Irish people are not British. The nation is called "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". But then, being British doesn't mean much anyway. I would consider myself to be Scottish, maybe the SNP will change things so that one day thats what I officially will be.

It doesn't matter if Irish people are not "British". The people of Northern Ireland chose to remain part of the UK, and so they have the right to do so. It cannot be claimed that the land belongs to Irish Catholics, who are no more Irish by ancestry than many of the Protestants there. They may claim the land was forcibly taken from them hundreds of years ago, but that is irrelevant now. What matters is that the people of Northern Ireland chose to remain part of the UK. The Scottish Kingdom of Dalriada was formed by Irish settlers hundreds of years ago, and that Kingdom went on to rule all of Scotland. It erased completely the once dominant Pictish culture. The Britons of Stratchclyde and the Angles of Lothian were oppresed for centuries. Yet people in the lowlands today don't talk of fighting against the Irish invaders. Many people in western Scotland seem to like to think they are Irish. The current inhabitants of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the Union, and so their wishes should be protected. With the recent talks that have been going on there, things are looking brighter for both Catholics and Protestants now anyway.