Ireland
Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution as originally enacted in 1937 contained a territorial claim over the six counties of Northern Ireland, which lay under de facto British sovereignty (as they still do today). In particular, Article 2 stated that "he national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland". This was regarded by unionists in Northern Ireland as an illegal extraterritorial claim, and encountered some hostility. In 1999 the Republic of Ireland revised Articles 2 and 3 as part of the Northern Ireland peace process to remove the explicit territorial claim: they now provide merely that "t is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland... to be part of the Irish Nation". The Ulster Unionist Party has accepted the revision of the articles, but the larger Democratic Unionist Party has not.
Read more about this topic: Exclusive Mandate
Famous quotes containing the word ireland:
“Out of Ireland have we come,
Great hatred, little room
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother’s womb
A fanatic’s heart.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“No people can more exactly interpret the inmost meaning of the present situation in Ireland than the American Negro. The scheme is simple. You knock a man down and then have him arrested for assault. You kill a man and then hang the corpse.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)
“Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Breed out of the contagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)