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Saturday, February 17, 2007

“When we discuss these issues with genuine mutual understanding..”

Former Ireland rugby international Hugo MacNeill, in the Irish Times [subs req], calls for a wider debate than the one previously suggested by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.. and leads the way into it by paraphrasing the oft-quoted poet John Hewitt

“Firstly, I am an Ulsterman steeped in the traditions of this place. Secondly, I am Irish, of this Ireland. Thirdly, I am British, and finally, in a more diffuse way, I am European. It may make it easier for you to understand if you remove one of those elements but if you do you are no longer describing who I am.”

Hugo MacNeill starts by describing his interest in the question of identity [subs req]

The question of the North has always fascinated me. So too has the relationship between Ireland and Britain. Why? It is a matter of who - and what - I am. Ancestors from Glenarm in Co Antrim; a family involved in Irish history; growing up in Dublin; at college in Trinity and Oxford; playing rugby for Ireland with my Ulster team-mates; living in England for nearly 20 years; and now back in Dublin but working in London two days a week for an international organisation.

And he ends with a call for a less narrowly defined, “new framework, a new language in which these issues are discussed”

There is now a relationship between Britain and Ireland that would have been unimaginable just over a decade ago. We no longer believe in the stereotypes: the mischievous, cunning Irish; the haughty arrogant English.

These changes bring fantastic opportunity on the one hand and great challenges on the other. In turn they demand changes in the way we think about many economic, social and cultural issues. They also demand changes in the way we think about the North and indeed the South.

We need a new framework, a new language in which these issues are discussed. We need to explicitly recognise the changed and changing context in which they play out, in all parts of our island and with our UK neighbours. Pursuing one path based on one set of beliefs or assumptions, whilst not recognising the wider set of changes, the views of the other parties, will lead to a narrow and increasingly divided society, principally in the North (where such matters do continue to be of daily importance), but also on the wider island.

When we discuss these issues with genuine mutual understanding we are more likely to build a better future for all the people on this island whilst continuing to strengthen the bonds with our neighbours across the Irish Sea. This will probably involve a richer, less black or white, more complex set of assumptions and relationships than have been discussed to date. However, it’s a big and worthy prize. Let’s go for it.

The paraphrasing by Hugo MacNeill is from a paragraph in this letter from John Hewitt to John Montague in 1964

I always maintained that our loyalties had an order to Ulster, to Ireland, to the British Archipelago, to Europe; and that anyone who skipped a step or missed a link falsified the total. The Unionists missed out Ireland: the Northern Nationalists (The Green Tories) couldn’t see the Ulster under their feet; the Republicans missed out both Ulster and the Archipelago; and none gave any heed to Europe at all. Now, perhaps, willy nilly bundled in the European rump of the Common Market, clearer ideas of our regional and national allegiances and responsibilities may emerge, or our whole sad stubborn conglomeration of nations may founder and disappear for ever.

Pete Baker @ 04:06 PM

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  1. “Firstly, I am an Ulsterman steeped in the traditions of this place. Secondly, I am Irish, of this Ireland. Thirdly, I am British, and finally, in a more diffuse way, I am European.

    Question?

    Is it possible to be all four, yet no longer give allegiance to the UK State.

    Regards to all.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 07:02 PM
  2. Mickhall,

    One would be tempted to suggest you’ve provided the definition of a Dublin 4 resident. :)

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 07:08 PM
  3. I can only see closer and closer ties between the Republic and Britain. I think that pace will go hand and hand with an increase in North-South relationship.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 07:09 PM
  4. Interesting. The bit that he misses out, however, is that the relationship between the Republic and the UK has improved, and old assumptions dropped, because it is a relationship between equals and not been between master and servant. The Republic trades with the UK, but is probably less dependent on it at any other point in it’s history.

    The original quote he paraphrases from is complete nonsense, however.

