open Democracy News Analysis - Northern Ireland - Comments

Brian Walker on "Wild Catastrophism to Mild Moderation in Northern Ireland"

Brian Walker — Sat, 09 May 2009 17:11:26 +0000

Put in less poetic language, Arthur Aughey is wisely counseling us against the determinism that insists on "end of history" outcomes like the inevitablity of peace, a united Ireland or any other nirvana. As the NI Assembly staggers on, it may dawn of the main parties that their zero sum game is decreasingly viable and that their rival millennarian visions need to be replaced by something else. A specifically political message perhaps, is that no "process" or electoral system ( like replacing the present STV with AMS) will of itself unlock the stasis that has characterised the NI Assembly for most of its short life. The main lesson may be that expectations for concrete results should remain modest, although pessimism and cynicism should also be resisted. Let others of the Jonathan Powell school tout the Northern Ireland model for export. The best that can be said for what the Assembly has so far produced is well put by Arthur: "..a fated incivility can become a tentative civility such that even if the people of Northern Ireland may not choose to live together they are compelled to live together."

Anthony Barnett on "Wild Catastrophism to Mild Moderation in Northern Ireland"

Anthony Barnett — Sat, 09 May 2009 11:51:21 +0000

Arthur: there is ending and there is a petering out... or rather modifications and modifications. Britain was an Empire. Without one what will be its fate? You are quite right to warn against teleological prognostications of any kind and year-zeroism. But is the alternative Oakshot's dry stone wallism? I think not. The EU, for example, is explicitly a project: to gain ever closer union vis small steps. It has proved to be the political equivalent of compound interest, at least until now. To put it another way, there ARE turning points. Some deliberate, some happening and then seized (or not). These are never 180 degrees. But some turn much more than others. Some, like the Good Friday Agreement may indeed build the past into the 'new' future they adjudicate. So while I greatly appreciate your identification of 'endism' and they ways this can distort judgement there are a range of other alternatives, not all of them the supposedly organic, lumpish, weathered, apparently landscaped stone wall.

Compass on "An Irish lesson for the Middle East?"

Compass — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:45:40 +0000

Is Israel fighting about land or about survival against Arabs, Muslims (including the so called "Palestinians" who don't have more than a few genetrations in Israel/palestine) who want to annihilate it?

---

Peace, Equality to all.

Niall Meehan on "Reshaping the dry stone wall of Irish history"

Niall Meehan — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:31:36 +0000

Seems like an interesting book , and review, though I would like to comment on what seems like axe grinding. Southern Unionists felt betrayed by the Ulster variety. Lord Middleton's 26 Nov 1917 statement 'on behalf of Unionists of the South and East' agreed to the formation of an all Ireland Home Rule parliament, 'with fair representation for the minority and other safeguards'. For this he and some colleagues were forced to resign from the Irish Unionist Alliance, that was reconstituted in January 1919.

During the 1919-21 War of Independence Southern Protestants (and unionists) spoke out, but not in the way Arthur Aughey might assume. They specifically condemned unionist attacks on Catholics in the North of Ireland and also attacks on more or less everybody in the South by the RIC, Black & Tans and British military. The following, published in the Irish Times (November 5, 2007), gives two related and typical examples. One has only to look to find (lots of) them. The letter also illustrates my feelings on the Coolacrease TV documentary (BTW, the Irish Broadcasting Complaints Committee found against complaints on the basis solely of broadcasting balance, not historical accuracy, a question on which they felt themselves statutorily incompetent - I was told this by a member of the Commission). Rather more relevant is the verdict of historian Joost Augusteijn of Leiden University, who, though an opponent of the counter arguments in the Coolacrease book, found that 'the documentary gave a false portrayal of events' and refers to book as 'a successful refutation of the central tenet of the RTE documentary' (History Ireland, March April 2009). (BTW 2 If anyone sees Neal Ascherson could they ask him to get in touch)

Irish Times (November 5, 2007)
Madam, - On July 24th, 1920, The Irish Times published a letter from a Mr GW Biggs:

"I feel it is my duty to protest very strongly against this unfounded slander [of intolerance on the part of] of our Catholic neighbours, and, in so doing, I am expressing the feelings of very many Protestant traders in West Cork. I have been resident in Bantry for 43 years, during 33 of which I have been engaged in business, and I have received the greatest kindness, courtesy, and support from all classes and creeds in this country."

Five days later Mr Biggs's substantial business was burned down in an act of deliberate arson.

In September of that year, in the course of a series of letters to the Times of London, J Annan Bryce, brother of a former chief secretary to Ireland, commented on a British military notice threatening to burn the houses of republicans if those of loyalists were targeted.

