I'll stop you there. Firstly, the Irish governmant never have and never will willingly joined the mess that is the United Kingdom. Secondly, we reached consensus long ago that he self-identified as Irish and the country did exist at that time, just as Scotland, Wales or England are countries today. 

People like you are the reason that the UK, outside the disillusioned US, isn't very popular - no offence intended to the democratic and open-minded people that live in the UK.   I will be busy all this week, and most likely unable to add to this arguement, so I'm trying to get my message across in this post.