Quote:
Originally Posted by BetterRed
I assumed that the UK and Ireland would be in the same time zone via them being in the Common Travel Area, an agreement that predates the existence of the EU and its foreunners by almost 30 years, and entered into a full 50 years before they joined the EEC in 1973. If they're not the same now then that's surely down to the EU's awkward squad.
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No, it dates from Railways in the 19th C. Ireland had separate time and indeed before railways many places in Great Britain (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1800 and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland maybe from 1923, they nearly reverted to just GB after 1921).
Almost half the population of Northern Ireland and almost all the population of The Irish Free State (Later just Ireland, Éire is Irish and the name has never been The Republic of Ireland) never accepted the unilaterally imposed partition of 1921. Actually a step towards independence was promised in 1914, but WWI came. The IRA had about zero support before the so-called Easter Rising, designed to provoke British atrocities, as has all IRA campaigns since.
The 1998 Good Friday agreement leveraged the membership of UK & Ireland both in the EU, so that Nationalists in NI could really identify as Irish and Unionists in NI really identify as British. The Assembly was a non-Demcratic Fudge because the First Minster and Second Minister have to come from Nationalist and Unionist parties or vice versa. Not all NI parties in NI are Unionist or Nationalist.
The Republican (non-constitutional Nationalists) and Loyalist (non-constitutional Unionists) terrorists mostly disarmed (there were later breakaway groups.
There had never been a border fence, but from 1922 there were customs posts and from 1970 military checkpoints. After 1998 GFA all the customs posts and army checkpoints and towers removed. It was as if NI was simultaneously in the UK and Ireland, via the magic of both being in the EU. The original 1914 plan was no partition, but the IRA violence from 1916 gave the British the excuse to partition to placate the Unionists and to have Unionist votes in Westminster.
Then Brexit. The UK was unable to negotiate an exit without taking into account the laws of the UK and the Treaties etc regarding NI!
The EU managed eventually to come up with a formula and essentially Boris Johnson agreed what Theresa May had been sacked for suggesting.
Magically, though UK has left the EU, there is still no physical border or customs posts on the island of Ireland between the six counties of 9 county Ulster comprising Northern Ireland, and the other 26 counties of Ireland.
So a DST in NI and no DST in the rest of Ireland is impossible. NI and the rest of Ireland have never been in different time zone as such apart from brief failed experiments of different DST.