One of the saddest things about Irish people – individuals, rather than the entire race – is their willingness to play the fool for the amusement of their English masters. You can choose your own examples from the past fifty years. But it now seems the Irish government is getting in on the act, albeit without the jokes.
While we were all wondering how the British government/army were going to enforce a hard border here in the wake of Brexit, it now transpires they won’t have to bother, because the Irish government will attend to that pesky immigrant thing for them.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan explains (listen carefully – he tends to talk very softly):
“If you do not have a border going from Newry, going across, dividing Sligo and Donegal from the northern counties, the next step is to have control at the ports. That would mean Rosslare and Larne, and the airports, but that wouldn’t be much more than the normal checks we have at airports already, where you show your passport”.
If you were of a positive frame of mind, you’d likely say the glass was half-full and you can’t wait to see the southern government taking over the quizzing of those entering Ireland via Larne. If you were of a less positive frame of mind, you might say the glass was virtually empty except for a tiny dribble at the bottom.
What is being proposed, in order (theoretically) to avoid unwanted people or goods entering the UK is that the Irish government will do the job for Britain. The Irish authorities will do all the checking of those who might seek to enter the UK by way of Ireland. That’ll free Britain up to look after her own ports and airports.
As well as being subservient (“That’ll be grand, sir, leave it to us, we’ll be after stoppin’ them foreigners from getting into your country for you, sure it’ll be grand”), this proposal sounds a short way from daft. Brexit will change everything. At present, EU nationals are free to enter Ireland north and south. After Brexit, EU nationals will still be free to enter the south of Ireland but not the north.
Right.
But if an EU national actually wanted to get into the UK, couldn’t s/he enter Ireland via, say, Rosslare, and from there make his/her way into the UK by crossing the Irish border?
Well yes, you might say. But s/he’ll be stopped at the border by the authorities.
Except that this whole scheme was supposed to do away with the need for a hard border where the identity of those passing through will be subject to scrutiny. It would appear that Mr Noonan and Co are proposing a political journey that will show them as being happy to carry out Britain’s work, except that it’ll bring them back to the central question they started with: is a hard border necessary? If the UK does a Brexit, it’s difficult to see how there won’t be.
Back to the drawing board, Michael.
ports] and the airports, but that wouldn’t be much more than the normal checks we have at airports already, where you show you
Members of the Irish government have signalled support for UK plans to shift the frontline of immigration controls to Ireland’s ports and airports post-Brexit in an attempt to avoid a “hard border” between the north and the south.
The Irish Republic’s finance minister, Michael Noonan, said neither the Irish nor the UK government wanted a hard border once Northern Ireland has left the EU along with the rest of the UK.
Analysis Post-Brexit world could see Ireland carrying out Britain’s passport checks
A digital ‘outer common perimeter’ using traveller data offers solution to controlling immigration and avoiding a hard border
Read more
“If you do not have a border going from Newry, going across, dividing Sligo and Donegal from the northern counties, the next step is to have controls at the ports. That would mean Rosslare and Larne [sea ports] and the airports, but that wouldn’t be much more than the normal checks we have at airports already, where you show your passport,” he told the Irish Times.
Frances Fitzgerald, the Irish deputy prime minister and justice minister, said her government was agreeable to the plan, adding there was “not anything surprising” in the proposals.
Earlier, James Brokenshire, the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary, said London and Dublin would work together to strengthen Ireland’s external borders in order to combat illegal immigration into the UK once it leaves the EU.
While Noonan and Fitzgerald welcomed Brokenshire’s promise that the common travel area between Britain and Ireland would continue to exist, the Irish coalition government has stressed that any new intelligence-gathering and data-sharing system on people entering Ireland who may also travel into Northern Ireland must win support from all of the Republic’s EU partners.
“After Brexit, EU nationals will still be free to enter the south of Ireland but not the north”
Eh? When was this announced???
Look Jude, there is no point in knocking the latest suggesting to avoiding a return to the border. No body wants a hard border between North and South. All potential solutions must be looked at and tried.
The North is the elephant in the room, if only it wasn’t in the UK….. but it is… and thats the problem. Until there is a border poll & enough people want a UI… we have to stick with it
.
But as a border resident living within walking distance of the border, if they return to hard check points again, i would be expecting to see the end of the peace process.
Oriel27…..well said. I’m not a big fan of Noonan et al, but he clearly sees that something has to be done to avoid a hard internal Irish border.
Not sure how this mooted scheme can work. If someone requiring a visa to enter the UK but not requiring one to enter Southend Ireland turns up at Rosslare without a UK visa, what do the immigration authorities do?
