Sunday, October 22, 2006
Ulster for sale and there’s only one buyer?
There seems to be a degree of symmetry in two stories in today’s media regarding the future direction of Northern Ireland. The Sunday Times reports that the Irish government is planning to spend more than €1 billion on motorways, energy links and healthcare in Northern Ireland as part of ongoing efforts to create an all-island economy. Update: Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has refused to confirm the financial package.
Meanwhile in the Sunday Business Post, unionism’s favourite commentator Tom McGurk argues that Ian Paisley has spent the past four decades “destroying Irish Unionism as a political, economic or moral force” and, as a result, Northern Ireland is now for sale at a knockdown price.
“Just as soon as he says ‘‘yes’’ and battens down the devolved hatches, the Celtic Tiger will pounce over the border and snap up all the bargains,” he writes. “I won’t whisper it too loudly, Paisley, posterity is listening, but you know as I do that, at the very moment of your historical triumph, you have finally got your richly deserved comeuppance. Ulster is for sale, after all.”
George @ 01:55 PM
Protestantism a “state cult”? Unlike Catholicism in the Republic until recently then?
Eds Quaysider: I’ve removed the comment on McGurk’s private life.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 02:34 PM‘Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is playing down reports that the Government is to make €1bn in aid available for the North.’
Bloody right too . If they can’t manage with 6 billion a year ‘aid’ what’s an extra billion going to do .
This attempted ‘bribe’ to get the DUP and SF into a devolved Assembly will be as popular with voters in the Republic as the bubonic plague .
Somebody must have told Bertie that the Republic’s voters would rather see ‘aid’ being given to first time housebuyers in the Republic than showered out to a bunch of permanently ungrateful spongers and malcontents north of the border .
The news that the ‘slump coalition’ are devising a package of northern ‘aid’ as part of their electoral strategy to unseat the FF/PD coalition is just another example of how far removed from political reality are the leaders of FG/Lab etc !
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 02:58 PMUnderstood moderator, but I feel it is still a fair question to ask where McGurk’s vitriol comes from. It’s not like the RUC was ripping up his floorboards in Dublin 4. Since the events in his private life of which we shall not speak, McGurk’s commenting career has focused increasingly on a hatred of all things northern and protestant even as he sought to advocate Sinn Fein’s role in an agreement that was supposed to bring unity. His position is so inconsistent and emotional that serious personal motivations must be considered a factor.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 03:01 PMQuaysider,
‘but I feel it is still a fair question to ask where McGurk’s vitriol comes from. ‘
Paisley .
That which being but taught has returned to plague the preacher ..
Ireland needs to turn it’s collective back to Ian Paisley and what he represents . Having a cleric as First Minister in a so called modern European State is a joke and not even a funny joke !
Just because there has been no Unionist leader with the balls to tackle Paisley’s authoritarian leadership does not mean that we Irish should accept Paisley as First Minister .
Better to have DR and wait until a new Unionist leader emerges - hopefull one with a better grasp of the modern 21st century world and without a dog collar round his neck !
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 03:12 PMWell yes, I quite agree - but I don’t see why this opinion necessitates a newspaper column that calls protestants cultists and sneers in delight at the prospect of their culture collapsing, their communities disintegrating and everything they once owned being snapped up as a bargain by southern carpet-baggers. Even if this is to happen, a socially-responsible commentator would surely regard it as a matter of some concern given the inevitable prospect of dislocation and perhaps even violence. McGurk just seems delighted. Frankly, this piece was w work of tribal hatred - which makes its commentary on Ian Paisley seem somewhat invalid…
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 03:17 PMTom McGurk is from Co Tyrone. He wrote one of the most powerful pices for Hibernia on why the H Block protest developed and rooted it in club fotball (Gaelic) in Tyrone. It was all about a small team, uncut grass grass and where many members othat team ended up. The 6 cos was a terrorist state with its own armed militia to keep those GAA players, Croppies, down.
McGurk simply calls a spade a spade, whether he is talking about rugby, the arts or the fascist 6 co state.
Any further bribes given to the north are probably to yet again try to buy off Sinn Fein. They are an endless pit for the hard earned money of others.Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 03:27 PMUncut grass from Tyrone, eh?
But enough about Martin McGuinness.Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 03:33 PMInvestment is investment.
I know it’s his joband his mentality, but a lot of this article sounds like needless slabbering.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 03:51 PMIn my rush in post 8., I meant McGurk’s piece - there’s nothing new in it at all, who doesn’t know of Paisley’s seemingly endless of run of phyrric victories?
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 03:58 PMI see absolutely no point whatsoever in the kind of invective that McGurk is indulging in. Anyone who fails to see a win win situation where everybody benefits has no real contribution to make to the future.
Economic co-operation is in all our interests. Roads go in both directions, health care improvements are badly needed and will suit everybody and energy doesn’t have a political allegiance.
I have formed the view that the people on both sides who shout loudest about victory secretly believe they have lost.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 04:01 PMNice to see a real journalist telling the truth as he sees it, and of course he is quite right though maybe a touch negative. Got to make it colourful if he wants to sell papers, I suppose.
Old line unionism, as in the UUP, had to be defeated and post-unionism was never going to emerge fully formed.
Whatever the DUP is and it seems a bit unfair to call it Protestantism since most Protestants worldwide would reject any identification with it is the undisputed champion of unionism today.
Paisleyism (and if it’s not a sect then what is it?) is a stage in the development of a new communal identity for the Northern Prod., Scots Irish, Ulster Scots or whatever you call them people. At least half of them come from an Irish or English background but who cares? Do the rows about the existence of such a thing as a Celtic race change the fact that there is most certainly an Irish nation?
