For the past week or so, The Irish Times has been feeding off the opinion poll it helped organise about Irish unity. A number of that organ’s big hitters, not least today’s Michael McDowell, have been using the results to explain to us how we should think.
McDowell does raise one interesting if ultimately futile point: if you’re concerned about Irish reunification, you don’t have to think of a unitary state with its parliament in Dublin. You could have a ‘confederation’, where both the north and the south ‘exist largely as they are but share institutional links such as a joint membership of the EU’. This would mean the two parts of Ireland didn’t need to have the same flag, the same anthem, the same constitution. The health system and the education system would be separate and different also.
In fact, McDowell is so concerned to avoid upsetting unionist politicians that he puts forward a vision of Ireland that looks suspiciously like the partitioned Ireland we have. This concern is rooted in the fact that a minority of unionists in the north clearly wouldn’t like a united Ireland: “I think it is somewhat naïve to expect unionist politicians to enter an open-ended dialogue focused on the end of the union. There is simply little or no political gain for them in doing so”.
What McDowell doesn’t concern himself with is democracy. Of course unionist politicians would be reluctant to enter negotiations about the ending of NEI as a separate state. But the Good Friday Agreement says that if a majority in the north and south of Ireland vote for reunification, then that is what should happen. In other words, the inevitability of reunification is the one thing that will galvanise unionist politicians into entering talks, since that is the only way they can be sure that the emerging new all-Ireland state holds a respected place for them.
We could, of course, hold off steps towards reunification until unionist politicians have a change of heart and declare “Here, lads, haven’t we been blind? We really should accept the outworking of this core element of the GFA and accept that democracy demands we accept the result of a border poll.” Yes, some unionist politicians may find this distasteful and disappointing, but the alternative is that the majority in the north and in the south will find their condition distasteful and disappointing. In short, the choice is that the minority bend to the will of the majority or vice versa.
We hear, in varying forms, the danger of a loyalist backlash against Irish unity – the will of the minority triumphing over the will of the majority. If nationalists and republicans are told that their united Ireland goal will be denied through democratic means, has McDowell considered how republicans might react if, having patiently followed the path of democracy for at least the last thirty years, they now find that path has led them into a blind alley?
The O’Leary book considers this sort of thing. I wonder who decides what options go on a list to be voted on for a new national anthem? If you google Joe Brolly Phil Coulter, you get an interesting article about various things.
The problem is that we already had a poll, in 1918, and NI is the result of pandering to those who objected to it.
One of the findings of this poll in the Irish Times is that people in the republic don’t want the PUL tail wagging the dog. Talking of which, the billion pounds the DUP extorted from the UK government, where did it go?
Is Kevin Meagher related to the guy who designed the current flag, by the way?
The late, great, Sean McBride’s suggestion on the ideal form of government that a future United Irelandshould ideally take was for a system of government that was based on the Swiss cantons.In other words it should be one whose predominant political characteristic was largely based on a decentralized decision making power structures. .But also, very crucially ,it did jot preclude a role for a central government.to coordinate and implemen national policies..
I believe that transposing this mode of government onto an Irish setting does is very practical and feasible and certainly not really require the amount of navel gazing that some commentators seem to prefer to indulge in! .Speaking as a person who is a Dubliner by birth and who also happens to a Canadian citizen, I think the solution is really quite obvious: a Federal government augmented with four provincial governments is the both viabl3band realistic .
Other matters, such as, where the capitol city could best be located in the New Ireland is a moot point and should be open for discussion.For example,p.erhaps, the ancient ecclastiastic city of Armagh would be a viable alternative to Dublin’s Leinster House? The example of how the relatively small city of Ottawa, in the Canadian context, springs to mind.Who knows, it might prove to be a good fit for Armagh? Let’s have this type of discussion assp..Now is surely the opportune time to bring more creative and positive thinking to the table.Its vital to have an debate based on realisable suggestions; rather than allowing the public discourse to be hi- jacked by the negative rantings of the cynical nay- sayers.