Orange backs the Catholic church…
Implausible? Not really. Both are socially conservative religious organisations with very similar outlooks on a range of social issues… Not least in their response to Equality legislation as it is to be applied to adoption agencies.
Ian Wilson, the Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, last night told The Scotsman that leaders of the Catholic Church had a right to be heard on such moral issues in politics.He spoke after Cormac Murphy O’Connor said: ” If people weren’t able to act according to their conscience for the sake of the common good in our country, it would be a lack of freedom for religious conviction”
Mr Wilson said: “There has to be more tolerance of the views of people of faith, and that includes the Cardinal. Broadly speaking, the Lodge would take an orthodox, traditional Christian view of this – we see the family as a man and a woman.”
Orange lodges have sometimes been associated with sectarian tension, but Mr Wilson insisted that his order sympathised with the Catholic hierarchy.
I must tell a story I heard about Chinese voters. A certain M.P.- I won’t say who- thought that he might save his majority with the help of the proprietors of the local Chinese take-away and their family. He enlisted a friend of mine, who speaks Chinese, to go and ask them how they intended to vote. They said that they had read the literature of all the various parties, and decided that there was some good in all of them, and so consequently they would be giving their vote to all of them. Of course, this may be a fiendishly cunning Oriental way of telling him to f@ck off and mind his own business, but I think it serves as a warning to anyone who relies on the Chinese vote.
I would disagree with your assertion that SDLP supporters are less interested in a UI solution
Actually, I don’t think I quite said that. Obviously some SDLP supporters are very interested in a United Ireland. Some less so. Do you really think Alasdair McDonnell is that bothered? Or Marty Morgan? Or Marietta Farrell? They represent a strand of NI Catholic society who vote SDLP because it’s a ‘moderate’ party that believes in cutting a deal to make NI equal. There’s also a strand of SDLP support that voted Alliance until the early 90s when they started voting SDLP to back John Hume over peace. They still haven’t come back, and as the person who masterminded Tom Campbell’s surprise comeback in Castle in 1997 based on bringing those people back, I feel I know what I’m talking about (although sadly it proved a one off experience).
Even among Sinn Féin voters, there are stark differences in emphasis. Some people (obviously) vote Sinn Féin because they want a united Ireland. Some people vote Sinn Féin because they’re fed up with being walked over by the Jaffas (as they see it) but have no huge problem with the Brits, no desire to lose access to the NHS, don’t trust the Free Staters, etc., etc. I can even think of a few members of my extended family who are ex-IRA prisoners who would more or less think that way and would have probably ended up in the British Army had the Troubles not kicked off when it did. Then the UDA and UVF started picking people off the Antrim Road and Donegall Street at night and carving them up with stanley knives and they wanted to ‘hit back’.
Changes in the Republic are dramatically affecting this – many more NI Catholics are happier with the idea of being part of a United Ireland than even 10 years ago, and people’s changed perception of the South, at least in my experience, is driving this. You have to remember just how many Belfast Catholics, even Belfast republicans, saw the South as an alien place where people talked funny and they had bad roads (and the b’stards sold us out in ’22).
All that is changing, but it’s always more difficult to get people to try something new than it is to get them to accept the status quo; especially if the status quo involved record low unemployment, unparallelled prosperity, especially for Catholics, record numbers of Catholics in senior and influential positions, unparallelled acceptance for the Irish culture and identity, etc., etc.
Real nationalists need to start persuading fluffy, cultural, nationalists (I suppose like me) why they should support change when life’s pretty good for us here if they want a united Ireland; then they can get to work on the Prods. Right now, I don’t see any sign of that – just wishful thinking about changing demographics and the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising.
Remember Quebec nationalism should have been buried by changing demographics. Instead it posed a serious threat to Canadian unity for the first time since the days of British North America. They kept themselves alive by persuading moderate Francophone Quebeckers that they weren’t a crowd of Anglo-hating fascists who would bankrupt the Province; and by persuading a significant minority of immigrants from Africa and Asia that their future lay in an independent Quebec rather than Canada. There may well be lessons for NI nationalism there.
Oh, they also encouraged differential immigration from French speaking countries. Not sure there is an equivalent in this case.
As a confirmed atheist, I can still sympathise with the views of the OO and the various churches.
The members of these have deeply held views which must not be discriminated against just because others do not agree with them.
Gay people have no right to impose their views on others who do not agree with them.
I would suggest keeping out of each other way and co-existing is the best solution.
“and the b’stards sold us out in ‘22″
… and ’69 …
Sammy Morse,
You are of course correct in pointing out that there is little enthusiasm anywhere for a simple takeover by the 26 County state.
That wouldn’t lead to unity in any real sense and it is not what Sinn Fein propose. The battle to give Catholics acess to power in NI is being won as a cursory glance at what is actually happening on the ground will tell anyone who looks.
The ‘old’ wing of the SDLP was about that and even in the sixties Fitt used to make socialists wince when he couched his arguments in that sectarian way.
Sinn Fein uses the word equality because that’s what the bulk of Sinn Fein means. I’ll leave the shape of a future UI to the people who will live in it – Catholic and Protestant and Dissenter.
One thing I’m sure of is that the reality of it will emerge before the referendum recognising it happens…..and it will be a hell of an anticlimax for the true believers, the fundys and the fior gaels.
The battle to give Catholics access to power in NI is being won as a cursory glance at what is actually happening on the ground will tell anyone who looks.
Lib, I’m all for equal rights. In fact, I’m pretty close to being comfortable with a united Ireland.
But I don’t share your view that “Catholics” have access to power. I’d rather look at it as Irishmen of whatever shape, colour or size. We need to lose the sectarian mindset.
just posting a longer test post.