbia. The IRA/UDA/LVF are not representative of the vast majority of decent Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

Fable

If Britain would just leave Northern Ireland, then the Ulster-Scots Protestants would accept becoming Irish and the Island could be united in peace.

Fact

While the southern Republic of Ireland is no longer the 'Catholic State' it once was, Ulster's Protestant population would never willingly come under its control. The Ulster-Scots have more in common with Scotland (religion, culture and speech) than they could ever have with the Irish and the prospect of gradually being absorbed and losing their distinct identity holds no great appeal. The Scots who settled Ireland in the 1600s were just the latest in a long list of invaders to settle in Ireland and their presence gives them as much claim to the land they live on as the Iberian Gaels, Danes or Normans who settled before them.

Fable

Ulster-Scot Presbyterian participation in the 1798 United Irishman Rebellion is proof that the Presbyterians of that time considered themselves Irish and could do so again.

Fact

In 1798 the Presbyterians were sick of English Episcopal persecution and after witnessing the success of the Scots-Irish (Ulster-Scots) led revolution in America, some decided they would be better of as masters of their own destiny in Ireland. While some of the Presbyterian leaders of the rebellion in Ireland genuinely wanted to unite with the Catholic Irish in a new society, the majority just wished to replace Anglican (Episcopal) rule from England with Ulster-Scots Presbyterian rule, and wanted to use the Irish Catholics to help bring this about. The rebellion failed because in some instances Irish Catholics informed the English garrisons and also far fewer Ulster Presbyterians took up the call to arms than was expected. Within a generation of the failed rebellion, the Ulster Presbyterians had come to view the Catholic Irish as the main threat to their existence, and with the end of Episcopal persecution of Presbyterianism the Ulster-Scots were convinced that union with the rest of Britain was essential for their survival. The IRA republican movement in Ireland today is exclusively Catholic and not an organization that the Ulster-Scots Presbyterians of 1798 (or for that matter 2003) could feel at home in.

Fable

There are 44 million Irish Americans.

Fact

There are actually 17 million Catholic Irish Americans - the other 27 million are Protestant Scots-Irish Americans (Scots-Irish is the US term for Ulster-Scots). Despite being born in the north of Ireland, those of Irish Presbyterian descent are ethnically Scots. The Scotch-Irish were the frontiersmen who carved America out of the wilderness, the Catholic Irish did not arrive until much later, after the Irish potato famine. It is a source of considerable consternation among Northern Ireland's Ulster-Scots population when Scots-Irish Americans celebrate the Irish St Patrick's Day (although St. Patrick predated Roman Catholicism, he was an English slave and therefore not someone people of Scottish descent would likely be celebrating!). Certain US States have taken to holding an annual Scots/Scots-Irish day for the Scots and Scotch-Irish to celebrate their true heritage.