So Peter Robinson is looking for converts – not religious ones, of course – they’ll still let them remain Catholics/Protestants/whatever – but political ones. Stop looking for Lundies, Peter told his party at the weekend, and start looking for converts.
Full marks for consistency, Peter. Sort of. In 2011, Peter was appealing to Catholics, blowing the trumpet for integrated education, urging all those Catholics happy in the Union to join the DUP. In June 2012 he said as much again: all those Catholics who agree with the DUP on social issues, education and the economy – their natural home was with his party.
But then came December 2012 and consistency was tossed overboard as the DUP and UUP sent out 40,000 leaflets, warning people that the Belfast City Council vote to fly the Union flag 18 times a year was really tearing down the Union flag and attacking the core cultural elements of unionism. The right-wing of unionism responded to Peter’s bugle-call with fervour and mayhem ensued. Not the best of billboards for attracting Catholics into your party, Peter. But here we are in 2014 and you’re looking for converts again.
I was part of a discussion on this very topic this morning on The Stephen Nolan Show, on BBC Radio Ulster/Raidio Uladh. Malachi O’Doherty made the point that there were lots of people like him from a Catholic background who were very happy with the Union but that Peter’s party wasn’t too attractive for them. If the first half of his statement is right then I’d agree with the second half: if all these Catholics are very happy under Mother Britain’s wing, then Peter and Co would need to change their tone and historical thinking if they want to win such Catholics. In fact I’d have thought the Alliance Party was the more natural home for people like Malachi. Let’s face it: would you, were you a Catholic, be terribly attracted to a party whose politicians, sixteen years since the Good Friday Agreement, can’t bring themselves to shake hands in public with the Deputy First Minister or any of his party? Despite the fact that the much-loved monarch of these politicians has done the hand-shake thing with Martin at least twice so far.
But maybe Peter is really chasing shadows. All these happy-in-the-Union Catholics out there are the product of Belfast Telegraph polling and the fact that the ‘Northern Irish’ box got ticked a lot in the census form. The elections next month might show Peter there are rather fewer fenians available for conversion than he thought.
I think Fenians may be big effers
No, no, John – we know our place. Head down…
Why is MOD (well-named) always wheeled out as a Catholic happy with Union. Why do we never have Protestant Nationalists a la John Robb/Wesley Holmes. BBC NI agenda?
Oh Jude
I myself don’t vote for the DUP. But you have given me a great insight as to how an old bitter twisted dynasour thinks. There is nothing you could do to please your kind.
Oh and while your pondering looking back, who really would want to share anything with you. BORING BORING BORING
Jeez Norma – do try to make it clear which Jude you’re talking to. For a moment there…
Norma, you probably SHOULD consider voting DUP. I think you would be right at home there. As for the perfect acronym that is MOD, didn`t he admit to blowing a whistle INSIDE his house as part of the communal protest at internment (I think) and STILL got beaten up by the British army? Hardly a shining example of Irish Nationalism. I don`t actually know ANY of my co-religionists who would say they were Unionists, but think it would be a good idea if we did have Catholic Unionists and Protestant Republicans. Can`t see the DUP attracting many Catholics, not while the party is full of Bible thumping fundamentalists who hate the Pope. Peter`s great love for integrated education possibly has less to do with a wish to see all children mixing and more to do with a desire to lessen the Catholic Church`s influence.
Norma, as AJ stated , you really should be voting DUP, you would fit in well with all the dour long faced naysayers.
As for MOD, he is entitled to his opinion as everyone is, but nationalist he is not. His writings remind me of C Cruise O’Brien, , full of hot wind
Peter procrastinates while the dysfunctional assembly drifts into elections. What can we expect? Marching, bonfires and flags. There is a dearth of debates on the complex issues facing the electorate on social and economic matters such as 0 hours contracts, the minimum wage, unemployment levels and educational disadvantage. Anyone for a circus and some cake?
Jude :
i listened in on yourself ,Malachi et al this morning. I was glad that Steven wasn’t about because he has a really bad habit of always butting in at the wrong point in the conversation…..