    “I always maintained that our loyalties had an order to Ulster, to Ireland, to the British Archipelago, to Europe; and that anyone who skipped a step or missed a link falsified the total. The Unionists missed out Ireland: the Northern Nationalists (The Green Tories) couldn’t see the Ulster under their feet; the Republicans missed out both Ulster and the Archipelago; and none gave any heed to Europe at all. Now, perhaps, willy nilly bundled in the European rump of the Common Market, clearer ideas of our regional and national allegiances and responsibilities may emerge, or our whole sad stubborn conglomeration of nations may founder and disappear for ever.”

    Where to start? Nationalism has loyalties to Ulster, but rather the full 9 county version rather the the 6 county statelet that Unionism seems so keen on promoting. Second the idea that Nationalism should have some sort of allegiance to the “Archipegalo” is flat out wrong. AT various points in it’s history, Irish Nationalism has had allegiances with varying European powers. The same could be said for Scotland, (or even England, when you think about it). The questions is always the same: who does National interest coincide with. Finally, it misses out everyone else, and a section of Ireland’s cultural vitality comes from the diaspora.

    It is interesting to see how other people see themselves. The problems arise when you start pushing how you see yourselves onto others.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 07:12 PM
  5. Couple of points, after Iraq, Blairs major failure has been not to bring the UK into the heart of the EU, if anything we are no nearer to this today than under Thatcher. Which just shows how far Blair is in the pockets of the most reactionary English elements.

    Any one know the percentages of the RoI trade with the UK and the rest of the EU and world? If anything the EU has been a far greater motor for reunification than armed struggle, yet it seems of late to have stalled.

    I would love to hear from Unionists as to my question above, is it possible to be British yet not give allegiance to the UK State. It is a serious question, or is all Britishness based on the Finchly criteria.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 07:30 PM
  6. Is Hugo McNeill the grandson of Eoin McNeill who played such a pivotal role in the fight for Irish independence? If so it represents a huge change in one family’s attitude within two generations.
    I remember Hugo being the best full back to have worn the green jersey and so brave.
    I am pleased he has done so well for himself.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 07:32 PM
  7. I believe it to be a complete myth that the Irish identity is unique from the British identity.

    Irishness is an intrinsic part of the British identity. Always has and always will be.

    The mistake Irish nationalism makes is to equate Britishness with (southern) Englishness. It is not. There are distinct differences between a native of Sussex and an Irish Gael, but the same can be said for a Sussex man to a Highlander, Yorkshireman or Ulsterman. The Union is just that, a union of identities that may have differences but who all still have the same core identity.

    However, the similarity of the Irish Gael to the West Welsh, Highlanders and Cornish is most profound

    It is time for the Irish to shake off this mistaken belief that they are not British. They are as British as Maggie Thatcher. Hopefully with time they will come to realise this and start enriching the Union again.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 07:52 PM
  8. The idea of a “British” identity rather than the constituent parts is a comparatively recent one, driven by Union, Empire and Protestantism. All of which the “Irish Gael” wasn’t a full paid up member of. All of which are also either gone, or on the wane.

    The Irish Gael is clearly different anyway; the difference is plain to see in the fact there are now two states, Two Nations. Ideals of Republicanism and independence from Continental Europe and the US took root in Ireland in a way they didn’t elsewhere and they are pretty fundamental differences from the rest of the UK and where more fundamental at the start of the 20C.

    But even if we accept for a second your supposition that we are all British, does the Union follow as the natural and right form of government? Clearly not and Scotland is currently weighing up the advantages or otherwise. I could see an argument for a loose collection of states, but it has been rather superceded by the EU.

    And if the Irish see British as English, then that would be because the English so totally dominate the Union by virtue of their mass, and by the fact they only recently have cottoned on that they actually might, possibly, be different.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 08:17 PM
  9. Mick

    I’d suggest that the allegiances John Hewitt referred to are cultural and societal rather than political.

    As he pointed out, political movements have tended to ignore certain layers of those allegiances for their own ends.