They can’t turn him away as he’s entitled to be in Southern Ireland. So.if they let him in what use is the border check to the UK as he can just travel up to Dun Laoghaire and get a ferry into the UK.
MT
None of these so-called proposals look very clear at all; however, contrary to the fear expressed by Jude that Ireland risks being “subservient” to Britain, one solution to your scenario is that of passport/Visa checks between the island of Ireland and the island of Britain.
In that case, at least some travelling through Irish ports to Britain – in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – would be subject to checks of some kind.
If so, then, with no ‘hard border’ between NI and the RoI your suggested ‘someone’ could enter the RoI and travel to one part of the UK (i.e Northern Ireland) without any checks, and then be required to present a Visa or passport to travel from one part of the UK to another (i.e NI to Britain).
In this case, the UK border has been redefined.
Not exactly good news for Unionists.
Just 1 thing,and it seems to be a common mistake,Co Sligo hasn’t a border with the 6 counties,or indeed with Donegal or Cavan.
Maybe Arlene and the DUP have played a blinder and got what they wanted, a hard border to reinforce their siege mentally to make them feel more British.
This scheme doesn’t stop EU nationals illegally entering the UK via Ireland. Apparently the brits aren’t worried about this for two reasons – 1) they think the number will be very small as EU workers won’t want to work illegally without protections such as health care etc 2) the EU nationals could swagger into Belfast no worries but the second they attempt to get to Bristol they’ll be scooped at the airport – Britain will be ok, job done.
Quite frankly any proposals which do away with the need for a hard border are worthy of very serious consideration. Dublin already carries out passports checks for London anyway as both are outside schegen.
‘Omnishambles’ doesn’t even come close…
Insensitive Pat Kenny of Newstalk fm, Esteemed Blogmeister, had a circumnavigating tete a tete this morning with a Donegal dude in which the post-Brexit danger of the existing Dyke being turnpiked was the topic.
That, of course, would be the Dyke which runs, or at least, power jogs with both buttocks harmoniously swinging like a happy hammock between both ends of the Black Sow.
More of which anon: suffice to say at the mo, going forward, that their mutual distaste for which danger bordered on the detestation.
But first, EB, to accept your kind invitation ‘to choose examples of Irish people willing to play the fool for the amusement of their English masters’.
It did not take The Perkin too long to scratch his free-range egg-head for to come up with a thatched winner of that most prized pat on the back for Pat the Patronised: it led as it were from beginning of scratch to the dead end.
No need for one’s inner bogger of a blogger to be at loggerheads with himself. The winner by an Oirish mile was:
-Father Ted.
To this day, one never goes to one’s feather bed at night without checking under said item of furniture to see that one’s most cherished possession is still there: one’s Confession Box Set of Father Ted. One received it as a going away gift from the Catholic Church before driving off in a lapsed Cadillac.
Has any one object ever given birth to more unfettered mirth? One soupspoon, oops, soupcon of its deathless script which is never destined for the crypt:
Fr. Ted Crilly; That would be quite common, you know. The favourite son would
have become a doctor and the idiot brother would have been
sent to the priesthood.
Fr Dougal Maguire: Your brother’s a doctor, isn’t he?.
Father Ted Crilly: He is.
One fascinating aspect of this comic series which rivals even Michael O’Leary’s economic theories for its sheer atomic ability to split the sides of those on Both Sides , never quite got the attention it deserved.
That was the unusual juxtaposition of Ted and Dougal. Dougal? Google the number of RC priests in Ireland called Dougal and the result would probably be akin to the number of titles which Norwich FC have won.
One mentions Norwich FC because back in the day, and a dear dead day beyond recall it is, going f., when every English club featured at least one English player in its team, there was a Scot called Ted McDougall who played for Norwich FC.
So ? He won the Golden Boot for being the top scorer in the league. Though, being a six-footer, as Woody Allen might have put it, certainly put him at an unfair advantage to win the G. Boot award.
So, was this nameplay a coded message being relayed from one cohort of the In-Gang to another cohort of the same I-G. for whom the game of the O.G. is one of the New Religions of the New Ireland?
Of course, Dermot Morgan, who played the roll-over and tickle me role of Father Ted, was a messianic missionary for the Holy Cause of replacing the outmoded term soccer with Football.
The local Witches of Eastwich in West Britannia would have approved of this nod towards Norwich FC. Except of course Footie wasn’t in female fash at the time, going b.
The late actor – who sadly departed the screen all too early – is commemorated by a Jester’s Chair in Merrion Square and it is a quare looking yoke entirely. Sort of akin to an electric chair sculpted in Bog Oak. A finer tribute for a Wester Brit than most would be difficult to (gulp) sculpt.
