Gerrys pipe dreams of a united Ireland

Sceala Clann T.D. Location: Belfast and Donegal.

Gerry's pipe dreams.

Romantic Ireland idea has goon awa up til Stoormint
Patrick Murphy
By Patrick Murphy
17/01/2009

Gerry Adams has suggested that the issue of a united Ireland could usefully be debated by people of Irish descent across the world. The Irish diaspora, he said, could be a powerful force in supporting the argument for Irish unity.

At the same time Martin McGuinness was praising our political institutions, indicating that they have achieved peace, progress and political stability in NorthernIreland.

Both men have made reasonable points. But can they both be right? If the Good Friday Agreement brought political stability, where is the argument for a united Ireland?

Traditionally Irish nationalism argued for Irish independence. Following 1921 the nationalist cause switched to Irish unity (and subsequently forgot what was meant by independence). The argument for unity was that Ireland contained the inherent characteristics of nationhood – language, culture, a common history and a heightened sense of national identity.

But, in the state of NorthernIreland, this thinking became fused with another, more urgent argument. The six-county state was discriminatory, biased and bigoted. State repression offered nationalists an immediate argument for Irish unity based on the inequalities of daily life.

That line of thought was turned on its head by the civil rights movement which argued that British citizens deserved British rights. The demand confused unionism, which delivered more repression and confounded those republicans who had been inactive since the 1940s. A more repressive state, in their minds, demanded a united Ireland even more urgently. The Provisional IRA set out to unite Ireland or bust.

When it reached bust, it followed the SDLP into politics. But it did not recognise that the SDLP had already made a fundamental political error in failing to identify British-generated sectarianism as the source of our political instability. Both parties confused sectarianism with nationality.

For the first time in modern Irish history nationalist leaders abandoned the belief that the term ‘Ireland’ means all its people. They accepted the British government’s contention that Irish unionists were not really Irish.

When Sinn Fein stole the SDLP’s political clothes they made off with what was, from a nationalist perspective, the worst suit in the shop. By agreeing that there were two nations in Ireland, both parties had to accept a cobbled-together culture for unionism.
That is how and why Ulster-Scots was invented.
At a linguistic level, it may be a joke. At a political level, the Good Friday Agreement cannot survive without it and that leaves both arguments for a united Ireland seriously undermined.

The new touchy-feely northern state no longer provides the repression-based argument for Irish unity. If Martin McGuinness is right to claim that we live in a wonderful example of political enlightenment (and there are many who agree with him), then it is hard to find an argument to abandon it all.

So where does that leave Gerry Adams with his traditional argument for a united Ireland? He could base his case on – one island (tell that to the Scots and Welsh); a common culture (no, we have two cultures enshrined in law and supported by referendum); a common linguistic origin (no, one lot spoke Irish and the other lot spoke Ulster Scots, according to equality legislation); a sense of common identity (after 30 years of violence, are you joking?)

So romantic Ireland is dead and gone. Eet’s goon awa up til Stoormint.

Sinn Fein has already recognised this by downgrading the issue of a united Ireland to task-force status (big task, no force). Irish nationalism as a political concept is at its lowest ebb for centuries.

Whether that is good or bad is a debate for another day.

History students learn of the rise of Irish nationalism in the last quarter of the 19th century, with the founding of the GAA, Conradh na Gaeilge and the Land League. Will future students be taught that Irish nationalism was killed off in the last quarter of the 20th century, when nationalist leaders denied the Irishness of northern Protestants?

Many will argue that cross-border bodies established by the Good Friday Agreement keep the dream of Irish unity alive. But the more cross-border bodies we have, the more permanent the border. Others will insist that the Irish language is growing in strength. It is, but only in Catholic areas, far removed from Pearse’s dream of the children of Sandy Row cursing the Pope in Irish.

So it would appear that the greater the stability of Stormont as advocated by Martin McGuinness, the weaker the case for Irish unity as espoused by Gerry Adams. Now there’s a debate worth having. Who wants to speak first?

http://www.irishnews.com/articles/540/606/2009/1/17/607881_369519309162RomanticI.html

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Gerrys pipe dreams of a united Ireland