    That’s possibly why Hugo MacNeill calls for a new framework and a new language to discuss the issues - although a better understanding, a less politically loaded interpretation, of the allegiance to the archipelago would probably be the most beneficial in that discussion.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 08:34 PM
  10. In the midst of all his philosophising it’s interesting that Hugo MacNeill chooses to forgo any analysis of yet another input into the core meaning of identity in n. ireland - that 15% of the population of the island so hated their neighbours and were so used to a position of privilege and disdain that they refused to coutenance being in a more subordinate position within a united ireland. That they were enabled to do this by threatening a force out of all proportion to their numbers due to british support and that they corralled a huge number of irish people into their new state to do this, regardless of the anti-democratic nature of doing so. At present 45% of the population are still corralled, a number that would be bigger had they not been subjected to 50 years of what may be termed ‘economic sanctions’ with the intention, and result, of making their emigration rate 3 times higher than the emigration rate for protestants.

    One would think he’d deal with the salient facts first before flying off on a waffle-fest of management-speak. If he’s interested in identity and how it relates to the political set-up of northern ireland he is surely remiss in not talking about the common and widespread before concentrating upon the vague and aspirational? After all, this is how we got here and this is why we are here to this day.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 08:58 PM
  11. I think that the Irish and British nations grow closer together in culture and politics with every passing year.

    The ideals of a United Ireland and a United Kingdom belong in the last century; what we need is a United Isles with separate legislative units in each state and an overall Union that dictates how we interact with the EU and the rest of the world. It may well be that political parties would organise across the various borders e.g. I can see the Tories and Fine Gael and UUP fitting into one party very easily and Labour and the Liberal Democrats also have their bedfellows.

    Together the five countries would have a much greater role to play on the world stage than the countries have separately or as the UK and Ireland. Each country could still maintain its individual unique culture while playing a full part in a United Isles.

    I am British, Irish, Northern Irish and an Ulsterman and I do not need anyone else to tell me what my heritage and culture are or should be those things are personal to me. I believe that for the c. 75 million people who live in these Isles that a unity of purpose would be in the best interests and all. The narrow political nuances of the parties in Northern Ireland should be set aside for the good of all. After listening to all the parties polcies the only thing that really divides them is a line on a map and blinkers on their eyes.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 09:10 PM
  12. The bottom line for Irish nationalism is political independence. Any set of identities that Hugo McNeill or anybody else cares for can be accommodated within that.

    If Scotland for example voted to leave the Union those with a British cultural identity would not have to surrender it. But in our case the British identity of the minority was hostile to the democratic will of the people of Ireland as a whole.

    In my view you can’t honestly claim to be Irish and to be a democrat and to support partition.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 09:26 PM
  13. Even if every single county in these two islands became an independent sovereign state, the islands would still be called Ireland and Britain, and the inhabitants would be Irish and British. Therefore ‘Irish’ and ‘British’ have clear meanings distinct from politics and even maybe from culture. So unionists are Irish.

    Now my next point. If two Irish people meet in the US and bring up kids, those children would likely describe themselves as American and as Irish-American, but they probably wouldn’t say they are Irish. So your cultural/ancestral heritage is prefixed to where you were born, and does not replace it. So Irish unionists (as opposed to Welsh unionists for example) can be called British-Irish or maybe even Scots-Irish for many of them. They wouldn’t call themselves just Scottish, so that leaves the big question - can they be called British without further qualification? Wouldn’t British-Irish be more accurate than simply ‘British’?

    Now, the state that controlled Britain and Ireland (and India and so on ...) was called the UK. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t called Britain. Therefore it would make more sense to say Ireland and India were UKish than to say they were British. The problem is that “UKish” just sounds stupid, so instead of attempting to form myths about “UKishness” they formed myths around “Britishness”. The “Britishness” myths obviously made more sense around the time of the union between England and Scotland to form Great Britain in 1707.

    So, in conclusion, I want you to imagine two scenarios.

    First, imagine that island to the east of Ireland was never given the name of Britain. The state formed by the union of Scotland and England in 1707 would have been called the UK, not ‘Great Britain’. Fast forward to the present day and we would have English and Scottish and Irish unionists all proclaiming their “Englishness”. There would be no ‘Britain’ word for them to use, and “UKish” would sound pretty stupid. From our point of view this surely would be wierd? Irish unionists don’t call themselves English (except for those who really do have a close connection with England of course).

