Nuclear options
We’re not at this point yet – not even close, truth be told- but shall we have a natter about the nuclear options?Previously unionists have been threatened with Joint Authority, effectively co-rule by London and Dublin. It’s extremely unlikely that Gordon Brown would pursue such a strategy so close to a general election. If it happened David “Call-me-prime-minister” Cameron would make a lot of Labour-destroyed-the-union hay and the SNP would, presumably, be cook-a-hoop. Still, it’s worth talking about, isn’t it?
And what about repartition? That’s been suggested a few times but never got terribly far up the political agenda as it doesn’t really suit either republicans or unionists. But it may, at some point, suit the British government to get the scissors our along the Bann (and Newry as well as, presumably, turning West Belfast into West Berlin – or perhaps east Berlin if you’re a unionist).
This is all aimless musing. Anyone care to join me?
In other words, southern Protestants are actually prospering and doing very well for themselves. There is no evidence of any maltreatment in this day and age.
A former fundamentalist Free Presbyterian, who used to contribute to the talkback board, once went tentatively to Dublin to examine the ‘plight’ of southern Protestants. He found no ‘plight,’ only a group of contented people who were living out their lives in peace.
Here in the Republic no oppression of the Protestant population has occurred similar to that endured by Catholics in NI 1921-1972.. It is offensive to citizens of the State to suggest otherwise. The Republic has been based on equality from top to bottom. Hence, unlike Britain, a Catholic, Protestant, Hindu or Jew is free to seek election to the office of President. However look eastwards to Britain and a totally different state of affairs exist. Under the antiquated Act of Settlement a Catholic cannot inherit the throne. That is but one example of a state not completely purged of sectarianism..
Concrete verifiable instances of anti-Protestant sectarianism in the southern state were so few and far between that they can be individually documented and have acquired, in no small measure following on unionist propagandising, a certain cult status; the time-honoured triad of Fethard, the Hyde funeral,and the Mayo librarian tend to be milked for all they are worth. The fact that you have to go back over five decades to find an instance of serious communal sectarianism speaks for itself.
Thankfully we here in the South can say with not just a tad of pride, that since 1920 we have established a State that has made all feel welcome and valued.
Since the early 1990’s the Protestant proportion of the ROI population has been rising and the Catholic proportion falling (Central Statistics Office,
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0214/1233867937744.html).
Since the early 1960’s the Protestant proportion of the ROI population has been rising and the corresponding Protestant proportion in NI falling. It looks, if you are a Protestant in Ireland, as if the ROI is the place to be.
“…the Ne Temere… …was issued in 1908 and – while certainly insensitive – was intended more as a control measure for Catholics rather than an attack on Protestants…”
- Surely it would only be protestants affected by said law as their children would be forced to be raised in the catholic faith?
“Insensitive it may have been, but it did not rate in the same realm of cruelty as did the Penal Laws…”
- No one here is denying catholics have suffered over the years in Ireland – the discussion is about the suffering inflicted on protestants since the beginning of the Free State until today. Just because catholics suffered doesn’t mean it was OK for protestants to suffer the same or to deny it ever happened.
“It is my contention that there was no mass-pogrom of Southern Protestants in the oft-quoted years of 1911-26.”
- Have a read of Peter Hart’s ‘The IRA and it’s Enemies’ which documents the sectarian slaughter of protestants in West Cork 1916-1923. http://alturl.com/kru6
- Or read the personal account of Ian Beamish who’s grandparents slept in fields in the area for fear of IRA men coming to murder them in their beds while they slept. http://alturl.com/wwmd
- Or have you heard of the cold blooded murder of protestant woman Mary Lindsay and her servant James Clark on Feb 17th 1921 as well as the other 11 protestants murdered in the same area around the same time? http://alturl.com/gweo
- Historian Peter Hart estimates the Free States protestant population dropped 34% in the same period you claim there was ‘no mass-pogrom’. Were these protestants abducted by aliens? http://alturl.com/5t4b
“irresponsible Unionist political leaders like Craig and Carson… …to portray Catholics as enemies with slogans like “Home Rule is Rome Rule”…” “It (Ne Temere) also emanated from the Vatican and not the ROI.”
- Some might say they were right then…
“The census also shows that since the foundation of the state that the population of Mayo has dropped dramatically, that the number of Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht has declined dramatically and that the number of farmers in the country has declined dramatically. I don`t think it could be argued that any of those groups suffered systematic abuse at the hands of the state”
- All by 34%???
“The second most powerful politician in the state at its inception time was a Lisburn Presbyterian, Ernest Blythe, which does to exactly tie in with the state-sponsored sectarianism model.”
