I love chatting to people who I disagree with. There are some people, usually in the Unionist community, who always get angry when they are wrong; while I always get angry when I am right; and as you can imagine we are frequently angry with one another. Personal feelings don’t come into it, we are a society too focused on emotions at the expense of ideas. Regardless of how you feel, I want to know what people think and why; particularly those who believe in something or someone.
On this basis, I was having a conversation with quite a senior Unionist politician who said a few revealing things to me. They confided their knowing that reunification in Ireland is a game of time and numbers; an inevitability over a possibility, guided by changing demographics and economics. But the really interesting thing about this conversation was them stating that in a reunified Ireland, absolutely everything would have to be different. I’ll explain what they meant by this.
We were talking about the 1937 Constitution of the 26 county state, and how it wouldn’t be acceptable to Protestants, with its overtly Catholic ethos. It is not the sort of constitution which a united Ireland would have had, particularly under the men and women of 1916. In the North, you had a Protestant state for a Protestant people. And in the South you had the catholic equivalent to that, albeit not an acutely sectarian dominion. Neither of which though was a pluralist republic, modelled on the ideas of Revolutionary France and the secularism of American freemasonry.
As our conversation developed, so too did the confessional nature of it. They agreed that in the event of a border poll favouring reunification, there would be an election to an all-Ireland body to compose an all-Ireland constitution. This, having been admitted, would mean deciding which systems of health, education, welfare, housing, agriculture and the economy, are best to live under. It would involve both the British state and the European Union providing Ireland with a contingency plan of finance revenues, to build a genuine all-Ireland nation in the way Helmut Kohl did with German reunification. And it would involve an objective international organisation being recruited to oversee the process, including strict scrutiny that the whole ordeal was fair and equitable to every tradition. Religious safeguards would become law and the Loyal Orders would have a protected place in Ireland’s constitution. All the precedents of Magna Carta would become emulated in this new-found Republic.
They told me that the Irish people would be given the choice of having an elected President alone or opting for a Crown Republic, where both the British Monarch and a President share the powerless role of ceremonial Head of State – with all legislative authority residing in the elected parliament and office of Taoiseach. Likewise, there would be the possibility of a Federal Ireland, with regional parliaments in each Province and Federal government in Dublin, just like in Germany, so Ulster may retain some of it’s individual ethos but within the framework of a national Bill of Rights for all Irish citizens.
It struck me that this person knew that what they were describing would be immensely better for not just their people but all citizens of this island – we would a much more prosperous, stable, settled and happy nation. And so I asked them, why would you not advocate for that then? To which they elaborated that they are too used to arguing against it that to do such a U-turn would not be compatible with their own electorate. They also added, that eventually Unionist people would get over it because it’s hard to imagine any party in Dublin having the numbers to form a government without them. It struck me like a brick. Here was a Unionist ideologue realising Pearse’s prophetic judgement that it would be better for the Orangemen to be part of a Dublin government they could influence than sitting on the periphery of a London parliament which isolates them.
I asked them when they think this will happen. To their credit, they paused for a minute and then explained that there are years when nothing happens and weeks when everything happens, with Brexit being a prime example. Therein, I asked them “so it could happen soon?” And they responded, “that dear boy depends entirely on you and your generation. The young people, who care less for tradition, will decide what sort of country they want to live in.”
Most people in republican circles are familiar with the song lyrics “the IRA will set them free”. Well, there is also a sentiment in that song referencing the Protestants/Unionists/Loyalist people denying their Irishness; but that when Ireland becomes a single nation with a single people, the radical Protestant republicanism of Tone and Yeats, will melt the ice around Orange hearts. Indeed, it seems that many Unionist thinkers already know that the ultimate freedom of the Irish people means the total liberation of the Protestant conscience from British economic tyranny, to help resolve the inequalities and needs of this country once and for all.
You won’t see a United Ireland within 50 years of that I am quite certain ..!! And the phrase your senior Unionist political acquaintance/s should have used was not ‘compatible with’ but ‘acceptable to’ (that being one mighty strong euphemism) and living where I do, you’d better believe it ..!!
Why are you certain of that?
A federal United Ireland as you describe seems perfectly reasonable Donal however the huge changes it would require seem unrealistic to me. I highly doubt people in the south will be willing to see their nation changed beyond recognition just to appease the people the the “black north” as they sometimes refer to us.
Reunification will most likely be a matter of simply bolting the 6 counties onto the 26.
“Reunification will most likely be a matter of simply bolting the 6 counties onto the 26”
That would be a waste of an opportunity Scott.
What is true, the interest in unification is growing, the momentum has begun and I don’t see it stopping.
Hopefully soon we will need to be discussing the how’s and what’s in more detail.
Only then will we know what is even possible but I don’t think it will be as frightening to unionists as their leaders make out. New alliances will be likely, in particular over the economy. The UK will be changing, it makes sense that Irelands relationship with it and the EU changes also.
You and Peter have differing views on the EU, that is going to be a factor also?
Billy seems to prefer the UK now it is leaving the EU.
Decisions are going to have to be made sooner or later.
