It’s a long time ago now since I discovered the animosity of Free Staters towards northerners. They did not like anything that challenged the status quo. They were happy with Partition and did not care about what the British did in the six counties. I discovered this for the first time in Maynooth.
Over many years, I have received letters mostly anonymous from Free State pro-Brit people condemning me and wishing me all kinds of bad luck for speaking out about human rights abuses. When I criticised the role of the Catholic Church for remaining silent and propping up the system the Free Staters went apoplectic.
I was not even expressing any political party view. I was mostly addressing human rights issues like the treatment of prisoners in H -Block and Armagh jails or the harassment of people by the RUC and the Gardaí. This was too much for the Free State brigade. They did not want to know about such things. They were happy with their own 26 county Free State and did not want to be disturbed or did not want their consciences to be disturbed.
When Sinn Fein first appeared on the political scene in the 26 counties in the 1980s I heard the vicious attacks on them by members of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail and other Free Staters. When Sinn Fein TDs were elected to the Dail, they were subjected to more vicious abuse. The Dublin media -RTE and Irish Independent and the Irish Times -also carried on with vicious attacks -worse than any attacks by unionists in the Stormont Assembly.
We saw it once again during the recent Election campaign with the leaders of FF and FG making all kinds of snide remarks about Mary Lou McDonald and Sinn Fein. There has been an ongoing attempt to undermine Sinn Fein because of their all Ireland approach.
I see that partitionist attitude to the north in the results of election after election in the 26 counties where so many people vote anti-republican and anti-socialist and prefer to put FF and FG back again. They do not want a republican or anybody who is sympathetic to the idea of Irish reunification about the place. They have been brainwashed over the years to believe that discussion of Irish unity would be destabilising and would upset their little economy.
The results of the election show that a sizeable section of the population in the 26 counties who vote for FF and FG want nothing to do with the North. They do not like us ‘Nordies’. They do not want a border poll as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement, as that would upset the cosy relationship of FF/FG. So if FF and FG go back together into government there will be no border poll.
That’s how I interpret the results of the General election 2024 in the 26 counties. People who voted in large numbers for FF and FG –those people we call Free Staters- knew what they were doing. They voted to keep Sinn Fein out because they could not be bothered with the politics of Irish reunification. It would cause too much upheaval in their comfortable lives.
Then there was the 40% of the electorate who did not vote for various reasons. Many people seem to be disillusioned with the political system.
And yet, in spite of the hostility and snide remarks from opponents, Sinn Fein has returned as the second largest party with 39 TDs. Other republican-minded and socialist parties returned more than 20 TDs. Some day soon these TDs must unite to end Free State politics and work to build a new democracy on this island.
Until then we must endure more bad government by the Free staters in FF and FG.
On re-reading there is a sentence there that is confusing. It should read:” where so many people vote anti-republican and anti-socialist and prefer to put FF and FG back again.”
Deanta, Joe…
FF were once proud to at least claim they were “The Republican Party”, the party that got rid of payments to the Brits for the Irish to have dared to have expelled them from 26, if not all 32 Counties; and the party whose members and supporters would loudly sing “Take it Down from the Mast” as a condemnation of the party of the Blue Shirts.
Sadly, they have long since joined the Irish traitors who they condemned in song.
Anyway, they were always less interested in freeing the Six counties than they were in the nonsense path. Somewhat ironically, Collins was the last Free State leader, in all but name, to have done anything whatsoever to assist or protect the Nationalist in the North.