[tom8517]

Why is that really? Once the ship building and linen mills were gone, the north ceased to be economically important. After WW2 with the increased range of aircraft and submarines the North's strategic importance as a forward base in the north Atlantic disappeared also.

Partition was a table scrap thrown to a loyal British dog. You needed the Orange man then, you used them in much the same way the southern aristocracy used poor southern whites in the American south. a cheap way to keep control. When their importance diminished after WW2, they became Britain's dirty little secret, a police state in modern, progressive western European democracy.

But why, when the the shit hit the fan in 1969, when you had a way out, you didn't, take it. Numerous calls for a UN brokered cease fire were ignored. Was it really worth it to sacrifice over a thousand young British lives to prop up your last colony? Medieval troglodytes like the orange order?