- I could say that the appointment of catholic James Flanaghan to the post of RUC chief constable from 1973-1976 showed catholics suffered no discrimination in Northern Ireland – doesn’t mean it would be true though.
- Or remind you of G.B. Newe – a catholic who served as the Minister of State in the ‘anti-catholic’ Stormont parliament from 1971-1972.
“No Protestant family gets attacked here as happened in NI to a clergyman who wished a Happy Christmas to a Catholic priest and was forced to leave the country.”
- Again I’ll direct you to the survey taken by the Irish Independent claiming that a quarter of protestants in the border counties have suffered abuse at work or school because of their religion. http://alturl.com/yh9y
“Though they are less than five per cent of the population they retain 30 per cent of farms over 100 acres…”
- Could you have picked out a more obscure fact to try and back up your argument?? Apparently catholics in Northern Ireland are twice as likely to own a 40″ plasma TV as protestants – does that mean everything’s fine and dandy in NI?
“Here in the Republic no oppression of the Protestant population has occurred similar to that endured by Catholics in NI 1921-1972.”
- As I’ve showed you above that is wrong. Different levels when comparing the two communities but they BOTH definitely suffered from oppression.
“The Republic has been based on equality from top to bottom.”
- Again I’ve showed you that is wrong.
“However look eastwards to Britain and a totally different state of affairs exist. Under the antiquated Act of Settlement a Catholic cannot inherit the throne.”
- An outdated law which any right thinking British citizen would agree should be changed as soon as possible.
“The fact that you have to go back over five decades to find an instance of serious communal sectarianism speaks for itself.”
- Well there’s not going to be much chance of it now when half the protestants in the country have left in the past 90 years. Though we seen what happened when the ‘Love Ulster’ victims group came to Dublin for the day. Is that not classed as serious communal sectarianism?
“Since the early 1960’s the Protestant proportion of the ROI population has been rising and the corresponding Protestant proportion in NI falling. It looks, if you are a Protestant in Ireland, as if the ROI is the place to be. ”
- Silly me. There was me thinking the protestants leaving NI were travelling to universities in England and Scotland…
Then came WW1,
partition, and the Boundary Commission. The latter two led to Southern
Unionists mostly from border areas moving North. This was overwhelmingly
simply because they were Unionists and wanted to live in the UK.
Or because they were cops and wanted to live. I know this is anecdotal, but my great grandparents moved from Cavan to Portadown after their RIC son was targeted by the IRA. Maybe there wasn’t a campaign against Prods, but there was one against the police, and in many cases that amounted to the same thing.
Andrew Gallagher ,
‘I know this is anecdotal, but my great grandparents moved from Cavan to Portadown after their RIC son was targeted by the IRA. Maybe there wasn’t a campaign against Prods, but there was one against the police, and in many cases that amounted to the same thing.’
No it did’nt amount to the same thing not prior to 1920 anyway .
The RIC was overwhelmingly RC in it’s make up pre the establishment of both the Free State and Northern Ireland . This was probably because police work at the time was considered ‘dangerous ‘ and it was low paid and required large bodied tough ex peasants to grapple with unruly urbanites.
The vast majority of RIC men killed in the Irish War of Independence would have been southern Catholics . It was only after the establishment of the State of Northern Ireland that the ‘police’ in that part of the island became overwhelmingly ‘protestant ‘ presumably to fill the role of ‘defender ‘ of the state .
Greenflag,
My understanding was that the RIC membership generally reflected the demographics of the local area. In any case, my great-grandparents obviously felt that Portadown was a safer place for policemen than Cavan. The effect is the same.
According to Carson the RUC was 95% Catholic.
RIC****
“the police of Ireland, who are 95 per cent. to 98 per cent. Catholics”
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1918/jun/25/statement-by-chief-secretary#S5CV0107P0_19180625_HOC_311
Wikipedia says 75% and royalirishconstabulary.com reckons 80%. I wouldn’t put it past Carson to exaggerate the numbers for effect.
andrew gallagher ,
The RUC in it’s early days had about 40% Catholics but that soon changed . many former RIC joined the Garda and the RUC in the new States and many retired . Also some emigrated to the colonies and joined the police . Some even joined the Palestinian Gendarmerie .
shane,
Carson was winging it for effect . At most I could imagine 85-90 % . The RIC were more likley to be from the countryside than the big towns ; so they had fewer Dubs and Belfast men in their ranks
>>We all know there was discrimination against catholics and the entire working class in Northern Ireland until 1969 – at least Unionists will admit to that.<<
Nearly chocked on ma beer. As a long time sluggerite I can attest to the problems of getting unionists to admit to anything if they can help it.
