High Court judge Richard Humphrey doesn’t look like a judge. No wig, no long grave face, no downward turn at the corners of his mouth. He looks more like a middle-aged resident of Dublin 4, which for all I know he may be.
He gave a Feile talk yesterday entitled ‘Countdown to Irish Unity’ which, while nothing as dramatic as its title ( ‘5, 4, 3, 2,1, Lift-off, we have Lift-off ! ‘) was interesting and thought-provoking.
Throughout his talk he kept reminding the audience that he was looking purely at the legal aspects of Irish unity, not the political. Like cracking open an egg and saying you’re going to address the white and ignore the yolk. But let me list a few of the points he made.
- Reconciliation of nationalism/republicanism with unionism is crucial. We should think of it as putting a deposit on a house: it’s a necessary first step on a longish journey. I totally agree with him, and like him I think we have to look at Gregory Campbell’s outburst two evenings back from a purely human, emotional point of view: see things through his eyes. Unfortunately I think Gregory was appealing to the fortress-emotions of his constituents when he spoke so forcefully, so of course we must keep in mind that Gregory, like the rest of us, is a human being. But he’s also a politician with a streak which is malodorous and shouldn’t be encouraged.
- Life depends on compromise. True, Richard. Or should I say ‘Your Honour’? But there are things that we should compromise on and there are things we shouldn’t. It’s also worth remembering that republicans in Stormont, particularly the late Martin McGuinness, made compromise after compromise in the name of reconciliation, and it was accepted with a shrug of contempt until such a response could be accepted no more. You do yourself and your opponent no good when you roll over too much. You give, they take and they consider you an eejit.
- We need to make Northern Ireland work – no one wants a mess, least of all the south. That is true. But a successful north also could diminish the drive for national unity, remembering the maxim ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ As Charlie Haughey said so long ago, this is a failed political entity. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to make it as bearable as possible. But we’ve passed the point where we’re trying to refit a house that is full of holes.
- The Irish government aren’t particularly interested in planning for a united Ireland – which they are quite entitled to do. Yes, Richard. Except that as someone in the audience pointed out, Britain has declared itself fully behind the union with Britain – so shouldn’t the Dublin government be clearly supporting the notion of national unity? Besides, Senator Mark Daly has said that the government of the south has a duty to work towards a reunited Ireland. Articles 2 & 3 may have been altered but they haven’t gone away , you know.
- If the north sometimes feels unloved by the south, think of northern unionists and the non-love that they feel coming from Britain. Right, Richard. And two wrongs don’t make a right. It is a disgrace that southern politicians and governments down the decades have delivered slithery support for nationalists in the north and, when it came to the pinch, have turned their backs. Misery indeed loves company; but we want something more – a lot more – than misery. We want our fellow-countrymen and women to identify with us, see our goals as theirs, and start taking practical steps – PRACTICAL STEPS – towards looking at what kind of united Ireland would be desirable. And while Judge Humphreys’s new flag a combination of Irish tricolour, Union Jack, EU flag and Rainbow flag – is intriguing, I’m not sure it’s what we want to use in place of the tricolour.
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