There’s talk of a tunnel to unite “the Four Nations of the United Kingdom.” It seems “Northern Ireland” is to be deemed a Nation.
The English Language, for all its virtues, can be very confusing.
You may have heard the story of the German student of the language in London passing a theatre staging Hamlet, reading a critic’s approval – “Pronounced Success” printed beneath the title. The poor guy returned to his lodging and shot himself.
According to the “Better Government of Ireland Act 1920” Ireland’s Northernmost County – Donegal, is in “Southern Ireland”. Parliament orders these things and scoundrels there are deemed Honourable Gentlemen and Ladies. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are deemed “Right Honourable”. God knows how many murderous veterans of dirty campaigns on the Commons benches have been deemed “Gallant and Honourable.”
BBC references to “EIRE” which, in the English language means “Ireland,” as the Irish Constitution makes clear, referred only to 26 Counties and jarred on my ears for many decades.
Now we hear of the border between “Ireland” and “Northern Ireland” which is nonsensical.
Many years ago I read “MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN” by Brian Faulkner. Coming from a Mickey Mouse statelet whose “Parliament” had been swept aside by Westminster with less fuss than attended the later abolition of the Greater London Council it was farcical. In 1949, when Britain was helping establish NATO, Clement Attlee noted a memo from the Cabinet Secretary pooh-poohing Unionist claims on the statelet, but said it was essential, for strategic reasons, that some part of Ireland should be available to the NATO ALLIANCE. SHANNON AIRPORT has served that purpose for decades.) Attlee and Westminster passed an Act purportedly vesting sovereignty in the statelet in its Mickey Mouse Parliament. Attlee and everyone with even a passing acquaintance with British law knew it was a nonsense.
Faulkner’s Memoir was petty. He hadn’t a good word for anyone. He was particularly nasty about Captain O’Neill. In 1972 Andrew Boyd , within three months of Stormont’s suspension in “BRIAN FAULKNER AND THE CRISIS OF ULSTER UNIONISM” wrote that the price of his premiership could be counted in the number of people held in prison without charge or trial , in the brutally tortured, in the death toll. in the thousands of homes wrecked. families terrorised and left destitute…….He depicted a bigot, with no friends, a hard-liner who deployed troops, armed police and special constabulary, who, born in 1921 did not choose at any time to serve in the British Forces, the RUC or the Specials.
Like Faulkner, Captain Terence O’Neill wrote a memoir . And he reciprocated the hatred Faulkner showed for him. O’Neill, whose Chichester forebears had stolen the O’Neill title with some of the O’Neill lands, was a toff, schooled at Eton, an Officer in England’s “Irish Guards” was a gentleman whose people looked down on the Faulkners, mere shirt-makers. O’Neiil’s book, showed scant knowledge of history. He patronised, rather than hated Catholics. His class was probably best caricatured by Harry Enfield’s “Tim-Nice-But-Dim.”
Apart from the fact that Captain O’Neill’s family would never dream of naming a son “Tim”, Hibernicised as “TAIG” I don’t think O’Neill was all that nice. Unless you had to compare him with Unionist colleagues such as Faulkner, William Craig or Harry West.
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