Oh, I certainly didn't mean to imply there was a century long effort! Essentially what I'm contending is whether they ever had a genuine choice prior to 1998,

Oh, I certainly didn't mean to imply there was a century long effort! Essentially what I'm contending is whether they ever had a genuine choice prior to 1998, and I'd strongly suggest that the Third Home Rule Bill was that—though, had WW1 not happened, whether it would've avoided most of the bloodshed is inherently unclear, especially given the 1886 Belfast riots and the unwillingness to compromise on what was really all three sides. As for the political football, there's no denying it was—but that's true of many things in Westminster, both around the turn of the 19th/20th century and today.