He wrote:

"There is no justification for the issue of such a notice in this district, where the only damage to loyalists' premises has been done by the police. In July they burned the stores of Mr. G.W. Biggs, the principal merchant in Bantry, a man highly respected, a Protestant, and a lifelong Unionist, with a damage of over £25,000, and the estate office of the late Mr. Leigh-White, also a Unionist. Subsequently, in August, the police fired into Mr. Biggs's office, while his residence has since been commandeered for police barracks. He has had to send his family to Dublin and to live himself in a hotel. Only two reasons can be assigned for the outrages on Mr. Biggs, one that he employed Sinn Feiners - he could not work his large business without them, there being no Unionist workmen in Bantry - the other a recently published statement of his protesting - on his own 40 years' experience - against Orange allegations of Catholic intolerance. The July burning was part of a general pogrom, in which a cripple, named Crowley, was deliberately shot by the police while in bed and several houses were set on fire while the people were asleep."

Statements such as those from Bryce and Biggs, were a consistent feature of public life in Ireland right up to and beyond the Truce in 1921. On May 11th 1922, a Protestant Convention in the Mansion House reiterated these points ad nauseam . They may be read in The Irish Times and Irish Independent of May 12th.

On October 20th and 25th in your newspaper, an alternative picture was painted, concerning an event in Offaly in July 1921, in articles by Niamh Sammon and by Ann Marie Hourihane. Essentially, the same story of anti-Protestant violence was broadcast by RTÉ on October 23rd in its "Hidden History" series. Had it occurred as depicted, it would have been reported in that way at the time.

Given a choice between Biggs and Bryce, who were on the spot, and Hourihane and Sammon, who were not, and the reporting of The Irish Times then and now, I take the Protestant view.
NIALL MEEHAN

owly on "Ireland and Gaza: comparing like with like?"

owly — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:25:45 +0000

Yes all very well but who will 'battle for the cause of peace' among Hamas and the Palastinians ?? Hamas engineered the war by firing 6000 rockets into Israel. What was Israel supposed to do ? Lets remember that the wider world did nothing much less said anything.

Israel, for all her many faults, is not the agressor here: it is Hamas. Let us not forget that.

Paul Watterson on "Ireland and Gaza: comparing like with like?"

Paul Watterson — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:16:05 +0000

"Indeed, if anything weakened the IRA, it was the political setbacks suffered by republicans as a result of their own actions in events like the Enniskillen bombing. There is a lesson there for Hamas, but also for Israel which has experienced its own pattern of self-inflicted political setbacks, from the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982, to the Qana massacres in 1996 and 2006."

Enniskillen was indeed a turning point in the IRA’s campaign, but not because there was a sudden Road to Damascus experience on the part of Irish Republicanism at large, a sudden pricking of the conscience, a realisation that no political dream or indeed “Ireland” was worth one life. The reason it was a turning point was the reaction it produced amongst their “financiers” in Irish America, the Republic and the Irish communities on the British mainland. The random and sectarian nature of the Enniskillen atrocity opened the eyes and closed the wallets of too many of those who previously had thought the money they had been supplying for "The Cause" was being used in some kind of glorious liberation struggle. The continuing moral and logistic support for the provos amongst the Republican communities in N.Ireland was simply not enough to continue an effective campaign without this essential flow of money from the greater Irish Diaspora.

I don’t think there is a lesson in that particular example for either Hamas or Israel. As long as Israel is continued to be financially supported by the US Administration (a support which seems to continue regardless of events such as the one as you mentioned), outside public opinion, whilst an irritant, is ultimately of little importance. Similarly Hamas is dependent on the continued support of regime(s?) which couldn’t care less about world opinion on any subject, but in particular, their proposed Final Solution for the Jews. The only hope (and it’s a thin one) is that those courageous individuals and groups within Israel which have continued to battle for the cause of peace without recognition or assistance from the outside world, somehow win the battle for hearts and minds within their own country.

Not logged in on "Ireland and Gaza: comparing like with like?"

Not logged in — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:31:45 +0000

Hamas believe in p*ssing for distance; the IDF believe in p*ssing for accuracy. Eventually, they will realise- like the polar opposites in Northern Ireland- that the way forward is simple: stop taking the p*ss!

owly on "Ireland and Gaza: comparing like with like?"

owly — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:08:52 +0000

Equally you fail to mention that the Palestinians seem to think they can win an outright Victory, but the Arab world has tried and failed to destroy Israel a number of times. So that aint going to happen is it ?

What I think is missing from this is a simple fact: Hamas is the Government of Gaza and as such has committed an act of War against another State. The IRA, as I recall, were never the Government of Southern Ireland and were infact deeply hostile to that Government. Small point maybe, but a very important one.

MichaelCalderbank on "Ireland and Gaza: comparing like with like?"

MichaelCalderbank — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:06:18 +0000

You are right to say that the reality is 180 degrees from the account King puts forward. What opened up the avenue for peace in NI was the fact that *both* sides of the conflict were gradually forced to accept that neither could win an outright victory and to pretend otherwise would only lead to more bloodshed. The problem is that the Israelis have been allowed to believe that they can act with absolute impunity and that they can crush the resistance out of the Palestinian people by smashing Hamas, maintaining blockades and continuing to build illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Tom Griffin on "Reshaping the dry stone wall of Irish history"

Tom Griffin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:02:08 +0000

When Shelley made his radical appeal to the Irish people in 1812 he got nowhere (according to T W Rolleston he desired the emancipation of Catholics but desired more their emancipation from Catholicism)

Eamonn McCann suggests that Wolfe Tone saw the United Irish rising in a similar way, and its worth noting that there was a rapprochement between the British Government and the Catholic Church in the 1790s that resulted in the founding of Maynooth.

