What should the voting age be?

[gaelic cowboy]

Following from the example above, your Irish certainly haven't been treated any worse than our saami, yet we have managed the transition from master/slave to equal citizens through democracy... Do you believe in genetics? Are the Irish genetically determined to be incapable of living with other brits?

Your trying to say all the British had to do was listen to us or to be seen to value our culture etc etc that was never going to work in 19th and early 20th century UK the system was set up as a monarchy we wanted a Republic.

A quick google says the sami are what 70,000-140,000 in total across what say four countries the population of one county like my own one Mayo today is over 120,000 alone. We can safely assume the sami voice is well drowned out but several million people is not so easily brushed aside by "listening"

Also your forgetting economic factors the Sami were easily pushed aside but in Ireland once very simple things like education, freedom of religon, voting, ownership of land and security of tenure were given to the catholics we had a much greater power to change the reality to our own liking.