Can someone explain to me why I should support a united Ireland?

[minionofmidas]

Northern Irish protestants probably have no more Scottish ancestry than Western Scottish protestants (never even mind Scottish Catholics, that's a given of course) have Irish ancestry.

The North Channel is not very many miles wide. People have been migrating and even marrying across it since long before the "Plantations". The spread of Presbyterianism to Ulster is not chiefly the result of English government intervention (Anglicanism is a very different matter, of course).

[minionofmidas]

I've never understood why forcing the majority of population of a province into a country they don't want makes sense.

It usually doesn't.
As Patrick rightly points out, of course, the borders of Northern Ireland are a classic gerrymander - the maximum territory a pro-British government could hold in 1921 while following a semblance of democratic procedure, and not actually the territory that wanted to be split off.
Whether a United Ireland today would work out all that well is quite a different question... the unusual amount of ties that were never ruptured during the division is a good sign, but in general geographical cleavages are easier to create than to undo.

[minionofmidas]

The review happened but the results were not (at the time) released, nor of course acted upon. Creating a conspiracy theory as a result.
They were released decades later, and they had merely suggested to reunite some rural areas with their market towns. The North would have had gained a piece of Northwest Donegal, the Free State (as it was then) would have gained a number of smaller odds and ends elsewhere. I think the net sum was something of a wash.


EDIT: Northeast, of course.

[minionofmidas]

Is there a historical cause for the Catholic concentrations around the Loch?

[minionofmidas]

Is there a historical cause for the Catholic concentrations around the Loch?

Poor soil/bogland around a lot of the shores discouraged Protestant settlement.  Also Lough Neagh was and I believe is still owned by the Lord(s) Shaftesbury.  For hundreds of years it was also crown and private aristocratic fishing land which would discourage large scale business fishing ventures.

Thanks!