It may have survived Irish secession and the second World War but it seems the Common Travel Area may soon be over. The UK intends to introduce an e-border scheme for all air and sea passengers in 2009. This would mean Irish citizens would need to be in possession of a passport when entering the UK by those means. The UK is not expected to apply the scheme to the land border and it appears the Irish government may introduce a similar e-border scheme as well.
This reads as if a mad picaresque tale. Myers as first a reporter for RTÉ and then as a freelance journalist with no real experience, finds himself wandering into savagery as he hastens north as the Troubles explode. A soldier dies next to him; he witnesses an IRA ambush; he sees children shot to death [...] read our review »
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] read our review »
dewi @ 09:17 PM:
The words work, but in different ways. Consider the numerous synonyms there are for each of those words: some are formal, some are casual (“chopper”, “ad”, ” ‘puta”) and that’s without getting into the jokey or the tech-speak, which is the joy of English because it extends meaning exponentially.
(Sudden extended deletion) No, no, I’m not getting into semiotics (meaning, signification, cognification…) at this time of night.
Let me ‘reverse ferret’ into the original thread, which is about the possible need for passports/identity documents to travel between Ireland and … somewhere else. Now that doesn’t worry me because I recognise the need, in the modern world, particularly on an aircraft, to be identifiable and identified. The passport is about as convenient a way as possible of doing that. Others see it as having ulterior, additional levels of significance and meaning. As I said before, I just hope I’m not in the check-in queue behind them.
Malcolm – get lost – I got books to read – and u r trying to be clever ! semiotics !!! give me a break !
Mean Malcolm sorry – I’ll try and understand your posts tomorrow – Nos da.
“But you don’t need a passport! Photo ID like a driver’s licence will do the job if you tell them you’ve come from the UK or Ireland. Sometimes “howerya†in the right accent has been known to suffice…….”
“Indeed that would probably work for me with my bap face, paddy pink complexion and a Derry accent that could cut coul’ steel, not so sure my Asian wife could carry it off though.”
Ah, takes me back to Dublin-London flights in the eighties, when the surefire way to be stopped at Heathrow was to have long hair and a leather jacket – or be black / Asian. Terrorists obviously didn’t wear suits.
Breaking news in the Irish Times:
Border security will not be tightened – Ahern
The ending of the Common Travel Area between Ireland and Britain will not result in tighter Border controls between the Republic and Northern Ireland the Taoiseach said today.
British authorities have no plans whatsoever to introduce any controls on the land border between North and South. I want to make that clear
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern Mr Ahern said the current travel arrangements between the two countries is being “abused in a large way” and that British and Irish authorities were in communication about the development of an electronic border control system by 2009.
Asked about the implications of this system for travel between the Republic and the North, Mr Ahern said: “British authorities have no plans whatsoever to introduce any controls on the land border between North and South. I want to make that clear.
“All they are looking at is increased co-operation on cross-border co-operation, targeting illegal immigrants.”
He told the Dail that the development of an e-border system was being led by the British Home Office, its Border Immigration Agency, the Police and Revenue and Customs.
It would be designed to collect and analyse passenger information in advance of travel based on passport data.
Mr Ahern said a person’s passport details would then be cross-checked with a number of “watchlists” complied of persons sought in relation to criminal investigations, illegal immigration and customs offences. There would also be a list of stolen and lost passports he said.
Labour Party leader Eamonn Gilmore asked the Taoiseach why an external border was not being created around the Islands of Britain and Ireland.
“Surely criminals are smart enough to know that if you travel through Belfast you won’t be caught. What’s the point of applying it only between the Island of Britain and the Republic of Ireland and not in Northern Ireland?”
There has been concern raised in the North as well, with Independent unionist MEP Jim Allister urging British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to clarify the plans. Mr Allister claims the failure to have a passport check at the Irish border could undermine the immigration control policy.
And he warned it could eventually lead to the UK Government forcing people in the North to travel with their passports when going to England, Scotland and Wales. This, he said, would be unacceptable and prejudicial to the British citizenship of people in Northern Ireland.
“It is reported that tighter passport controls between Ireland and the UK will mean anyone travelling between Ireland and Britain from 2009 will have to carry a passport, but that these controls will not apply to the Republic’s border with Northern Ireland,” he wrote to Ms Smith.
“If so, then how will the new controls be effective, since those present in the Republic of Ireland could simply enter through Northern Ireland, unless you anticipate the preposterous suggestion of imposing passport/control restrictions internally within the UK at the point where travellers enter GB?
