Tinribs - I assume you are implying that Ireland is a former colony, in the way that perhaps Ghana, Nigeria or India are. The territory that is now the Republic of Ireland was of course formerly a constituent part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. My paternal grandfather who was born in Mullingar in the 1870s was a British citizen as much as my maternal grandfather who was born in Cornwall around the same time.
The fact that many Irishmen were unhappy to be part of the UK does not mean that they were colonials, whatever they might have thought.