Ever-so vaguely: "What do we, 'the British', do about 'Ireland' and 'the Irish'?" Many modern countries were once British protectorates, or administered by Britain as part of her Empire proper. The Republic of Ireland is unique in actually having been an integrated part of the United Kingdom, in the same way Poland was once divided up between and integrated into Prussia, Austria and Russia. Like in Poland, proto-nationalism in Ireland never quite died in spite of this, mostly due to the sentiments of the literate elite who composed the vanguard of nationalism as we know it today in the 18th and 19th centuries.