Photo by Newstalk
At one point in my career I was a member of a group called the Association of Teacher Educators of Europe (ATEE). I attended a number of their conventions and was involved in some joint research projects with academics from other countries. I noticed a number of things during the time I worked with the Association.
(i) Academics from the south of Ireland were enthusiastic participants in the group, both academically and socially. It was clear that they relished the links with their European colleagues and had a genuine sense of inter-connectedness with them. Academics from the north were conspicuous by their absence – I was the only one on several occasions. On the other hand, academics from Britain were quite prominent in the Association, although their participation didn’t have the fired-up enthusiasm of the Irish group.
(ii) I learnt that mainland European academics had a tendency to assume that Irish people were from Britain. This was invariably corrected, although I recall an occasion when I was asked if Ireland had its own language. Semi-indignantly I declared that yes, indeed, Ireland had its own language. “And you can speak it?” a Dutch colleague innocently inquired. Exit Irish party stage left, abashed.
So here’s the thing. Is Ian Paisley Jr correct when he predicts that just as the south of Ireland followed Britain into the EU ‘way back, it will follow it out of the EU inside the next few years?
There is no doubt that Irish people generally are committed Europhiles. They see what it has done for farming, for jobs, for infrastructure, for trade. Once Ireland was almost completely dependent on Britain for trade. Now the EU (and the US) are more important to the south’s economy than Britain, although Britain still is an important part of Ireland’s GDP. The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has said “The trade impact on Ireland [of Brexit] could be to reduce exports on the merchandisable side by 3%.” Other experts, however, speak of new opportunities for investment in the south by American and multi-national companies, when the south of Ireland becomes the only English-speaking region in the EU. And of course Brexit has raised the question of Scottish independence again, and even has the Taoiseach and the leader of Fianna Fail making noises about an eventual reunification of Ireland.
The truth is, we don’t know if the south of Ireland will be pressured into following the UK and leaving the EU. Personally, I doubt that it will happen. We haven’t begun to see the economic implications of Brexit on the UK but most commentators are firmly pessimistic, especially since Theresa May appears to have no plan, or if she has she’s keeping it up her jumper. There are glaring imperfections in the EU, but for political, social and economic reasons the south of Ireland will, I believe, prove Mr Paisley wrong.
I believe that the Republic of Ireland have no notion of getting out of the EU any time soon.Let’s face it , the UK will Brexit the EU eventually, with half the population hating the prospect and avidly still demonstrating against it.In other words they’ll go screaming and kicking. Already it is dawning on some of the population here that EU money which supported the outworkings of the peace process and the agri-industry , is about to dry up and they are already panicing. The EU financial support was part and parcel of the Good Friday deal.Will that have to be re-assessed and re-agreed now too?
No ..I think the Republic of Ireland will be happy enough to remain and feel part of the EU .They’ve always felt like Europeans.they embraced it. They had more enthusiam for that project than they’ve ever had for re-uniting with us in the north.After all , when the EU was getting up a head of steam in the early 1970s , in the north there was an ongoing war going on. They see us basically as a whole lot of trouble and they’d really have preferred that nothing would rock the current status quo at all. now there is a whole lot of talk about “hard “borders and “soft” borders which they’d rather not deal with , having already consigned the idea of borders to the bin long ago.We’re really going to be an odd kind of fish here holding the only imaginary line in the sand between the EU and the “outsiders” beyond it.
Perhaps two wrongs may provide an alternative.
We know Ian Óg’s views, but who dismissed the idea of a Welsh identity saying,
“between the mid-16th century and the mid-18th century Wales had practically no history at all, and even before that it was the history of rural brigands who have been ennobled by being called princes”.
Mr Kinnock also articulated his opinion about the House of Lords,
“The House of Lords must go – not be reformed, not be replaced, not be reborn in some nominated life-after-death patronage paradise, just closed down, abolished, finished.”
Mr Kinnock was introduced to the House of Lords as Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty in the County of Gwent. On assuming his seat he stated,
“I accepted the kind invitation to enter the House of Lords as a working peer for practical political reasons.”
When his peerage was first announced, he said,
“It will give me the opportunity… to contribute to the national debate on issues like higher education, research, Europe and foreign policy.”
The gentleman made little comment in relation to the violent confrontation at Orgreave between police and pickets at a British Steel Corporation coking plant on 18 June 1984. Gareth Pierce who acted as solicitor for some of the men, said that the charge of riot had been used,
“to make a public example of people, as a device to assist in breaking the strike”,
while Michael Mansfield called it,
“the worst example of a mass frame-up in this country this century.”
Speaking to the BBC’s Panorama programme, Neil Kinnock said: “Unless things change radically, and rapidly, it’s very doubtful I’ll see another Labour government in my lifetime.”
Perhaps Mr Kinnock is labouring under a misapprehension.
once towns and villages across the south become unrecognisable with thousands arriving unchecked they will see the errors of their ways.look at some english towns and cities being overrun now,this should be an example of what can happen with open borders.most of the brexit voters voted on immigration,if the irish people get a chance to vote they will vote the same before it is to late.
I never get this thing billy .What do you mean when you say something like …”across the south the towns and villages will become unrecognisable…Look at the way some English towns and cities being overrun”? What exactly is that all about ? You make it sound as if there’s going to be a bubonic plague. If you looked at the same towns and villages in the south fifty years ago , you wouldn’t recognise them either. That’s the changes that time brings everywhere.
i also said (this should be an example of what can happen with open borders)but you left that bit out.
