We are ‘Nobody’s child’…

I am sitting here tonight, on the eve of strike action on a scale I have never witnessed in my 38 years in our little corner of the world, and this song keeps playing in my head. My personal memories of this song are very happy ones_ singing it with my parents and siblings on a road-trip to a picnic lunch somewhere with a sea view. When I was a child I clearly didn’t really hear the words of this extremely sad song. It was no different than singing “how much is that doggie in the window” (I had this song on cassette tape).

“I’m nobody’s child, I’m nobody’s child
Just like a flower, I’m growing wild
No mommy’s kisses and no daddy’s smile
Nobody wants me, I’m nobody’s child”

But sitting here tonight it’s this verse of that song that I hear in my head, with the country on the precipice of a strike forecast to number 150,000 plus strikers on the picket lines tomorrow. We here in Northern Ireland / the north of Ireland are political orphans, essentially nobody’s child. Daddy Jeffrey’s smiles have not been around for quite some time, he and the DUP shall not be moved back to Stormont, despite this supposedly being the key to unlocking the safe that holds the money needed for a pay deal.

Michelle’s mummy kisses now seem to be held to kiss goodbye to the Stormont Assembly, speaking today she said, “If Jeffrey Donaldson does not change his approach, then this sitting may well be the final one of this Assembly. I fear that the democratic institutions of the Good Friday Agreement are in freefall. While this is reprehensible, those are the hard facts before us.”

Our once benevolent Grandfather, the Secretary of State, who has in the past acted in our best interests despite our bickering parents (Granny Mo Mowlam for example) is now, in its current incarnation of Chris Heaton-Harris, unwilling to act as a substitute parent. Grandfather Chris is staying at arms length and leaving all matters devolved to our parents, for better or worse.

We are ‘Nobody’s child’.

So to tomorrow then for Northern Ireland / the north of Ireland, what does the future hold for we political orphans. In times of crisis people typically move to the extremes, to parties and politicians who over-promise and under-deliver reforms. But it is our extremes who have failed and are failing us. Perhaps then a move back to the middle. To the politicians who are prepared to compromise, work with their opposition, make the hard choices and fly in the face of cancel culture to win us a better, more equitable future. After all, it was those such politicians who did it for us the last time we were on a precipice, in 1998.

And to the strikers, stay safe and wrap up warm.

Sarah Kirkwood

Sarah Kirkwood is from Belfast and works as a medical secretary.