    The second hypothetical scenario to consider is where the union of the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland was given a sensible name, a name which could have “-ish” appended and sound reasonable. I can’t think of a suitable name right now, so I’m going to just call it X. Anyway, in that case people would be talking about Xishness and being Xish. Unionists throughout the world would be calling themselves Xish, and the idea of an Irish unionist calling themselves British would look just as stupid as an Indian unionist calling themselves Welsh.

    So “British” only means what it does (and it’s not very clear what it means) because “UKish” sounds pretty stupid. Irish unionists are Irish and they are UKish. The only reason most of them can also call themselves British-Irish or Scots-Irish is because of some cultural and religious heritage passed down from blood ancestors. Compare this to native Gael* unionists who might see themselves as UKish, but shouldn’t see themselves as British or even British-Irish.

    So does anybody think I’m onto something when I ask how things might have turned out linguistically if “UKish” didn’t sound so stupid? Or is all of the above (instead of just most of the above) nonsense?

    * (there’s no such thing as a purebred native gael of course, we’re all mongrels, but let’s pretend we’re not mongrels)

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 10:08 PM
  14. I’m a Dubliner -Irish -European with nearest cousins in the UK.  The provincial Leinster does’nt have great appeal although I’m prepared to accept that for Ulstermen and Munstermen that may be important . I’m not opposed to being considered British in the societal/cultural sense as long as it’s not political . I consider the Scots to be our closest cousins followed by the English and Welsh. I’m all in favour of greater educational , cultural and economic ties with the UK but I believe it’s been good for Ireland and most of the Irish people- that we ‘withdrew’ politically from the UK in 1922. We are a better country and people for it . We’ve had to be. We have learned independence the ‘hard way’ Of course national independence in 2007 in the European Union context is not what it was in 1920 which was still the age of Empire.
    For those people who have a leg on both sides of the Irish Sea and who are comfortable with both ‘identities’ ? I don’t see any problem . They can be either or both etc etc . It’s in the purely ‘political ‘area where the problems arise and they revolve mostly around the situation in NI and the constitutional question as well as the huge gap between Unionists and Republicans as regards the role of ‘monarchy ‘ . We also prefer our written constitution with it’s safeguards and guarantees to an unwritten British one. 

    Regardless however of whatever politcal solution is ever found- it’s likely that British/English /Irish relations will continue to improve in the future in both an archipelago context and in the wider European Union and the world .Nobody should fear that especially those people who are confident in their identity whatever it may be or whatever combination of identities they prefer . It does not have to be just a black and white or green and orange world .

    I can imagine a future Ireland having a common defence pact/agreement with the UK and having close relations with each of the countries/nations in the UK Union .  But I can’t imagine any significant section of the Irish people in the Republic having any desire to return to Westminster Rule . Not because there is anything inherently wrong with such rule per se -(Britain is after all one of the most democratic States in the world) but from a purely Irish perspective Westminster rule has not ‘worked’. There were times during the last 200 years particularly in the early 19th century when Ireland could have been ‘copper fastened into the Union but the combination of anti catholicism and the demands/success of Empire not to mention the concerns of the established church in Ireland all combined to get in the way . We can’t turn back the historical clock.

    The rise of Irish nationalism post 1800 was not much different from the rise of German ,Italian , Polish equivalents .  This nationalism inherited the 1798 French and American Republican strains and also the Belfast Radical and these inspired the 1916 and subsequent movements for independence however limited. In Ireland however ‘nationalism’ came up against the world superpower of the time.

    Partition I believe helped to turn /twist Irish Republicanism /Nationalism down a narrower Gaelic /Catholic Ireland only ethos, from which we seem to have just emerged .For this emergence we have to thank the success of the economic revolution , growing secularism and lessening of direct RC church influence in public affairs as well asour entry into the ‘family’ of nations with our separate ‘identity’.

