Ireland, the new all-dancing swinging Ireland which has shaken off all restraints except those imposed from London has launched a bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council with a concert by Bono in the UN building in New York.
The dream of universal peace and disarmament is symbolised by a sculpture of two six-guns entangled and twisted beyond repair by its entrance, enjoying diplomatic immunity. For just beyond it, West to the Pacific, North to the Canadian and South to the Mexican Border, the carrying of lethal weapons is considered sacrosanct and to hell with human life.
I’ve never doubted that Paul David Hewson, KBE, is sincerely Pro Bono but am yet to be persuaded that his inspiration is Pro Bono Publico. His amplified, profane rants seem at times influenced by spirits at odds with conciliation and diplomacy.
Dr Varadkar’s impatience with traditional Irish mores appears to want to dump those who still adhere to them to join the babies already thrown out with the bathwater.
But Ireland is an ancient, not a new nation. Nor is it a new state. And leaders and citizens of the state have played honourable and constructive roles in the United Nations and its predecessor League of Nations.
In 1932 Eamon de Valera was elected president of the General Assembly of the League .In his inaugural Address he advocated sanctions against any state breaking its Convention. Japan has attacked as was annexing Manchuria, part of China. Britain had annexed Hong Kong and Shanghai and had been an ally of Japan, in order to keep Tsarist Russia in check. Dev might have been talking to the wall. The UK was not really committed to the League Charter.
In 1936 Fascist Italy attacked Abyssinia and Dev happened to be President of the League’s Council of Ministers. He called for sanctions, including, if necessary, military action, against Italy and promised Irish Army participation in defence of Abyssinia. But the UK’s Anthony Eden denounced Dev as a firebrand. Italian troops and material passed through the British-controlled Suez Canal to the Rape of Abyssinia.
Back home in Ireland, FINE GAEL denounced de Valera and gave moral (if that’s the right word) support to “Catholic Italy’s” disgraceful aggression.
In 1955 Ireland joined the United Nations. In 1956 her Minister for External Affairs, Fine Gael’s Liam Cosgrave, spoke for her in the General Assembly. With an eye on his own constituency he advised the warring Israelis and (mainly) Moslem Arabs to settle their differences like Christians. Nothing said by the Irish delegation for the next couple of years caused a ripple in the American State Department.
A couple of years later de Valera’s Fianna Fail won its 8th General Election since 1932 and Frank Aiken became Minister for External Affairs. A hero of the War of Independence and a General in the Irish Civil War, he had, since 1923 been a force for peace in Ireland. In 1958 he addressed the United Nations on its 60th Birthday, in a speech which should be remembered. As a first step towards the Destruction of all nuclear weapons he called for a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He was listened to with apparent respect. A NON PROLIFERATION TREATY was signed a few years later. But those powers which the had such weapons now have many more. And many more countries now have them.
Ireland then ruffled the feathers of the US State Department, New York’s Cardinal Spellman (and, possibly, Fine Gael Craw-Thumpers?) by suggesting that China’s seat at the UN, might be discussed there. China was ruled from Peking by Communists who had won their Civil War. But the seat was held by the losers who had fled to the island of Formosa. About 12 years later President Nixon decided that the seat should be held by those who ruled China.
How do today’s successors to offices held by De Valera and Frank Aiken compare?
A Russian Diplomat was expelled from Dublin after the British made an unproven allegation of a Russian crime in England. Shannon Airport is used for the movement of US military and munitions in campaigns which do not have UN Security Council approval and do not comply with international law. Prisoners have passed through Shannon on the way to Guantanamo and other places of punishment without trial. An Irish seat on the Security Council in these circumstances would be unlikely to reflect honour on Ireland, give glory to God,or justice or mercy to humanity.
Footnote: I was wrong about restraints imposed from London. The 1861 Offences against the Person Act criminalised abortion and is still in force in the UK. It may even still be on the Statute Book in Ireland, North & South? Laws against homosexual acts by men were passed in Westminster. No such laws were introduced in the Oireachtas. Ireland apologising for them is silly.
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