Oh and the argument over which is the more evil state is entirely fatuous in the extreme. Establishment practices are somehow being compared to isolated incidents, sophistry is being attempted here and prima facie seems to be a presentable veneer, although the evidence attests to it not being scratchproof. The indicators that matter money, land and wealth all attest to Prods flourishing in the Republic, the lucky Proddy beggars. The Catholic middle-class in the norm is pretty much a modern phenomenon.
>>Catholic middle-class in the norm is pretty much a modern phenomenon<<
For norm read NORTH! Duh!
From Stephen Ferguson:
Have a read of Peter Hart’s ‘The IRA and it’s Enemies’ which documents the sectarian slaughter of protestants in West Cork 1916-1923.
I read this book years ago from cover to cover. I find it even less convincing now then when I first read it. Peter Hart is a man of many talents including, it would appear, an ability to get through to the afterlife. However his credibility as a historian has been irreparably damaged – his central contentions being torn to shreds by local historians such as Meda Ryan and Brian Murphy and in the pages of History Ireland.
In a more readily accessible stream might I suggest that you read through the following series of excellent articles and discussions in Indymedia. Mind you it will take about three hours but it’s worth it to see Peter Hartism being forensically dissected..
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/66994
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75885
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/72403
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/71352
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/70063
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/69172
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/67769
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/67661
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/66456
If you read through all of this carefully you will see that that Hart was forced through the rigors of debate to concede that there was no ethnic cleansing of Protestants in West Cork and to adopt the fall back position that Protestants actively cooperating with British forces were significantly more likely to have met a sticky end than those of the Catholic variety; he failed to provide evidence to support this contention.
Or read the personal account of Ian Beamish who’s grandparents slept in fields in the area for fear of IRA men coming to murder them in their beds while they slept. .
The Hartists often plug the following line:
‘I spoke to x who said y happened to z back in 1922. All this has to be disentangled from the transgenerational fog of distortion, preselection, and amplification. As Conor Cruise O’Brien said in ‘States of Ireland’ family witness is notoriously unreliable; you’ve seen the conflicting evidence in the Saville Enquiry about an event that happened relatively recently and within the television age.
Some relevant quotes from around that period:
Mr J.W. Biggs, a wealthy Unionist, wrote:
“I feel it my duty to protest very strongly against this unfounded slander (of intolerance on the part) of our Catholic neighbours … 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 the country”.
Some days later, as reprisal for these comments, his business premises were burnt down by the RIC.
The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church wrote:
“it is a notable fact that nowhere has a hand been raised against one of our isolated Church buildings, nor against a single individual Presbyterian in the South and West”.
One Protestant letter-writer stated:
“One would imagine from the speeches of [Unionist leader] Sir Edward Carson in the North that we in the South, because of our differences in our religions, were at one another’s throats. No greater mistake was ever made”.
Read the rest here:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76966
The psychological modus operandi of the Hartists reminds me of the fallacyenunciated by the psychologist Cordelia Fine:
The brain’s ignoble use of stereotypes blurs our view of others to an all but inevitable bigotry.
Inevitably we are confronted with challenges to our beliefs ,be it the flat-earther’s view of the gentle downward curve of the sea at the horizon , or a weapon’s inspector returning empty-handed from Iraq. Yet even in the face of counter-evidence our beliefs are protected as tenderly as our egos. Like any information that pokes a sharp stick at our self-esteem evidence that opposes our beliefs is subjected to close, critical and inevitably dismissive scrutiny.
Being confronted with the evidence of these slick and resourceful window-dressings of the brain is unsettling ,and rightly so. Evidence that fits our beliefs is quickly waved through the mental border patrol. Counter-evidence on the other hand must submit to close interrogation and even then will probably not be allowed in..
In relation to Irish Protestants circa 1922/1923 it is important to appreciate the crucial distinction between being forced out, a la Belfast Catholics 1922, and upping and leaving (at worst) because of a loss of privileged status and/or anticipation of persecution which did not in fact occur.
In their failure to consider all plausible hypotheses as to the drop in Protestant numbers since the inception of the state and examine the relevant evidence in each instance instead of just focusing on one, the Hartists have subverted cold, hard logic. For example why not write about the mass expulsion/ethnic cleansing of self-declared Catholics from the ROI from about 1980 onwards who have, based on census figures, dropped from 95 to about 60% of the population?
