Is It Wrong/Contradictory To Follow "Northern" Ireland?

ROI fans - and I speak as one who’s missed very few home games in the last decade - are generally bland and mind-numbingly inoffensive. There’s basically zero contentious chanting ever at Lansdowne. England got a bit of abuse last September but by the end of the game most people just wanted to get the * out of there.

 

Why?

 

Do what makes you happy. If you live in the north of ireland, play in a football set up in northern ireland, have friends who are northern irish and who support northern ireland, it is a positive thing that you want to support Northern Ireland.

Appying some sort of moral dilemma to cheering on any football team is silly.

 

I think you raise an excellent point, the "Northern" Ireland team HAS indeed been hijacked in the name of British nationalism, and is that really fair that the team is associated with that? The support and the team aren't 1 in the same, "Northern" Ireland isn't Rangers, a club that once fully discriminated against catholics, NI has always had a mix of catholics and prods, unionists and nationalists, they never had Rangers type restrictions, they were just latched onto by a similar bunch of bigots

 

They’re kind of inextricably tied together given that the mere existence of Northern Ireland depends on them fostering a British identity of some sort.

Bigotry isn’t an essential component of that but more often than not it is, and that’s the kind of audience they tend to attract.

 

Because they're Irish, even if some of the people that live there are so desperate to be British that their national anthem and flag are that of the UK, they're still Irish and that's that

 

I'm not trying to be funny but can you explain please?

 

Youre accurate on that.

Ive been to fair few countries on this blue marble, and one thing ive noticed os the absolute refusal of Unionists/ loyalists to recognize the actual geography of their birth and residence.

If you meet a Scot and ask him if he is Scottish... Yes.
A welshman if he welsh... Yep.
An Englishman if hes English.... Yarp.

A "Northern Irishman" if he Irish...." no, Im British".

But at the same time the close minded sentiments of their support doesnt excuse the fact that the IFA mandate the teams National Anthem as * Save The King.
As you said in your earlier post; that's clear and incontrovertible evidence of partitionism, and concerted effort to exclude those of a nationalist identity from the support base.

 

Well, to put it another way, I can’t understand how non-PUL folk can go and stand to attention for GSTQ, and/or be part of a support whose views on Irish catholics/nationalists/anyone from the 26 counties are often pretty abhorrent.

There’s another Irish team who’re not supported by planters, who stand under the Tri-colour, and any person born on this island is eligible to play for them.

 

Ireland fans aren’t making up any rules “as they go along”. Anyone born in the 32 counties can qualify to play for Ireland - and rightly so. This is a fact. We have had numerous players from the 6 northern counties in the last 20 years or so. FFS, even that mercenary scumbag Alan Kernaghan was capped numerous times in the 90s (because the Pub Team refused to pick him due to him not being born in their illegal statelet), so tell me again how Irish fans are making up the rules as they go along?

 

@The Lord Of The Manner

Are you Northern Irish and want to go support them? Or is this just a hypothetical.

 

One club, open to all

 

You know what? I'm gonna take back what I said about ROI fans, you're right, I can't actually remember the last time I heard them chant anything abusive at a match, I based what I said on always seeing a few "Tiocfaidh ár lá" flags at games but you're spot on about the chanting.

You're quite right!

I think we have the troubles to blame for it to be honest, once the IFA finally embraced the name "Northern" Ireland in the early 1970s the war was in full swing and football fans likely took sides.

 

Once again you're spot on! Apparently the IFA blame Stormont for them not changing the anthem, and Stormont blame them, so someone is lying! I'd guess that the IFA are just terrified it'd upset their loyalist/unionist support if they changed it, either that or they themselves just don't want to. But it's a direct and total contradiction of them saying they want to make the NI team into a team for everyone, you're quite right!

I'd never stand and have never stood for that anthem, I think they need to change that, the flag and have some sort of compromised identity so everyone is included. As someone already said in this thread, it's the pro-loyalist supporters that hijacked the NI team and made it go hand in hand with bigotry. The IFA could do more to rid themselves of that too though such as doing what I said with the anthem etc. For the record I've always supported the ROI, have done for over 30 years, I've just recently developed a soft spot for the NI team after doing some research on the subject.

When I said "Irish fans make up the rules as they go along" what I meant was a true, die-hard Irish nationalist doesn't believe in supporting either NI or the ROI, they see Ireland as one country made up of 32 counties, neither NI or the ROI represent all 32 counties so neither are a true all-Ireland team, but many nationalists still support the ROI team (including myself) and pretend that it reps the whole of Ireland, and it's easy to understand why, they have the anthem, flag and Irish identity. Take the band Kneecap for instance, they're very vocal about getting the Brits out of Ireland right? They dislike "Northern" Ireland just like many nationalists and republicans do, but then they support the ROI team, which is a result of the partition of the country, therefore in reality they probably should ignore the ROI team until a true all-Ireland team comes along, but they don't, like I said they support the ROI which is a partitionist team, so they're moving the goal posts to suit their narrative, which is fine, many do, including me, that's what I meant when I said fans "make up the rules" etc.

 

I'm a (Republic Of) Ireland fan, have been for over 30 years, I've just recently developed a soft spot for NI after researching the history of them and Irish football in general. It seems a lot of what I thought about them isn't actually true.

Fair enough but I don't think that's strictly true, if a person walked into Celtic Park wearing a Rangers shirt and draped in a union flag and sat amongst the locals I don't think it would go down too well do you? So I don't think it's open to ALL, most but not all.

 

You're a hun on a fishing expedition

 

To answer the question nice and concisely, yes is the answer

 

No chance!

 

Okay, please give reasons for your answer

 

A team is defined by it's fans otherwise we'd be a tory club. Northern Ireland fans are very similar to the huns often sharing the same songs. If you want to support them the supporting sevco would be a better fit.

Supporting the 2 teams that play in Ireland would be like supporting Celtic and Rangers