“I make it very clear to you that any attempt to restrict UK citizens in this part of the UK from freely travelling to another part of the UK and treating them as if they were citizens of the Republic of Ireland would be utterly unacceptable and incompatible with our rights and status as UK citizens.”
were big brother is taking you
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/10/22/prior-permission-from-government-to-be-required-for-each-flight/
Do I need to put on my tin foil hat before or after clicking that link, heck?
“And, in view of the 100% of terrorist attacks worldwide, why am I just a bit happier that the (previously pretty useless) immigration and entry requirements to the UK are being beefed up?”
I don’t really see it.
The Brits are training up a legion of young Muslims. If they are not suitably unhappy with a lap-dancing club or brothel next door to their local Mosque, the H-Block effect is well underway in British prisons.
It is quite fashionable to humiliate Muslim elders these days. Pig-petting excursions for school children etc. It is a total wind-up and revenge for the years of posterior-kissing forced upon minor Brit officials.
Muslim terrorists viewing the USA as a destination could get whatever papers they needed in Canada by simply giving a cute hoor donation to a Minister.
It was not only that easy, it would be silly of them not to do so. 4 or 5,000 dollars is hardly a sacrifice and the chances of being turned down would have been fairly slight.
The donation being non-refundable in any event.
“Surely criminals are smart enough to know that if you travel through Belfast you won’t be caught. What’s the point of applying it only between the Island of Britain and the Republic of Ireland and not in Northern Ireland?â€
Goggins will just deny the transit the same way Jane Kennedy did. So short of a big truck packed with ANFO being driven by some intrepid Al Qaeda operative with a good sense of direction, it won’t be an issue. Cross-border crime is fuel, t-shirts, fake perfume etc.
The PSNI & An Garda Siochana are working for the designer labels.
Basically, the voters do not care about being lied to because the organized crime issues are not really that important to where their heads are at. The economy, if truth be told, actually needs organized crime to prosper.
**or be black / Asian. Terrorists obviously didn’t wear suits.**
Ah yes, I remember all those black and Asian Irish terrorists back in the 1980′s, they were quite a threat.
Remember when Adams, McGuinness et al were under internal exile within the UK? Restricted to Northern Ireland and not permitted to travel to England, Scotland and Wales. The lack of unionist outcry at this treatment (of what they claim to be their fellow countrymen) set a dangerous precendent that is now coming home to roost.
This is yet another signal to the blind that the UK is withdrawing from NI.
Siphonophore @ 09:30 AM:
Here we go for another rewriting of history: when the myth and the actuality collide, always go for the myth.
Far from any lack of unionist outcry, the further along the “unionist” spectrum, the louder the protest was. The argument against the Exclusion Orders was: if a body is not fit to walk the streets of London, why should that person be fit for Belfast or Derry?
Meanwhile, the constitutionalists were arguing the futility of the exercise: for which, among others, see Tony Bunyan’s Statewatch website, and his 1970s book on Political Police in Britain. Where was Siphonophore when the rest of us were making those noises?
As for the “signal to the blind that the UK is withdrawing from NI”, that was explicit in Section 3 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. Any blindness was not east of the Irish Sea.
I cant see the irish government allowing border checks to be reinstalled by the british on the border. The NDP is spending millions on roads in the north to help access to the north west of the country. Allowing border controls to be put back would lay waste to all this road network planning and expenditure.
Harry,
about the railways, I didn’t modify anything if you’ll read my post again. Everybody in ireland knows that many not all the lines were built for military/strategy reasons, have a look at iarnrod eireanns website. In many cases the separate companies who built the lines often didn’t get to choose the route of the railway, the sligo line, the galway clifden line and the list goes on. Railways in many cases were built in Ireland for the same reason Hitler built the motorways. It was Britain’s way of giving to the Irish while keeping control and getting what was wanted out of Ireland! Thats why the railways were often attacked.
1600mm is the metric equivalent of the original imperial measure which was a trade off compromise between actually 3 gauges in use at the time. In imperial its 5FT 3 or something. Since imperial means nothing to most people now i put it in metric , it just happens that it equals an even 1600mm in metric. Spain also has a broad gauge of 1592mm i think. You are correct when you mention that Irish engineers used this gauge in Austrailia but i think the phased or are phasing it out to standardize their network unfortunately more history lost. In Brazil there are on or two lines that were originally built to this gauge but if you say they are still in use i believe you, don’t get offended!!
Sorry for abuse last night Malcolm – long words sometimes get me wound up.
French isn’t as dogmatic as you imply. The arab subculture have invented a linguistic dialect called Verlan by which they change words by reversing consinants. “Les arabs” became “les beurs” and in a unique case of double verlan became “les rebus” Cafe is feca, Frere – reuf, mere – reum etc etc
And they know how to run Railways.