That said, I suppose after the thing with Her Maj, Martin and the President , there was bound to be some kind of noise from Peter and the DUP. If the unionists here know anything other than saying “No”, it must have occurred to them that the tide is suddenly coming in very quickly and they haven’t secured the lifeboats. They should have been working on the Catholic/ Nationalist vote years ago. I’m afraid they haven’t done anything that I can remember …in fact , they’ve been downright crooked…. ,so why would anyone vote for them ?
.There are a lot of people out there who may be thinking that they’d be better off staying with Britain because it looks good economically and it’s a bit less conservative socially than siding with a more conservative southern republic…. . The unionists in the north are ultra conservative at a time when many northern nationalists are drifting further from the Church and are seeking a more secular ireland …much like the more secular Britain that they’ve gotten used to …what with the media , music , television and so on….That social part of it was always somehow separate from the Troubles….”Coronation Street” was still lapped up for fifty years while the bombs kept on keepin ‘ on…. Some people , like my late mother -in-law would never miss “Emmerdale” !!!. We all had our favourite rock groups and so on….
I don’t think either side saw this one coming. A lot of people want a new Ireland free of the old battle cries of Orange and Green …Malachi, for example may have some experience of the the “hard men” who’ll drop morality when it suits and lick the altar rails for confession next day. There has always been that hypocrisy tangled around politics and religion in Ireland and neither Protestants nor Catholics come out of it with clean hands.
At the moment, give Anna Lo and the Alliance their due…they are not ambiguous about their beliefs and I know a few old SDLP voters who will harvest their vote simply because they made a stand,…. took a chance and stood up against the easy choices and tried to make a difference. I don’t think it’s actually a vote for a “soft” unionist party…It’s vote for a “decent ” soft unionist party .It may not be a vote forever but it would be a vote of protest against conservatism.. or either stripe …for the present….
TV Mike and the UUP and the various old bitter men and women of the DUP are never going to gain any respect from “soft” nationalists/catholics ,simply because they are seen as poor politicians , unable to really sell a horse, cut a deal or compromise for the greater good….only capable of biting their own tails and racing forever in circles like some crazed puppies…..
I would really love to know where all these “Unionist Catholics” are hiding out, I have never came across any and election after election they seem too shy to come out and vote Unionist.
I would really like to know how Peter is going to appeal to Catholics to vote for his party (or any Unionist party), will he come out and defend Catholic residents right of being free from sectarian harassment when it comes Loyalist marching season? Will he condemn loyalist bandsmen who urinate on Catholic churches and who march around in a circle outside Catholic churches playing sectarian tunes as vigorously as his party condemns Orange Halls being attacked? I somehow doubt it….
Reality is there is just as many Catholic Unionists as there is Protestant Nationalists, both are small minorities. Well that’s my opinion anyway.
I am sure there are many young Catholics who care more about the weather than the border…but at the same time I doubt they will vote for any party that constantly defends those groups and individuals whose entire being is to be violently loyalist. When the DUP, UUP and other alphabet soup of Unionist political and NGO’s seem incapable of calling out the violent sections of support without blaming the violence on the police, nationalists and anyone they can think of, the amount of support they will get will be the same hangers on they have had for 30 years.
On another topic, it has just dawned on me that for years the Unionist politicians told us the `IRA would never be able to bomb us into a united Ireland`, implying a political motive behind Republican armed actions, yet as soon as we approach peace we are reliably informed the whole thing was just a crime wave. Interesting.
I agree with paddykool with regard to British tv programmes, music etc but of course I can also enjoy Italian opera and Chinese cooking without wishing to be ruled by foreigners!
If you’re hunting Catholic Unionists, I’ll point yiz in the right direction. What about the 20%+ who joined the PSNI?
