100 years on: How do today’s Loyalist teenagers see their Northern Irish identity?

"British values are....bonfires, band parades and orange orders." That must be news to people actually living in Great Britain.

I mean, have these “Protestants” never visited the Irish republic? The way they talk about it, you’d think Ireland were Saudi Arabia or North Korea 🤦

They are terrified. Terrified that they will be treated the same way they've treated others.

I'm an Irish Catholic and I couldn't give a rats about the border I see everyone as equal we're all people at the end of the day

"There just gonna steal everything from us" lol someone give that lad a history book...

As a southerner it pisses me off how these young people say that we’re out to get them and destroy their culture to the ground. This is simply not true. At every corner we have tried to reach out to unionists and we will keep doing that. What’s values does Britain afford that Ireland does not? They are so similar as countries

Loyalists have long parroted the fears of their predecessors of being victimised the same way they victimised the Irish but when Ireland is reunified the people born on this island are welcome to this land. They were born here and deserve to live here as much as anyone else. They invented the threat on their own.

I'm from the "other side" as it were and do not hate these kids at all. They're our neighbours and we are all related if we go back far enough. This is just really sad. These working class communities are suffering and have to be shown there is a world outside of bonfires and band parades. It seems to be a real self-limiting way to live and you automatically exclude yourself from ever making friends with the other half of the population. They're just kids, but it's disturbing to see adults manipulate them and convince them that taigs and everyone else are their enemies when most are just trying to get on with their lives.

As a welshman and a brit, with a irish father, I often think the northern Irish loyalists are stuck in a 1690s timeloop. Their idea of british patriosim is staunchly very different to mainland British patrioism in the sense that they associate a religious element to it. Any brit outside of Glasgow or Liverpool will understand what I mean.

I would love to hear these young kids pressed a wee bit to actually define what they think "British values" actually are.

I feel bad for the protestant girl that says she wouldn't feel safe walking down the road. The thing is, she'd be more than welcomed to come down south any day. Nobody down here really cares where your from. You're either a good person or not.

As a German, when you see these reactions, you can only shake your head and seriously ask yourself what has gone wrong here since the Good Friday Agreement. In Germany, Catholics and Protestants live peacefully together. There are even church events where Catholics and Protestants work side by side and neither bothers about the denomination of the other nor in everyday life asks whether someone belongs to one group or the other.

A 19 year old who sees his loyalism defined as gathering wood for a bonfire .

These kids didn't really sound to me like they were speaking from the heart, or with much passion. It sounded like recited dogma. Abandoned by their politicians and the State they feel "loyal" to means that's all that's left. It's a real shame.

It's sad hearing these kids talking about being 'under threat' in a united Ireland. I'm from the Republic and I don't know anyone who would want to try deprive them of their culture and identity. This paranoia must be drummed into them by the parents or hardliners on social media because its total nonsense. Ireland is a much more diverse place these days with people of all creeds and cultures. People in the south are not like hardline nationalists in the north. We don't have the same antagonism towards unionists that some nationalists in the north do, because we were spared from the violence of the troubles. Northern nationalists might resent me saying that, but it's the truth. British people are the second largest immigrant population here after the Polish, and they all seem to like it here just fine.

"They're just gonna steal everything from us, all our freedom." As an Irishman watching people say this actually makes me worry. Ever since we regained our own freedom in 1922, we have never occupied or attempted to occupy any foreign nation and work to protect those who can't protect themselves. And personally, I think that even if the Union ends, NI will just become its own State. As free as any other. What I just don't understand is why religion makes everyone hate each other, after all isn't it all about caring for each other? And it isn't just in Northern Ireland.

His parents must have had a sense of humour calling him Ryan. One of the most common surnames in the Republic of Ireland.

I'm kind of taken aback that the girl at 1:49 thinks she'd be under physical threat by a united Ireland. Is she not aware that we do have Protestants and Brits living in the south? And the majority of them get on just fine.

"Loyalists", or more accurately "Delusionists", are widely viewed as the proverbial institutionalized relative we all know and pity. One day, I hope they'll overcome their Stockholm condition and come to recognise and appreciate Ireland - a country that is not, and never has been, British.

Their British values once was " a protestant ulster for the protestant people" that's long gone. These young people need to be taken on field trips around the republic of Ireland and see how well off the republic really is and especially see how the republic of Ireland don't give two hoots about you and your bonfires they have much more important concerns going on in their lives.