In addition I have to take my hat off to a politics.ie contributor who posted the following:
We were so good and sneaky at it that there isn’t a single account of refugees running for safety to Britain or NI to escape the terror. I mean, when the loyalists had a go at their own ethnic cleansing in 1969, there were refugee camps set up south of the border to help those fleeing from the violence. All in all 35,000 people fled south that time. Amateurs. Not a single news report or government enquiry when we had our fun. We are proud of this because we are the first and only people to ever get away with genocide without the world ever finding out.
Historian Peter Hart estimates the Free States protestant population dropped 34% in the same period you claim there was ‘no mass-pogrom’. Were these protestants abducted by aliens? ,
Please re-read my comments above and in previous postings. If you are really curious read Marcus Tanner’s ‘Holy Wars’
“The census also shows that since the foundation of the state that the population of Mayo has dropped dramatically, that the number of Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht has declined dramatically and that the number of farmers in the country has declined dramatically. I don’t think it could be argued that any of those groups suffered systematic abuse at the hands of the state”
- All by 34%???
In the case of farmers and Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht it is considerably more than 34%. Log into the CSO site and do your homework.
“The second most powerful politician in the state at its inception time was a Lisburn Presbyterian, Ernest Blythe, which does to exactly tie in with the state-sponsored sectarianism model.”
- I could say that the appointment of catholic James Flanaghan to the post of RUC chief constable from 1973-1976 showed catholics suffered no discrimination in Northern Ireland – doesn’t mean it would be true though.
The relevant point here being that this was post-Stormont,. There is also a big difference between Chief Constable and the second most powerful politician in the state.
- Or remind you of G.B. Newe – a catholic who served as the Minister of State in the ‘anti-catholic’ Stormont parliament from 1971-1972.,
I have already acknowledged Dr. Newe:
“This is exactly five times the number of Catholics that ascended to cabinet office during the 1921-1972 Stormont régime.”
Dr. G.B. Newe was the ONE – unique, unelected, parachuted, and luridly tokenistic.
“Though they are less than five per cent of the population they retain 30 per cent of farms over 100 acres…”
- Could you have picked out a more obscure fact to try and back up your argument?? Apparently catholics in Northern Ireland are twice as likely to own a 40” plasma TV as protestants – does that mean everything’s fine and dandy in NI?
There’s a big difference between 100 acre farms and plasma TVs.
“The fact that you have to go back over five decades to find an instance of serious communal sectarianism speaks for itself.”
Though we seen what happened when the ‘Love Ulster’ victims group came to Dublin for the day. Is that not classed as serious communal sectarianism?
Here’s the Webster definition of the noun ‘community’ of which ‘communal’ is derivative:
.the people with common interests living in a particular area
Not exactly applicable to the footloose, antisocial, ‘Love Ulster’ arrivistes. It can however be applied to the residents of Glenbryn; it is worth comparing and contrasting the ‘Love Ulster’ and Holy Cross confrontations – this is not whataboutery – just illumination through contextualisation:
In terms of their respective catchment areas the Dublin rioters represented only a minuscule fringe. The Holy Cross brigade by all accounts comprised a fair percentage of the Glenbryn residents.
The Dublin fracas arose in no small part because the Gardai were unable to nip it in the bud – their hands being tied after the May Day fiasco of the previous year. If for arguments sake another Love Ulster march were to be held any rumpus would be promptly strangled at birth. Holy Cross went on day after day, week after week.
From my reading of the serious reportage of Dublin the original group of pure sectarians was latched onto by anarchists/malcontents with a specific grudge against the police. This latter group could not tell the difference between an Orangeman and a Shiite Muslim. By contrast the Holy Cross mob were not a combo of sectarians and RUC-haters – they were sectarian to a man/woman.
I could be wrong but AFAIK there was no substantial number of arrests in the Holy Cross aftermath. By contrast a large number of ‘Love Ulster’ miscreants were painstakingly tracked down, dragged through the courts, and given extremely severe sentences (and rightly so IMHO).
The Dublin business was resoundingly condemned across the full spectrum of political opinion in the South including SF- to give credit where credit is due. Holy Cross was followed by a cacophony of unionist hemming and hawing.
“series of excellent articles and discussions in Indymedia.”
There’s a phrase you don’t see very often.
I’m not going back over it again but my recollection is that Hart wiped the floor with them. You’re making the wrong argument. It’s nonsense to suggest that there was no sectarian violence against protestants in the early 20s. In the circumstances it might have been remarkable had there not been. The more important distinction to make between the two parts of Ireland is that in the South it stopped.
I’m not going back over it again but my recollection is that Hart wiped the floor with them.
!!!!!!!!
It looks like you have some serious reading to do.
Erasmus
The patience of a saint.