    There is no question that being part of a British State could give Irish people greater security . Problem being that historically this security was a double edged sword. Ireland was ‘neglected ‘ at a time in it’s history when it’s people were through the medium of English being exposed to the wider world of ideas . In the political arena those ideas struck root and are as of today still growing -IMO.

    Que sera sera but theres no need for anyone to lose a life or spend their life in prison for either a UI or a 6 county or 2 county NI IMO.

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 10:10 PM
  15. Keep this up lads. This is the first slugger topic I’ve read in weeks which has avoided a quick and painful descent into whataboutery.

    I’m happy with a “British-Irish” tag. As said above, I’m of the island and glad of that fact but I’m “british” in attitude/social outlook and look to what’s happening in London via the Beeb each day rather than tuning in to RTE for news of the Dail.

    Does that unconscious affiliation, (arising as it does from some complex mix of family background, education, religious belief and life experience) make me “not-Irish”.

    I don’t think so. I carry both passports. I stand for both national anthems. I respect the achievements of both nations and in sporting terms I love to see NI & Ireland do well and the English get hammered.

    I am whatever product of nature and nurture that I am and I am at peace with that combination.

    And if anyone from the Republican or Loyalist traditions would say that I can’t be both that the dichotomy between being British and Irish is too great then I can only repeat that the combination sits easily on my shoulders so would they kindly f*ck off and find a cause really worth dying for.

    My 2c

    Posted by  on Feb 17, 2007 @ 10:48 PM
  16. At present 45% of the population are still corralled, a number that would be bigger had they not been subjected to 50 years of what may be termed ‘economic sanctions’ with the intention, and result, of making their emigration rate 3 times higher than the emigration rate for protestants.,
    That’s one of these canards that occasionally surfaces.The reality is that the Stormont ‘economic sanctions’ policy actually backfired as poverty and educational deprivation lead to a higher Catholic birth rate which is now making its presence felt.
    Terence O’Neill hit the nail on the head in 1969 with his infamous interview which was perceptive albeit clumsily expressed:

    ‘It is frightfully hard to explain to Protestants that if you give Roman Catholics a good job and a good house. they will live like Protestants because they will see neighbours with cars and television sets; they will refuse to have eighteen children. But if a Roman Catholic is jobless, and lives in the most ghastly hovel, he will rear eighteen children on National Assistance.’

    Posted by  on Feb 18, 2007 @ 12:07 AM
  17. The power of MacNeill’s argument, it seems to me, is in his notation of multiple disconnections in the primary political relationships for both nationalism and unionism (a form of partition that applies to East West as well as North South):

    How much does the South really care about the North? How many people from the Republic have even been to Northern Ireland? When is the last time you heard the North as a discussion point during a night out?

    Unionists have their own challenges: not only to work with their nationalist brethren in a shared society but to build a mature relationship with their neighbours to the South and also to re-connect with their fellow “British” citizens.

    We are all very good at theorising. But is it possible that neither the North South not the East West relationships can be substantially resumed until people start to forge working relationships within Northern Ireland? At the moment the main narratives seem to consist mostly of dreaming of cutting out ‘the other guy’ in order to get to, what one DUP MLA once described to me as, Green or Orange heaven.

    So far in this discussion, there seems to be no settled consensus about what it actually means to be Irish. For some it simply being born on the island, for others there have to be conditional beliefs attached. But I suspect the lived reality of most people is closer to Baldrick45’s fluid model.

    Back in the late seventies/early eighties when the Irish Passport cost £4, and the British £11, I knew more than a few people of unionist background who bought the cheaper package - with few qualms. As they flipped over each other price differential, my guess is that fewer and fewer did.

    On a slightly different cultural tack, the first pub in my home town to be able to get RTE on an extended aerial drew crowds each Saturday from across the community because they could get English First Division matches live. I also recall Hunters Bar in Bangor being packed out to watch Barry McGuigan fight at the Ulster Hall, on Scottish TV.