Another Jude
Like yourself , I have very “catholic” tastes in music, art , culture and food …”.universal “, more like., but i’m just pointing out that not everyone of the Catholic{with a large “C” } or Nationalist persuasion , actually hated the British or British culture..They may not have liked what the politicians or their army , were doing but they rubbed along with the people and the general culture okay .They went to Britain in droves to work, to holiday and get education. They had aunts and uncles living in England and extended family.The music on the radio was much-loved pop music….
As we were saying last week , they built Britain’s infrastructure and went on across the generations to mix and influence how they thought and behaved….
Of course we want to be masters of our own fate in the end but our unionist neighbours appear to have no intention of wanting to live in a free pluralist society like Britain just yet. It looks like we’ll have to wait while enough of them catch up. I would like the future Ireland to be that kind of free pluralist society which is a strong mixture of cultures all rubbing along together..Obviously people who have arrived here from all over europe, bringing their own food and cultures with them.
Unionists appear to want some sort of little walled fort here where gays don’t exist or are “treated”. They certainly don’t want them to marry and live together. The more extreme ones don’t appear to want any foreigners coming in and “taking their jobs”… even though the Irish emigrated everywhere and took jobs willy-nilly, almost building America by accident in the process.
. They want to have a free hand to censure any plays they don’t agree with.Never mind the rest of us! That all sounds a bit like the Taliban to me..
At best , what unionism wants is a vision of Britain that ceased to exist somewhere around 1957….right down to the Sunday -Go-To- Meeting suits and the ladies’ Sunday floral hats.
Complete and utter piffle in regards to your coments about unionists you have no idea whatsover and your ignorance should shame you.
Alright, Neil. Give us some evidence that Unionists/Loyalists want a free pluralist society here in Ireland, just like in Britain.
Ok I will give you an example of a unionist who wants and believes in a pluralist society me.
It would seem that even you can beat Peter Robinson for consistency, well at least when you want a good old sectarian knees up. Rewind the last DUP conference and we were reliably informed by you that Fr Bartlett had a laissez faire approach to his personal hygiene after being strapped into the front row of the conference. This time around you managed to squeeze in fenian as in “wouldn’t have one about the place” fame. Not surprisingly the first comment to-day was able to add effers to it for even better effect. And as Peter Robinson quickly became a variety of terms of endearment and the flag came down and the flags went up, amidst the mayhem there were trumpets blowing and bugles calling. And the end result was a stampede by the iron filings to the keyboards to tell Peter Robinson that they wouldn’t have him or his ilk about the place which of course you had already told them. I thought Norma Wilson made fair points up until “you” but the gushers leapt to your defence admirably. Someone I feel should have pointed out earlier that using Steven when referring to Nolan is now deemed a criminal offence, and should be spelt with a ph/aitch.
Pretz – it’d be good if you’d be more specific who you’re talking to. I don’t want to waste valuable time if it’s not me.
Jude : That very thought struck me too …I’m all for “one -liners” if they refer to something specific that I can catch in a net…..
Neil : At the moment that sounds like one hand clapping when I listen to the antics of political unionism even in this past few months…..but glad to have you onboard in any case…..
; ) Everybody is an individual paddykool but I am glad you have joined with me….
Neil : Don’t follow leaders and watch your parking meters….
People can scoff at robinson in his efforts to convert taigs but in reality he isnt nessecarily looking them to vote for the DUP rather just to vote no in any future united ireland referenda. The drip drip feeding via the biased media, of ‘northern ireland’ this and ‘northern ireland’ that, is no doubt having an effect on our younger generations thinking. Whether subtle changes like e.g changing the name of the Ulster Cancer Foundation to the Northern Ireland Cancer Foundation or rolling out assimilated taigs like rory mclroy; these will have an effect on the thinking of upcoming generations.
Call it social engineering or brainwashing if you will but combine it with the subtle underminimg of the catholic school education system and there is the very real potential of more of these ‘assimilated’.
These people do not want integrated education, they simply want to tame the catholic schools so much that they will be afraid to teach irish history for fear of accusations of teaching republicanism etc. If they can water down history then they can almost guarantee ignorance.and disinterest among the taigs.