Debate shall last 5 days.

Sponsor: John Cole (D-IN)
Co-sponsors: Marcus Milam (R-TX)
Tom Coniam (D-AZ)
Cheetah Chrome (D-HI)
Michael Wilt (R-TN)

In the House of Representatives,

Mr. COLE, for himself and for others (Mr. MILAM, Mr. CONIAM, Mr. CHROME, Mr. WILT, and Mr. KEE), submits the following

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

I. Title

This concurrent resolution may be referred to as the �One Ireland Resolution.�

II. Findings

WHEREAS, in 1170, Henry II of England sought to conquer Ireland and established a small zone of control around Dublin, called Pale, which became in essence a �beachhead� for the conquering of Ireland;

WHEREAS, by the reign of Elizabeth I, all but the northern counties of Ulster had been brutally conquered by the British, and after a sanguinary campaign, these counties were taken, land confiscated from the Irish who lived there, and distributed freely to English settlers;

WHEREAS, the English settlers were Protestants, and the native Irish Catholic, and the English settlers sought to �civilize� the Irish through forced conversion to the Church of England and through the systematic stripping of rights to Irish Catholics;

WHEREAS, in 1801, the British government summarily dissolved any last pretense of self-government for Ireland through the Act of Union, dethroning the Irish King and abolished the Irish Parliament;

WHEREAS, the oppressive conditions imposed upon the Irish for years by the British government resulted in numerous uprisings, both parliamentary-oriented and violent, and the subsequent rebuffs and brutal repression of these movements by the British resulted in more and more violent movements among the Irish, including the IRA;

WHEREAS, in 1921, following the Government of Ireland Act passed by the British Parliament, civil erupted on the island, and the six counties of Ulster were kept in British hands;

WHEREAS, following the separation from Britain, the Protestant government of Northern Island sought to dissuade any thoughts of union with the rest of the island, including forming an overwhelmingly Protestant police force and engaging in economic discrimination against Catholics;

WHEREAS, in 1967, a group of moderate Catholics, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, began staging peaceful protests modeled after those tactics used by the contemporary Civil Rights movement in the United States, was met with repression by the British Army which spurred a revival amongst more violent unionists, and by 1972 resulted in the complete abolishment of local government in Northern Ireland and replaced it with rule from London;

WHEREAS, currently, schools are largely segregated between Protestant and Catholic, and this division results in a greater cultural division in Ulster;

WHEREAS, Catholics, despite anti-discrimination laws, are much more likely to be unemployed in Ulster than Protestants, and this unemployment discrepancy exists irrespective of skill of socioeconomic class level;

WHEREAS, a higher proportion of Catholics live in public housing, and Protestants many times are segregated from Catholics into their own neighborhoods, which many times have higher value and prestige, and Catholic public housing is often in a greater state of disrepair than Protestant public housing;

III. Resolution

BE IT RESOLVED, by the House and Senate of the United States assembled, that

(1) the United States fully supports the return of the six counties of Ulster to the Irish government;

(2) the President and his cabinet be directed to do such measures as they can to convince the British government to return Ulster to Ireland;

(3) the United States in no way condones terrorists, whether IRA or otherwise, nor the tactics they have used and sometimes continue to use to advance their particular position, and that the governments of Ireland and Great Britain take steps to root out and imprison such terrorists while respect the civil liberties guaranteed to the citizens of both countries;

(4) irrespective of anything else, the rights of both Protestants and Catholics be guaranteed and set on an equal footing in the counties of Ulster, and that steps be taken, through legislation and executive enforcement, to ensure equal rights in the region.

Mr. Chairman,

I oppose this resolution.

We should not come out to advocate such measures.

The people who should decide the fate of Ulster are the people of Ulster.

I yield

Mr.Chairman,
i agree with the gentleman from Missouri. Let the people of Ulster decide if they want British or Irish rule and then we'll support them from there.

Mr. Chair,

Whether anyone likes it or not, the people of Ulster want to be part of the United Kingdom. Until someone changes their minds, they will stay part of the UK.

I oppose this bill on those grounds. We should be focusing more on curbing terrorism abroad than messing around with Irish affairs of state.

I yield.