Terrible history of linguistic suppression however.
Have you lived in France Dewi if yes where?
The Arabs have invented their own language. They speak a mix of Arabic and French but it seems to be too highly developed to have just occurred recently. This probably comes from French/Arabic speaking north Africa. Sometimes i have difficulty understanding these people.
Did you mean run or ruin railways? There pretty good at the auld graffiti and the bombings!
A sign of the UK pulling out of NI its a possibility but i think its really the UK government recognizing the fact that ireland is one geographical unit and so is the
UK so where better to police the border than on a natural one. Its just logical. Its also recognizing that the north of Ireland is quite definitely Ireland and not Britain. Proof as well that a British rule will never be able to rule any part of Ireland fairly with Irish interests at heart. I await the attacks from our unionist friends…….
Not lived in France no – but been there on holiday !
Verlan however considered an urban French phenomenon.
http://tinyurl.com/3ya3xo
http://tinyurl.com/yrjqn9
Little wonder it’s inexplicable. Point being though that Freanch has a dynamic not determined merely by L’Academie Francaise.
TGV fantastic.
TGV is class, ill be taking it next week to go to hamburg amazing. New TGV est is a new two story train capable of 580km/h with a standard cruse of 250 to 300km/h.
Although i love taking the train in Ireland aswell the reopening of closed lines (sligo-galway-ennis) is happening but much too slowly for me. Would love to see SLNCR sligo enniskillen/derry reopen as it goes right by my house and the alignment is fully intact you can follow it all the way on google earth apart from a missing bridge over the river at enniskillen.
“you can follow it all the way on google earth apart from a missing bridge over the river at enniskillen.”
Absolutely brilliant. I’ll try that tonight…..
trust no one
“Will we be able to take the government to the European Court of Humans Rights for treating British residents in one part of the UK differently from other parts of the UK? ”
kinda like having the 11+, non jury courts, ””’
yea right
*Far from any lack of unionist outcry, the further along the “unionist†spectrum, the louder the protest was.*
That is certainly my recollection, Republicans didn’t object to the exclusion orders – why would they when they believed Great Britain to be a foreign state? – it was Unionists who were outraged that somehow the UK government wouldn’t allow “terrorists” on to the ‘mainland’ but were happy to let them remain in the part of the UK where 95% of the terrorism was being carried out.
One thing I don’t recall Unionists being angry about however was Willie Whitelaw’s excuse for not using plastic bullets in Toxteth or Brixton during the riots of 1981, because they were “lethal weapons”. That was disgraceful especially coming from a former NI SoS who should have known better.
Trust No One: Will we be able to take the government to the European Court of Humans Rights for treating British residents in one part of the UK differently from other parts of the UK?
It’s not a Human Rights issue, it’s a Civil Rights issue. Set up NICRA again, and get John Hume out of retirement. None of the current generation of Nationalist politicians has any interest in civil rights for unionists.
hotdogx @ 01:24 PM:
It’s barely eighteen months, I guess, since I took the Derry-Belfast train, a special trip in anticipation of the line’s closure. With minimal improvements, the usage of that line has doubled. Here we are anticipating (oh! please!) the restoration of the Sligo-Derry link (which is also in the 2006-2012 County Donegal Development Plan, I see). Incidentally, one of the motivations for the Ballyshannon/Bundoran spur was the commercial needs of the Belleek pottery: typical of how perfidious Albion planned “strategic” railways.
I see there was a very recent discussion on politics.ie about the possibilities of rail links in the North-West: http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?p=878040&sid=81548fc66eb215daefe9e1f19563c215
Have we all found the 1906 rail map of Ireland, to remind us of what used to be? If not, it’s at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map_Rail_Ireland_Viceregal_Commission_1906.jpg
First things first, though.
As I understand, there is a serious block on further upgrading the Derry-Belfast line. Unless a new passing loop is built at Ballykelly (estimated cost about £10M), the capacity of the line is limited to one train in each direction: hence the timetabled intervals. There’s one immediate priority. Then something could be done about the track: a 30mph speed limit applies for most of the distance, I gather. (So much for wishful thinking about TGVs.)
Surely even that priority, though, should be behind the restoration of the Knockmore line (with a loop to Aldergrove): we’ve already discussed that in previous threads.
And — hey! — HS1 (14th November) with St Pancras half-a-dozen stops from my front door! Moules, frites with mayonnaisse … the Gare du Nord 2hrs and a bit … suddenly, the world’s my oxter.
Derry to Belfast in 2 and a half hours..73 miles …and I thought things were bad here. Cardiff Swansea 45m 57 chains in an hour seems like speeding. Nothing about that in those spending plans published today – just a Rapid Transit System for Greater Belfast.
