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Originally Posted by Highland Thistle
A desperate situation can call for desperate measures. They could "accept" becoming one with the ROI, but only to turn there backs and work against it from with in. Bombs going off in Dublin City centre with out any regard for lives. (This is just my opinion of what could happen of course.
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You mean in the sense that the IRA did this in the north?
There are two big differences here:-
1) The Loyalist community from NI would be only in the region of around 10% of the total population of a United Ireland. So very much in the minority. Contrast this with the fact that the Republican/Nationalist community in NI is nearing the 50% mark, so they have had a far stronger section of society to draw support from.
2) The Loyalist paramilitaries have never been sophisticated enough to mount a serious threat to civic order. The Dublin and Monaghan bombs detonated in the Republic may have had Loyalist involvement, but the operation as a whole was the work of British Intelligence. The Loyalists simply didn't have the know-how to carry out such an operation. Left to their own devices, the best they can manage on their own is things like what the Shankhill Butchers did - go around indiscriminately abducted and butchering innocent Catholics.
Without British support and aid, they are no more dangerous than normal criminals and thugs. At best, they are on a par with organised crime (which is essentially what they are anyway).
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Good point, but most Loyalists wont be to happy too see there precious cocoon collapse so to speak.
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No they won't, but they have always been full of bluster and hot air.
Ultimately, if such a thing happens and the Brits pull out then they won't have much choice. They will have to either integrate into the rest of Ireland or emigrate across the water to remain British citizens. That's the only realistic choice they will have.
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They do exist, so I can see a united Ireland going through trouble with Orange-Paramilitaries.
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They wouldn't last long. If Orange societies don't want to be deemed subversive and outlawed by a 32 county Irish state then they will condemn and distance themselves from an increasingly alienated Loyalist hardcore fringe. That fringe itself will for the first time be subject to the law on equal terms as everyone else. They will be raided for arms, their leaders imprisoned and their organisations outlawed.
With the more moderate members of the Loyalist population realising from the ir co-religionists in the south that the Irish Republic is not some medieval theocracy under the tyranny of the Pope as they imagined, the place will eventually settle down to civic order and life will continue much the same as always. Those who are currently lauded as some kind of Loyalist folk heroes will simply be imprisoned and treated like every other criminal in a normal society.