The status quo wont survive 5 years never mind 50
Things change slowly in the back woods/Bible Belt of Fermanagh. A few days days ago I pulled in to the side on a country road to let a tractor past and waved cheerfully to the driver as past me he went. But the stony faced foreword glare of that turnip head never wavered either in recognition or acknowledgement of my courteous behaviour. He has probably known me or at least of my existence for at least forty years, but I stand for ever condemned for having been ‘one of them Civil Righters’ who started the whole trouble ..!!!
It really depends on how gracious the Irish are in victory and how obstinate the British are in defeat. I would say that after ten years we would have a seamless open society and all our present reasons for conflict will have disappeared.
I have no interest in any victory, Ireland is the whole island of Ireland and I want to be re enfranchised with the rest of my country.
Beyond that, anything is possible
So,Jessica, a re-United people and country is not a victory and you have no interest in it?
I have very much an interest in that fiosrach.
Victory is the word I would have less interest in.
Hear hear Jessica.
The victory-defeat/zero sum game is the awful corner that we have backed ourselves into.
There should be no winners and losers, rather a clean sheet.
Right. We’ll agree it’s a defeat then?
Donal, you may not be surprised to hear I disagree with your associate in respect of the current state of the constitution of the Free State.
Yes, once Bunreacht na hÉireann protected the position of the Catholic church, I am afraid that was, democratically, removed, the ‘right’s’ of citizens have been long protected, by an Bunreacht if not the State but, the protestant’s I work with in that Saor Stat have no problem obtaining employment, nor housing, nor services, unlike Irish citizens living in the part of our country which the Free State abandoned.
I have said before, if the rump don’t like the idea of freedom, equality, civil liberties, the boat’s go home daily. For those who are prepared to accept these freedoms and betterments, they are of course welcome to remain, provided they drop the matters which created the problem in the first place, parades, discrimination, control etc.
The ‘radical protestant’ rather prebysterian, of Tone was bought off, ‘soup protestant’ like, if they want the power they obtained after 1798, leave.
On foot of all that, this afternoon the brit Taoiseach triggered the mechanism to leave the european union, do we really wish to be subjugated by the hun rather than the brit’s, whom we at least can understand?
Fiosrach, I have to agree with Jessica, (don’t always agree with you Jessica), but on this occasion the use of the terms victory or defeat are not acceptable to me when talking about our fellow Irishmen and Women, who may be of a different tradition to the majority of people who frequent this site. At the end of the day we must all inhabit this small island, a 32-county republic is coming fast, so I think less of the them and us attitude might be in order.
James,if you fight for something for hundreds of years and finally win, that is called victory. You and Jessica may be mistaking it for triumphalism. Next time your horse comes up don’t forget to apologise to the bookie. You don’t want to hurt his feelings. I don’t think that the British living here like being called your fellow Irishmen.
Ah …semantics, fiosrach!
I used to take the Chair in the Moy.
Is that a real place or just somewhere you tell your children to scare them?
Sorry.
Fiosrach, I think it was the Duke of Wellington who said that being born in a stable does not make one a horse. Leaving that aside, and no matter how some people may wish otherwise, anyone born on the island of Ireland is Irish, end of story. I take your point on the question of triumphalism. I feel there may be a very fine line between it and victory.
James, I think it was actually Daniel O’Connell who said it of Wellington. (It’s a common tactic wrt to disenfranchising someone of their opinion, it still goes on today)
Slightly wrong James, if a child of an Irish person, born here since 2004 is born here, or elsewhere, they are entitled to citizenship.
If they wish to take UK citizenship, for those born in the six counties then, they can and they’re therefore not Irish, a matter of choice.
They could take both citizenship’s, if confused but, why would you?
Yesterday you pointed out we had not even got an Irish language act, let alone unity.
Today we are talking about victory without any change or even an understanding of what is going to happen.
My gut tells me that when unity comes as I believe it will, that is may not quite be what everyone expected.
I don’t believe there is the slightest chance in hell of Ireland uniting into a far left socialist state that some on this site desire for example.
If unity ends up as a conservative state led by an Irish unionist party / Fine Gael coalition inside a federal UK, would you still hail that as a victory?
More of donals narcissistic anecdotal bullshit. This conversation probably never took place and is instead a figment of the boys very colourful imagination. What’s disturbing is Judes continued insistence in allowing Donal a platform to spout his self-serving nonsense.
I let people who agree with me write guest blogs, and I let people who don’t agree with me write blogs. What I try not to do is allow people to indulge in unadorned abuse, which is what you come close to doing, wb. Try to present an argument rather than fling insults..Otherwise I won’t post your comment.
Isn’t this interesting. How much do the 2 parts of Ireland really have in common? They regard themselves as Irish and this is the over riding factor. Just as West and East Germany ” re- united” though they had grown as divided as any 2 totally disparate countries could be. So, nationality is, possibly, the most important factor to bind people to one another. So, in light of this how can a multi cultural society ever be successful as it lacks the glue of nationalism that hold them together. Similarly, how can 27 countries ever hope to form to become one under the EU flag? It has nothing to do with hating people of other nations, just that basically we are tribal and anyone who wholeheartedly joins our tribe is accepted but not those who wish to continue with their own tribal ways within ours.