A view on Ireland
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The peace process in Northern Ireland seems to be moving slowly forward. All paramilitaries are keeping fairly quiet and the politicians on both sides are talking. In this atmosphere of reconciliation, it may soon become taboo to discuss Northern Ireland’s past and the actions of both sides in that conflict. However, I would like to pose one question and I would welcome everyone’s opinion on it. The question is; Should Northern Ireland have been created in the first place? I know the past is the past and can’t be changed, but still, it’s an interesting question. As an Irish Nationalist, I think it shouldn’t have, but that’s just my opinion. I’m just going to lay out my arguments and see what people think.
A major argument for the creation of Northern Ireland is that it was the democratic will of the people. However, the fact remains that in the early 1920s the vast majority of the population of Ireland wanted to leave the United Kingdom, and Ireland was a single, united country. A significant minority (20-25% approximately), concentrated in the North East of Ireland and comprised mainly of Irish Protestants, wanted to remain within the UK. When France withdrew from Algeria in 1962, 20% of the population of Algeria did not want them to go, but yet there is no state of “Northern Algeria”.
In Ireland’s case, the Protestants in the northern province of Ulster simply comprised a local majority, a large one, but a local majority nonetheless. The fact that the Catholics and Protestants of Ulster lived among each other (there was no clearly defined geographical line between the two communities) meant that there were going to be large numbers of people caught on the wrong side of the fence. Now you can argue that the Catholics should have left, but that was their home, just as it was the Ulster Protestants’ home. What you had then in 1922 was limited ethnic cleansing on both sides as they tried to define some lines. However, 35% of the population of Northern Ireland remained Catholic Nationalists, with little or no loyalty towards the new state. When areas of Northern Ireland with local Nationalist majorities attempted to secede in 1922 and join the Irish Free State, they were repressed.
The fact that local majority rule only worked one way was a bitter pill to swallow for the Nationalists of Northern Ireland, who held a burning resentment towards the largely-Protestant government of that state for many decades to come. When 35% of the population of a state believe that state is illegitimate, you have a problem.
One of the principle arguments for the creation of Northern Ireland is that it avoided a sectarian civil war between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. While this is certainly true, the fact remains that there was a civil war anyway.
In the Irish Free State, the Nationalist movement and the IRA split down the middle. Many Nationalists could not accept that the country was being divided and that it was being made a commonwealth free state instead of a sovereign republic. In June 1922, the Irish Free State government launched a campaign to crush the rebels and triggered a civil war that would claim over 4000 lives. The Irish Civil War of 1922-23 created long-standing hatred and resentment in Ireland that continues to this day and has left its mark on Irish politics. People don’t easily forget that the army killed their brothers or sons. It also gave the Irish Nationalists another thing to blame the British government for. There was anarchy too in Northern Ireland as the government there attempted to assert its authority over a Catholic minority that rejected its right to govern them. In 1969, Northern Ireland very nearly collapsed into sectarian civil war, and would have if it weren’t for the fact that the British army was deployed in large numbers on the streets. My point is that Northern Ireland’s creation did not prevent civil war. It caused one in 1922 and almost caused another 1969. Perhaps if the battles had been fought in the 1920s, they would not have been still fighting in the 1990s.
Instead, the inevitable confrontation between Nationalists and Unionists was merely postponed and, as always, people only started talking about peace when enough people had been killed.
Another argument for the creation of Northern Ireland was the assertion that “home rule would be Rome rule”, in other words that an independent Ireland with a Catholic majority would slave itself to the wishes of the Vatican and persecute the Protestant minority. Many Unionists point to the fact that the Irish Free Sate was semi-theocratic (up until the 1960s) as a justification of this argument. However, this ignores that fact that the Irish Catholic Church and Irish Nationalism have not exactly been bedfellows. In the past, the Catholic Church condemned the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland on the grounds that it was inspired by the French revolution. The United Irishmen movement (the first militant Nationalist group), which launched the rebellion, was fundamentally anti-sectarian. Its leader, Theobold Wolfe Tone, and many of its senior members were Protestants and it had significant support among the Presbyterian community as well as the Catholics. Wolfe Tone had said that his aim was
“To unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter under the common name of Irishmen in order break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils. If the men of property will not support us, they must fall. Our strength shall come from that great and respectable class, the men of no property.”
This convinced the Catholic Church that the Nationalists had to be stopped and their condemnation of the rebellion was a powerful blow, as many pious Catholics fought alongside the British army to destroy the rebels. The Church also condemned the IRA during the War of Independence from 1919 to 1921, until they realised that they had popular support. My point is that the Irish Catholic Church has always looked out for its own interests. If the IRA had stated that its intention was to strip the Church of its property and privileges, they would have sided with the Unionists. When the Irish Free State was created, the Catholic Church used the opportunity to increase its power. They seized on the building sectarian resentment against Northern Ireland and worked it into a frenzy. They established themselves as the dominant power in independent Ireland after the government, turning the country into something almost resembling a Catholic Iran. They were given the opportunity to do this by Northern Ireland’s creation. Protestant contributions to the Irish Nationalist movement were quietly covered up or overlooked as the Catholic Church, in complicity with senior members of the Irish government, attempted to paint the Irish Nationalist struggle as a Catholic-Protestant fight when in fact it was far more complicated than that. They encouraged the notion of Catholic=Irish in order to strengthen their hold on the masses. This would have been much more difficult to do if 25% of the country was Protestant.
Finally, one of the most vocal arguments among Irish nationalists against the creation of Northern Ireland was that it was simply an attempt by the British government to save face and convince the world that the Empire was not fragmenting. Under the terms of the 1921 peace treaty, Northern Ireland remained within the United Kingdom and the Irish Free State remained within the commonwealth. Technically, “Ireland” was still part of the British Empire. For decades, the British government took little or no interest in Northern Ireland’s affairs and the hatred and resentment on both sides was allowed to fester until it finally exploded in August 1969.
While I am an Irish Nationalist, I am not a supporter of the IRA and I don’t have a sectarian bone in my body. I do sincerely believe however that both Britain and Ireland would have been better off if Northern Ireland had never been created in the first place. Ireland has a long history of absorbing newcomers. It did so with the Celts, the Vikings, and the Anglo-Normans and I believe it will eventually do so with the Ulster-Scots. I think their distinct culture and Britishness can and will eventually be accepted and absorbed into modern Irish culture and will be a helpful factor in bringing Britain and Ireland closer together. Perhaps then Irish Nationalists will no longer recoil in horror at the sight of the Union Jack or the sound of God Save The Queen. In the absence of a Northern Ireland political state, Irish Nationalists will no longer have a living, breathing reason to despise Britain and everything British and the past can finally be laid to rest.
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I found this text in a non-political forum; I expected it would be deleted very soon, so I saved it. I was right with that. This far the author did not follow my invitation to join and post it here, nevertheless I decided to post it since it is an interesting read in my opinion, which, of course, does not mean I agree with everything.
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Alsbald kriegen ihre Strafe Der böse Turko und der Zuave
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Friday, May 11th, 2007
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