    At the edge of things, I suspect there is a far greater fluidity between British and Irish identity than is often admitted in formal public debate. As both parts of the island have to bend to take in new communities, it will need to borrow some of this flexibility, even as the debate of what it means in practical terms to be Irish or British continues.

    Posted by  on Feb 18, 2007 @ 12:11 AM
  18. Actually, Mick, I’d argue [again] that rather than the power in MacNeill’s argument being the “multiple disconnections in the primary political relationships for both nationalism and unionism” being the power..

    ..The power is instead in the disassociation of the political allegiance from the cultural and societal allegiance.

    That’s the dis-connect that I see Hewitt drawing.

    And it’s something that politically driven commentators have deliberately ignored.

    Posted by  on Feb 18, 2007 @ 12:24 AM
  19. The identity of the person is the preserve of the person, and any attempt to apply another label to the person is the preserve of the numpty for whom the identity of the person was confusing and/or worrying.

    I took the somewhat moronic decision to write to the Irish Foreign Minister back when I was eighteen, renouncing my Irish citizenship, which I argued had been illegally forced on me by a hostile government, and that I didn’t recognise earlier.

    I fell into the schoolboy error of not realising that other people can say what they want about my identity so long as they have no ability to affect it in law or coercively alter my perception of it.

    Anyway, when I phoned Iveagh House to make sure alles war in ordnung, I realised that I was being sillier than a bag full of cats, and urged them to treat it as a fake.  They consented, and I managed the same effect by just getting the hell over myself, thereby managing to just avoid disappearing up my own arsehole.

    For the record, I’m a Tory, British, Ulsterman.  I don’t feel Irish at all, and the day I say I’m a European is the day I listen to the DUP and say ‘well that makes sense’.

    Posted by Hugo 'George Osborne' Rudd on Feb 18, 2007 @ 12:58 AM
  20. “At the edge of things, I suspect there is a far greater fluidity between British and Irish identity than is often admitted in formal public debate. As both parts of the island have to bend to take in new communities, it will need to borrow some of this flexibility, even as the debate of what it means in practical terms to be Irish or British continues.”

    Mick,

    Without wishing to cause offense very few people within the UK or RoI debate or give a thought to what it means to be British, bar the Unionists of the north/NI or some fool who writes speeches for the likes of Gordon Brown. Although I was once at a LP conference when Brown was asked his nationality and he replied quick as a flash Scot, Britishness was not on his horizon back then.

    Anyone know when this term hit the street, for the life of me this term makes no sense to me. One can be an English, Irish Scottish, Welsh, etc etc citizen of the UK and EU, but to be British tells us nothing about the individual in question bar the fact that they lack confidence in their nationality.

    Having said this if people wish to claim to be British or anything else I have no problems with it, just as long as they do not force it on to the majority; and of course as far as Ireland is concerned, there is the rub.

    Posted by  on Feb 18, 2007 @ 01:03 AM
  21. Mick, for someone not wishing to cause offence, you haven’t mastered it yet.  No offence.

    The idea that someone’s British identity is a sop to that person’s lack of confidence in some further division of their national identity is a canard, and somewhat unworthy of the argument. 

    Being asked ‘what is your nationality’, someone with a British Passport can read it in official black and white thereon.  Their decision to then nominate a further subdivision within the UK is entirely up to them. 

    Incidentally, if someone Welsh or Scottish, Northern Irish or English wishes to establish their identity and nationality as purely one of those without reference to Britishness, is entitled to do so, with the proviso that the government will apply the correct legal nomenclature to their official documents.

    We’re not asking you to understand Britishness, so long as you can recognise it and won’t attempt to argue away the person’s right to rational self-determination.

    So when I say I’m British, I am.  I’m not claiming it, I’m making a statement of my identity on the basis of arguments that are rational to me.  Someone who tells me they were born in Belfast and is Irish, is, in my view, Irish.  They aren’t pretending, or arguing for arguments’ sake, but making a statement on the basis of the same types of arguments they have personally run through in their own head.  The same goes for me.