A TGV circle round the island with stops at Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Westport and Derry would be an absolute guaranteed success – help stimulate economic growth in the West also…
Probably only cost about ten billion quid.
Trust No One,
“Only the paranoid survive” – Andrew Grove, founder of Intel.
I suspect this profoundly anti-Unionist measure has come about due to the workings of the British-Irish Council, which shows, I suppose, than one should be careful of what one wishes for.
As for emigration, you may find yourself slowly but surely emigrating by staying exactly where you are.
Dewi @ 04:38 PM:
First of all, thanks for the explanation [@ 11:41 AM of inversion: I’d long wondered on the usage “les beurs”. Verlan is a new one on me.
Meanwhile, join me for all three verses (all that I know) of Flanders and Swann:
No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe.
On the Slow Train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road.
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street.
We won’t be meeting again
On the Slow Train.
There’s that incredibly well-kept (and fashionably three-hours late) train in John Ford’s The Quiet Man. Now Iarnród Éireann are bringing new Class 22000 state-of-the-art DMU sets onto the Dublin-Sligo and other “Intercity” lines. On looks alone, they are gorgeous: grey, Harrod’s green with gold. IÉ has come a long, long way: credit where it’s due. EU and other money might do something for Translink — please!
And let’s recall what Irish trains have added to the literature, and not just through Percy French (who is memorialised in the Slieve Donard Hotel, Newcastle, County Down, and quite rightly so).
I know nothing better than that marvellous piece by Flann O’Brien, A Bash in the Tunnel, just how Joycean criticism should be written (and on line at http://www.centerforbookculture.org/context/no4/obrien.html ). Forgive me for repeating myself on that one.
All this has reminded me, for the first time in forty years, of a description (from an elderly CofI cleric) of a train journey from Dublin to Cork in “The Emergency”. There were long hours of serial delays as the engine restocked with peat (some collected directly from the bog) and water (ditto). He was sharing a compartment with the writer and poet, Monk Gibbon, who never stopped a monologue the whole time.
What a rubbish post: forgive the irrelevant blather.
Malcolm – once spent a wonderful five and a half hours on the train from Harlech to Cardiff. Amused ourselves by naming films with some connection with train.
We all know “Brief Encounter” of course so when my boss said “Close Encounters” the only possible repost was “Close Encounters? That’s a spaceship you idiot!” Whole carriage collapsed and laughed till we got to Shrewsbury…. And then…
Talking of trains and songs of trains, nostalgia et al, Percy French springs to mind and his ditty ‘Are Ye Right There Michael.’ Great Southern & Western Railways (I think) were very knarked about it too and it’s subject matter of delayed choo choo’s.
Gréagóir O’ FrainclÃn @ 09:06 AM:
At last, this thread has turned to something really important!
French studied engineering at TCD, and spent rather more time in the music-halls than the lecture theatre. Eventually he took his degree and went to work for the Midland Railway. Later he became the drains-inspector for the County Cavan: I seem to spend an unhealthy amount of my recent life writing about inspectors of drains (“Captain” WE Johns of “Biggles” fame was in the same trade, in Norfolk). It was while French was nosying down Cavan sewers he wrote the Mountains of Mourne, and his career took off.
The precise incident that to which Gréagóir refers took place in the summer of 1896. French was to give a performance at Kilkeel, but the West Clare Railway failed to get him there in time (explanation: “weeds in the boiler”). He sued for loss of earnings, and was awarded £10 in compensation. The song came out a few years later (wikipedia reckon 1897, but I’ve seen 1902).
The Railway appealed the judgment (and seem to have have counter-sued for libel). The legend has it that French arrived late for the hearing, and was taken to task by the judge. French gave his apologies with the excuse he had travelled by the West Clare Railway. Various accounts have “case dismissed” and an award of one penny damages. I cannot find a totally reliable source for this part of the story (but see last sentence of this posting); and suspect strongly that French himself improved on the facts considerably.
There is an update of “Michael” on a CD of Sligo songs (by the local Sound Music label): the Sligo Railway Song.
For many years there was a locomotive, the Slieve Callan on a plinth at Ennis railway station: this was the “Percy French memorial”. I gather that Slieve Callan is now being/has now been restored and will feature at the West Clare Railway (all couple of miles of it) at the old Moyasta station. Whereupon I discover http://www.westclarerailway.ie/stories2.html which gives a comprehensive transcript of the French/West Clare Railway case.
We should have a thread on railways, eh mick?
Sarkozy announced 3000 miles of high speed railways to be built in next 23 Years yesterday.