Owen McGee's excellent book on the Irish Republican Brotherhood suggests a similar forces were at work in the late 19th century:

"...the goverment as well as the Catholic and Protestant establishments in the country naturally desired to keep this aristocratic social order intact. Hence once it was threatened by a democratic-republican political agitation during the 1880s, people felt themselves to be in a 'revolutionary' political situation and all the root political divisions of twentieth-century Ireland essentially came into being. Both the British government and the Irish Catholic establishment desired to increase the capacity of various lay Catholic elites to create political uniformity within the Irish Catholic community as a whole, according to an aristocratic social ideal. This is precisely why after 1886, the government (both Liberal and Tory) began committing itself to fulfilling the Catholic Establishment's interests by providing Catholics with greater access to denominational education, assisted the the development and rise in the number of prestigious Catholic colleges in Ireland and ultimately provided state recognition for the Catholic University/UCD in 1908; institutions that would play a pivotal role in shaping twentieth-century Irish life."

The secularising of the Irish Republic could be seen as a triumph of the spirit of the United Irishmen and the IRB over the home rule imperialism which the Catholic Church and the British Government both championed.

Paul Watterson on "Reshaping the dry stone wall of Irish history"

Paul Watterson — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:51:02 +0000

Mr Muldowney should really have declared his own interest in the matter here, before unilaterally declaring that the controversy regarding the incident was now closed:

( http://www.indymedia.ie/article/79753)

(http://www.indymedia.ie/article/89557)

It should also be pointed out that the subsequent formal complaints against the programme were rejected by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission.

But that’s by the by…the “reluctance to speak” written about in the article, I presume, was ofthe collective and convenient amnesia that existed in the Republic's society concerning such events for over 80 years. The fact that it took a television programme to reopen the subject has surely proves Professor Aughey’s point rather eloquently?

Pat Muldowney on "Reshaping the dry stone wall of Irish history"

Pat Muldowney — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:22:30 +0000

A couple of points about the Coolacrease reference above:

The incident happened in 1921, not 1919.

The incident involved the execution (not murder) of two people; members of the same family, but not a family, who had taken up arms against the elected government in wartime.

The issue ceased to be controversial some time ago, when it was demonstrated that the television documentary had invented “evidence” for an alleged sectarian atrocity, that it had concealed the actual evidence, and that the actual evidence proved the opposite. There was no sectarian atrocity.

Details can be found in "Coolacrease: the true story of the Pearson executions, an incident in the Irish War of Independence", available from www.atholbooks.org

As to “reluctance to speak”, the quantity of comment generated in the period when the issue was still controversial indicates the opposite – a strong propensity to speak.

Wyrdtimes on "Cameron is standing up for the Union"

Wyrdtimes — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:46:21 +0000

We he's certainly not standing up for England - I hope the English are paying attention.

elvis parker on "Conservatives will polarise Northern Ireland politics"

elvis parker — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:00:02 +0000

And Lord Smith's prognosis for changing politics in NI?
Vote Alliance?!
People in NI have the RIGHT to partake in the politics of the UK and people like Lord Smith should be ashmaed of the fact that they are faciliating discrimination.
No more second class citizens. Equal citizenship NOW!

alex_buchan on "Conservatives will polarise Northern Ireland politics"

alex_buchan — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:16:00 +0000

Paul. That’s an interesting point. I noticed in the reporting of the UUP conference that there was an attempt to portray the DUP as Ulster Nationalists and by implication as ‘soft’ on the union. Cameron’s rhetoric and that of the UUP seems to be aimed at Orange sentiments and it is these rather than religious affiliation, per se, that underlies sectarianism in Scotland.

There are at least three reasons why religion no longer plays the role in Scottish politics it used to. Since Thatcher and especially since her ‘sermon on the Mound’ the Church of Scotland has been seen as more closely identified in its public stance with the anti-conservative consensus in Scotland. The organised working class has been atomised and, with large numbers now dependant on welfare, the widespread Scottish protestant ethos of self-reliance has waned. With religious attendance in terminal decline the focus of sectarianism has metamorphosed into a tribal anti-Catholic bigotry based around football affiliation and the Union Jack rather than religious identification.

It should probably be noted that, whereas Catholic schools have remained closely identified with the Catholic Church state schools have become far less identified with the Church of Scotland than they were in the 1950s. So the education system perpetuates tribal allegiances, but with a weakened protestant identity.

It maybe that the Tories calculate that the effect of this may just trip things in a few Scottish seats. They are also looking at the post-election issue of legitimacy and doing some groundwork. Presumably so as to be able to more convincingly appeal to hard-core unionist sentiment in Scotland. Personally I think they have miscalculated because most people in Scotland regard Orangism in the same way they regard the BNP.