There does seem to be a move towards accepting a “Northern Ireland” identity by Sinn Fein, to go with their much loved all-Irish identity so there is hope, at last, of something we can agree on.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 04:18 PM“I see absolutely no point whatsoever in the kind of invective that McGurk is indulging in.”
Well said Henry.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 04:29 PMYes, good man yourself Henry. Let’s hope McGurk is joining the long list of ‘republican’ truceleer commentators that Sinn Fein is fast outgrowing.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 04:47 PMVery Lord Haw Haw esque in its style -
This kind of thing does not unnerve unionists and if anything causes us to chuckle that our enemies engaging in this type of fantasy analysis is all they have left.
lib2016
“There does seem to be a move towards accepting a “Northern Ireland” identity by Sinn Fein,”
I hope you are right as having a shared future and creating goodwill in NI is the real way to have a peaceful transition to whatever our children and grandchildren decide how they ultimately wish to relate to one another.
The natural follow on from this of course is for 6 county nationalists to get behind the NI Football team !!
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 04:58 PMMcGurk is the most deluded of useful idiots. He has always been too blinded by this own sectarianism to see the reality of the Provo sell out.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 05:22 PMThe positives are that there is going to be a big amount of money to invest in NI, most of which is coming from London but Dublin contributing too.
The things I would like to see this spent on are things like the University research base so as to develop a high skill base and good jobs to attract people to Belfast to set up businesses. That I think would be the most important. I’d also like to see the railway service improved so its really transformed, maybe some investment for local sports. Not sure we need that much more roads, maybe dualling on the Belfast-Derry route.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 05:31 PM€1 billion! NI gets enough each year from the British Government. That’s our money, it’s not like we don’t need it.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 06:31 PMAnother sectarian bun fight? This is in danger of becoming predictable and tedious.
maca,
One of the cross border issues is access for Donegal residents to Altnagelvin Hospital. That will involve the Republic spending tax euros on services in Northern Ireland, in order to ease infrastructural problems in Donegal.
Surely this is less about the Republic’s generous largesse, than enlightened self interest? Or at least if it isn’t that what it should be about, surely?
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 07:16 PMHenry94
Economic co-operation is in all our interests. Roads go in both directions, health care improvements are badly needed and will suit everybody and energy doesn’t have a political allegiance.
Right on target.
The better we do both sides of the border and the more we cooperate to mutual advantage the better for us all. It should have sod all to do with the future of NI.
I do wish people would stop grasping at such issues to justify a preset political agenda. If there is to be a united Ireland it will not be helped by forcing the issue at every turn, that simply repels.
Money and investment are global. Many people own property and investment abroad. Have any of you ever sat down and calculated just how much it would cost to buy all property along one major road, have a go it is frightening. So remember all these things should be seen in the round.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 08:35 PMCrat I agree.
I thought the spin in the pieces above was rather tribalist; rather than talking about the great investment opportunities for everyone it is turned on its head and converted into a tribal calculus. How stupid!
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 08:47 PMSettlements could render a lot of tribal bonding narratives redundant.
Business journalists could be very busy though, covering what people can get up to with 3.75 percent property mortgages and 13% or whatever corporation tax.
An edgy separatists worst dream could be that the business class get together and find that all their teenage kids went to britain, and now want their country back without Sinn Fein.
As for cross border packages. Bertie can no longer play the poor mouth without people laughing to his face. Sure didn’t the Brits cough up for all the cross border bits the last time. Bertie now actually needs links to the North to let off some inflationary steam.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 08:59 PMProtestantism a “state cult”? Unlike Catholicism in the Republic until recently then?
Er no. Catholicism is an international cult led by the Antichrist in Rome, remember?
I agree that the “tribal calculus” is in there, with all that vainglorious pouncing Celtic Tiger stuff. But....
I don’t think it’s unfair to detail Paisley’s role in destroying moderate political opinion of all stripes since the “O’Neill must go” days, the role that destruction had in increasing violence, and finally the brass neck the man has in claiming as his legacy something he fought against tooth and nail for 40 years. I just don’t think Tom McGurk is the man to do it.
Neither does Tom if you look at one of the conclusions of the article: Will anyone spell out to Paisley what he has done? That’s your job mate; quit foaming at the mouth and do it.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 09:13 PMNice try at a wind up George but if you read how much the total Ireland infrastructure plan is over the next 10 years the North’s part is like the loose change...and its fraction of what the British Government will pump in.
Cross border joint projects make sense in these areas, its not unusual elsewhere in Europe. McGurk is just a bitter child but the North turns those out by the ton.
Should there be a United Ireland I’m sure the south will be delighted with taking in all its bitter brothers & sisters....what a poisoned chalice.
Posted by on Oct 22, 2006 @ 11:10 PMlets just take all the money and make a better place ,for all the people of the north .
Posted by on Oct 23, 2006 @ 01:17 AMooooh I’m so scared- all that free state cash is going to come up North and buy out our beloved Ulster- just the way all that British and U.S. cash flowing into Dublin has ..er resulted in Ireland reapplying to join the UK , which has then enrolled as the 51st state of the Union.
Economically and politically illiterate piece that even John Coulter would have no trouble demolishing.But look how all the republicans on this blog wallow in the comfort blanket he provides! if we can’t breed them out, or bomb them out, we’ll buy them out! You caould always try talking to us instead of at us or down to us/ Oh, and thanks for the cash.
Posted by on Oct 23, 2006 @ 08:11 AM