The location is not without irony.
Merrion Square had been bought by the Papes early in the 20th C and the Big Plan was for to construct (gasp) a Catholic Cathedral in a (sigh) predominantly Catholic city, denominational-wise, going backward.
He who laughs last etc.
Meanwhile, there are still two, erm, former RC cathedrals in Dublin. Raw material for a gobdaw comedy series, perhaps?
Pat Kenny was one of the first to give Dermot Morgan a break on RTE, between the ad breaks. Coincidentally, there was no lack of pig irony in the Pat Kenny Show this morning or indeed in a harrowing interrogation he had to endure in The Unionist Times last Saturday.
This was to coincide with His Life Time Achievement Award thingy which he was either about to receive the night before or was yet to receive that night. Either way, rumours of his anglicize could never be too greatly exaggerated.
-I’m not sensitive to criticism any more.
Screamed the agonizing headline over the harrowing interrogation.
-Pat remembers RTE in the early 1970s. It was a very strange place: ‘ The studios were then located in Henry Street with no canteen, where everyone had Irish names because having a name as Gaeilge was something that was encouraged and might get you a promotion. I kicked against the goads a bit because I was long haired, of the moment’.
(Typographical note: goads rather than gonads).
Those Henry Street studios, incidentally, where the Leprechaun was menacingly mandatory, were located in the (gulp) G.P.O.
Among the items (which is a near Spoonerism for ‘Times’ as in The Unionist) which Insensitive Pat featured on his programme today:
An item to do with Irish undergraduates going to study veterinary medicine in Budapest.
Stranglely enough Insensitive Pat (I.P.) did not the yips when it was revealed that the Irish students , in their animal-like hunger for further education, would have to learn (gasp) Hungarian as part of their studies. Nor did he call the home of the Magyars a ‘strange place’. Or even, a ‘very strange place”.
One will skip over two not dissimilar items which followed and which served as a lead in to the Top of the Blog topic (see above).
The Donegal dude in q. was none other than that observant Son of Ulster, Frank McGuinness, whose masterly dissing of the prissy P. Pearse was the theatrical highjack, oops, highlight of the 1916 Commemorations in the Free Southern Stateen.
Talking about the of-the-moment topic, Brexit for the Border , it was hard to know which of the pair, Insensitive Pat Kenny or Frankly-speaking Frank was more affronted at the prospect of the Frontier becoming even more of an Affront.
Up in, erm, arms the both of these metropolitans were, at the very perishing thought.
Metaphorically, of course. What else is a Meta for?
“One of the saddest things about Irish people – individuals, rather than the entire race – is their willingness to play the fool for the amusement of their English masters”
Indeed. George Bernard Shaw made a few quotes about these individuals. Such as “Put an Irishman on the spit and you can always get another Irishman to turn him”. To counterbalance that, Winston Churchill said: “We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English”. To me, that says more about how Churchill viewed the Scottish/Welsh than the Irish. Despite some Unionists rejecting any notion of an Irish identity, unfortunately for them we’re all viewed as Paddies by the English, whether you live in the North or South. I always imagined the English, especially the toff class, regarding Unionist “loyalty” to the UK as being akin to a poor wee dog whining and scratching the door after his Master closes it. The same wee dog just loves to please his Master and does tricks, just to get that wee tummy tickle. That’s how it comes across to me anyway. There’s something subservient about it all, what I would call a “We’re not worthy mentality”.
Unfortunately for nationalists there’s Irish Government ministers who have a similar mentality, not only towards the English but also towards the EU and USA, though the USA doesn’t exploit such mentality, in my opinion. For example, on the run up to the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Washington, I cant help but get the notion that some of our politicians (not all) feel as if their going to their “betters”. They’re just so proud and glad to be jostling shoulders with the “big boys”. Its the same in the EU, economist David McWilliams even spoke about it on The Late Late Show (I’ll put the video below, please watch it, its short but he tells the absolute truth on the Irish psyche and WHY it has to change and change fast). McWilliams pretty much says the reason why Ireland did cuts and austerity was because our politicians had no confidence or self esteem when they were wined and dined in Frankfurt, they seen the EU politicians as their “betters” and decided to be good little boys and girls and do what they were told. This is in contrast to Gerry Adams who said on RTE Radio that the EU need “told where to go” with their demands for cuts.
The Irish psyche needs changed big time but it wont be easy, its a massive challenge, especially for one person wanting to make a difference. But a single individual is like the Mustard Seed in the parable Christ spoke, its a very small seed but it grows to become a big tree. A single individual is the same, they can make massive change if they try hard enough. So if you want to change Irish mentality, the best person to start with is yourself and your own mentality.