    Posted by Hugo 'George Osborne' Rudd on Feb 18, 2007 @ 01:30 AM
  22. Pete,

    It’s not new - you’re pointing to different categories of nationalism - state and cultural nationalism. The former could use the UK as an example - but without the NI component that took up arms and threatened rebellion against the crown and then declared a cultural apartheid where Catholics were unwelcome. The latter was well decribed by DeValera who put into practice an equallly miserable practice.

    Both approaches have generated support - not because they delivered anything that improved life - it just allowed some to think themselves better than the other; more “loyal”, more “pure”, more “true” etc. etc.. It’s been a good sell - near all buy it.

    I’d welcome a “new lamguage”. Those describing themselves as unionist or nationalist may need remedial lessons in self-respect. Without their national tit to suck on they’ll need to stand on their own 2 feet.

    Posted by  on Feb 18, 2007 @ 01:33 AM
  23. You can have whatever identity you want - what you don’t get to do is impose a political system from another country onto people in ireland, a system which has effects on much greater numbers of people across the entire island than is justifiable by your arguments about your identity. Suiting yourself is not an argument, it’s just suiting yourself. It is ultimately hard force and the threat of civil war that allows unionists to influence life on this island far in excess of their numbers. This influence requires a high level of ‘britification’ of irish society at the moment and a downplaying of any really robust expression of irish gaelicism as the price that is to be paid for peace across the island. The irish are required to remain mute, culturally and politically speaking, to a degree that does not reflect their size while unionists are allowed to punch above their weight.

    These things are based on force, the kind of force the british use - that is to say, overwhelming force that is so definitive it defines the context of the situation; which is so normative that it seems ubiquitous but invisible. It is ‘the law’.

    But actually it is force. The irish media are happy to accomodate the unionist view while downplaying any right-to-assert that irish nationalism may validly seek.

    Posted by  on Feb 18, 2007 @ 01:50 AM
  24. Greenflag

    “Not because there is anything inherently wrong with such rule per se -(Britain is after all one of the most democratic States in the world)”

    Actually I’d disagree with both point here. There is something fundamentally wrong with rule from Westminister for Ireland, Scotland and Wales. If each component was of comparative size, or had exactly equal say I might agree. But the relative populations mean that more or less, what England wants, England gets. And that means that Scotland and Wales can get policy they hate forced on them, as in the eighties, and if England doesn’t get what it wants because of a tight Parliament, it breeds resentment there, as we are seeing now.

    There is a fundamental democratic deficit within the Union, not to mention that the House of Lords is a mess and only marginally less abhorrent than it was 20 years ago. The UK has a democratic tradition, but it is somewhat conservative and slow and preserves things that should be long gone. While the US system has it’s own problems, the amount of offices open to democratic elections and the belief in it has always impressed me far more.

    Mick

    “At the edge of things, I suspect there is a far greater fluidity between British and Irish identity than is often admitted in formal public debate. As both parts of the island have to bend to take in new communities, it will need to borrow some of this flexibility, even as the debate of what it means in practical terms to be Irish or British continues.”

    I’m not sure. When you are secure in your own identity, you can do things like buy an Irish passport because it’s cheaper because it doesn’t at some level change who you are. There is certainly more overlap in what it means to be Irish and what it means to be British than is admitted in public debate, but there are still differences. And those are what make us what we are, ultimately.

    “Anyone know when this term hit the street, for the life of me this term makes no sense to me. One can be an English, Irish Scottish, Welsh, etc etc citizen of the UK and EU, but to be British tells us nothing about the individual in question bar the fact that they lack confidence in their nationality.”

    I don’t think so. It’s more that “British” is a term so deliberately vague that doesn’t tell you anything.

    Posted by  on Feb 18, 2007 @ 02:10 AM
  25. Kensei,

    Blow that for an argument; ‘British’ tells you a huge amount more than you have a right to know in a conflict riven place like Northern Ireland. 

    It also says something about the person’s approach to the Union.  In my view.

    Posted by Hugo 'George Osborne' Rudd on Feb 18, 2007 @ 02:42 AM
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