I watched Andrew Marr’s history of the rise and feasibility of Scottish independence with interest. The ex Cabinet minister who was viciously anti independence had an interesting piece to say about what would happen if the first referendum had been successful. He said that it was impossible to imagine there being no border between Scotland and England because England, being in the EU, had free movement of workers and the EU would insist on controls at the border. Now fast forward to Brexit when we are assured there will be no hard border dividing Ireland. What has changed? Which utterance was a lie? Of course there will be a border with customs and ID checks and roads blocked and armed patrols. The unionist family will have full and part time employment – well those with one GCSE will – and we will have our own wee country back. Praise the Lord and all will be right again.
Saw it – tend to agree with you to some extent. Btw, shouldn’t it be ‘and pass the ammunition’ rather than ‘and all will be right again’? Ok, you knew that but were too discreet to mention it. Now I have.
The minister was Darling, by the way.
and what’s more, jude, we’ll make themuns pay for the wall. To please Perkins it will follow the line of the Black Sow’s Dyke.
Economically, the signs are that the stateen below the Black Sow’s Dyke, A Fhiosraigh agus Esteemed Blogmeister, will stay with the EU. Culturally, of course, it never actually left the UK.
Speaking of the dismal science, the signs which remain with one the longest are those expressed with the most economy.
A few examples from one’s own experience will suffice.
1. At the top of the wooden stairs in a small Tudor-style hotel where one stayed many years ago in Stratford –on-Avon, the black-beamed ceiling was so low – the generality were seemingly of smaller stature in the time of The Great Shakes –that the sign read, on reaching the landing:
-Duck or Grouse.
2. In the porch of a RC church in a planted part of County Donegal (hint: the centre triangle is called The Diamond) two signs in Leprechaun starkly announce themselves in the manner sublimely succinct:
-Chugat / Uait.
As Ian Og’s inner bilinguist would translate:
-Towards you / Away from you.
3. / 4. In the bar of what was still known as The European Club in an upcountry part of Nigeria in the late 60s (that would be, the late 1960s) one got two signs for the price of one, as it were:
-Adam / Eve
Read the signs on the toilet doors.
-Jim / James
Read the badges of the two local barmen. Neither Jim nor James (of the Yoruba tribe) ever quite knew what time the bar served the last orders. For closing time was a moveable beast and depended entirely upon when Ernie/Eric/Eoghan/Ebenezer/Eduardo / Emerson/Elisabeth / Egbert/ Enrico European decided it was time to call it a night.
The last tippler invariably left to the sound of a snore from the direction of a barman’s head buried in his arms on the counter (it might have belonged to Jim or to James).
(What, one might well ask was Hausfrau Elisabeth doing among that lot of wee hour wassailers ?. Much in the same way that one might ask what precisely HM Land Forces are still doing in the Preoccupied Six Counties. Could it have been something to do with Herr Engelbert being on a five-day sortie into the bush on anthropological duties? Say no more, Seymour).
The tune of the following Limerick is blatantly filched from, erm, the smash hit of The Clash:
SHOULD I. STAY OR SHOULD I. GO ?
Will the I for Ireland opt for Chugat
Or will the I for Ireland opt for Uait?
Should it be Irexit
Meaning I. Legs It
Shoot ! twill all boil down to the Loot.
Jude, on your point about what European Economic Community, then, did for Irish job’s, one name, Ferenka!
“but for political, social and economic reasons the south of Ireland will, I believe, prove Mr Paisley wrong”
Jude, I wouldn’t take Mr Paisley’s predictions that seriously, he has often been more wrong than right in the past when it came to predictions. He must take it after his father. Could you imagine if we were back in 1980 and you told both Paisley Snr/Jnr that one day Paisley Snr would be Joint First Minister with Martin McGuinness? That the DUP would be sustaining Sinn Fein in government? that Paisley would agree to the “On The Run” letters? (As Jonathan Powell’s 2006 book proves) and that the Irish Government would have routine involvement in major agreements here? That’s the last thing they would’ve predicted but yet it happened. Indeed in 1980 the Paisley’s were routinely predicting a mass Civil War of Doom if the IRA wasn’t destroyed. Or maybe that’s just what they wanted, whether the IRA existed or not.
I want, in the long term, for Ireland to be out of the EU. Why? because the EU project at the minute is built around creating an EU super state. That means real power wont rest in national parliaments, it will rest in Brussels or Berlin. Ireland has been in that position for most of its History when real power rested in London. Now, if the EU were to reform itself (which I think is the only way it can survive) into an economic block instead of a political block, then I would be Pro-EU. But that’s not likely to happen any time soon. I think the EU will be on the verge of collapse before that happens. We seen the latest signs of the attempt to create an EU super state just last week, where the EU want to create an EU Army. Germany/France already want EU members to have the same tax rates (say goodbye to Ireland attracting foreign investment) and that will soon be on the agenda.
Just last week Irish businessman and Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary came out and said the Irish Government should threaten the EU that Ireland will leave over the Apple tax court ruling. He said that if the ruling isn’t overturned then Ireland should definitely leave. That’s coming from someone who is usually very Pro-EU. Now a lot of people may not like O’Leary but the reality is he helped create one of the most successful airlines in the World and has created thousands of jobs here in Ireland, helping families make a good living. In my opinion, we need more Irish entrepreneurs like O’Leary and if we don’t produce them then we’re in trouble.
The Irish economy is still only a “young” economy. Ireland itself is thousands of years old but the Irish State (26 counties) is only around 70. We’re not padlocked economically to Britain like we use to be and that’s a good thing because the situation in the North this past 50 years alone shows what way the British Government views the Irish. We could still stay in the EU but I think the EU itself is more of a problem to Ireland than Brexit is. We should concentrate on forging economic links to other countries, like Australia and Canada, who have large Irish diaspora populations. Obviously continuing to deepen links with the USA is essential. If we need to leave the EU to do all this then so be it.