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Distributed to Congress by Irish National Caucus
“ Belfast columnist Brian Feeney, in this review of a very important three-volume tome, speaks truth to power in his own inimitable way.
The cruel, undemocratic, and unworkable partition of Ireland is becoming plain for all to see, especially in light of Brexit. Safeguarding the Good Friday Agreement, building up the Beloved Community in The North, and preparing for the inevitable re-unification of Ireland is clearly the sensible way forward.”—Fr. Sean McManus
North’s politics now living
under a ‘Waiting for the Referendum’ canopy
Professor Brendan O’Leary’s A Treatise on Northern Ireland is a
rigorous analysis of politics and society here since the sixteenth century
Brian Feeney.Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, July, 2019
THE most prolific, perceptive and powerfully analytical writer on The
North in the last 35 years, Brendan O’Leary, has just produced his
magnum opus.
At three volumes, A Treatise on Northern Ireland, is a rigorous analysis
of politics and society here since the sixteenth century.
It’s an encyclopaedic work of unrivalled detail and scope. It will become
the standard reference for anyone interested in the north.
It should be required reading for any British politician in the present
circumstances, but certainly for any proconsul.
Unfortunately, given its size, you can’t get your hands on it for less than
£180.
O’Leary, formerly professor at the LSE, has now for some years been
Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, but
comes here annually as a visiting professor at Queen’s.
His regular visits allow him to keep bang up-to-date with the current
crisis facing this island. For all those reasons his new publication is
timely.
Volume I is entitled Colonialism. O’Leary comprehensively demolishes the
thin, wishy-washy revisionist gruel that is served up by history
and politics departments at Queen’s and UCD.
He demonstrates conclusively that Ireland was a colony and treated as such
in a variety of different ways, easily identifiable to a
political scientist, for centuries.
His contention is that decolonization began in the south in 1937 and in
the north from 1998-2007 when the descendants of planters ceased to
rule the place on behalf of the imperial power and the descendants
of natives began to exercise equal power. In The North decolonization obviously has
not been completed.
In The North we are in the final throes of what O’Leary (and other
political scientists) calls ‘internal colonialism’, for the Stormont
administration has collapsed and therefore the metropolitan core
(London) exercises authoritative control.
The DUP is now temporarily performing the traditional role of planter
descendants carrying out the will of the imperial capital against
and despite the wishes and welfare of the majority of the population.
It will not end well for them. Ultimately it never does anywhere that happens.
Led by the stupidest and most politically inept and inadequate of the
DUP’s three leaders, the party, in O’Leary’s words, has “studiously
ignored Peter Robinson’s plain post-retirement warnings”.
These warnings have been reinforced by polls since 2018 showing increased
numbers of Unionists opposing a hard Brexit, or any Brexit, but
also increasing numbers of both Unionists and Nationalists being more
likely to vote for Irish unity in that event, even though they have not
been offered any specifics about the form of that unity.
O’Leary concludes that, “‘Waiting for the Referendum’ will become the
new canopy under which Northern Ireland’s politics unfolds.”
In that context he argues that after Brexit, “it would not be
premature” for the Irish government to establish a ministry for Irish
national reunification and reconciliation.
It should include a constitutional convention to address new configurations of
political structure and minority rights.
After the 2021 census this requirement will become obvious to all, but
better begin rather than react in three years’ time so that any
decision looks like an ill-considered knee-jerk.
Inevitably any such proposal will be met, as O’Leary admits, with predictable
warnings of a loyalist backlash or forelash.
However, times have changed. In the 2020s there is no chance of the
arrival of British troops to join, as O’Leary points out, in de facto
alliance with loyalist militias as they did in 1920 and 1970. After
all, apart from any other objection, that would be to defy the will of the
majority.
Finally, to advocate an Irish constitutional convention to guarantee
minority rights on the island in a new constitution is simply to offer
the majority of the people in the north a way back into the EU.
They voted for that in 2016 and in greater numbers in 2019. Yet some
say that’s divisive. Whereas supporting Brexit against the majority isn’t?
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