In another of his continuing series of articles chronicling the difficulties of unionism and the unpreparedness of the Irish people for a United Ireland, Andy Pollak criticises the British government for failing to take unionist concerns into account during the Brexit negotiations and the sectarian bile directed at Heather Humphreys during the 2025 Irish general election campaign.
But all good governments act in the interests of their people. The notion that a British government would favour the interests of 2% of the population over the interests of the other 98% is fanciful, to say the least. (Unless, of course, that 2% happen to be billionaires funding their party!).
When the UK decided to leave the EU, the over-riding national interest was to secure a Withdrawal Agreement and future trade deal that protected British industry as much as possible by retaining access to the Single Market. Northern Ireland was at best incidental, and at worse irrelevant to that imperative. Any unionist who believed otherwise was being unconscionably naïve.
As a continuing EU member in good standing, Ireland had a potential veto over any proposed arrangement effecting its national interests. Some unionists appeared to believe it was wrong for the Irish government to act in the interests of the Irish people, as they saw them. Similarly, the case for a United Ireland must rest on whether the interests of a majority in NI are more aligned with Dublin rather than Westminster. All else is sectarian waffle.
The notion that you should base your view of a United Ireland on what a few loud mouths say on the internet is also borderline drivel. Have we learned nothing from the amount of noise and trouble a few online racist activists have been able to create, assisted by social media algorithms that promote incendiary comment?
Heather Humphreys was a terrible candidate, drafted in by Fine Gael as an emergency substitute when Mairead McGuinness pulled out due to illness. She had occupied several senior cabinet ministries without any major achievements to her name. Her communication skills and performance on the stump during the campaign were poor, to put it mildly.
And yet she received almost 30% of the vote, over four times that of the Fianna Fáil Candidate, Jim Gavin, who had run an even worse campaign and withdrew his candidacy, although remaining as an option on the ballot paper. This compares to less than 21% received by her party, Fine Gael, at the general election 11 months previously and Fine Gael’s standing at 18% in the opinion polls at the time of the Presidential election.
In other words, she outperformed her party’s vote by a huge margin despite her poor track record in government and performance during the election campaign. Any objective analysis would conclude that the negative comments about her husband’s Orange Order background helped her campaign rather than hindered it. Irish people overwhelmingly reject that sort of sectarian commentary.
Fine Gael have never won a Presidential election and didn’t even contest the 2018 election. Their candidate at the previous election in 2011, Gay Mitchel, came fourth with 6% of the vote at a time when Fine Gael was in government with 36% of the vote. Even the popular May Banotti polled marginally less than Heather Humphreys in 1997, and before that, in 1990, Austin Curry, a northern nationalist and Fine Gael TD managed only 17%.
Leading potential Fine Gael candidates including former Taoisigh Enda Kenny and Leo Varadkar, former Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald, and the party’s former deputy leader Heather Humphreys, had refused to stand. Humphreys had stood down at the 2024 general election saying she was burnt out after many years in politics. Fair enough, but Áras an Uachtaráin is not a retirement home.
Humphreys changed her mind when the successful nominee, Mairead McGuinness pulled out due to illness. But Fine Gael is now a marginal conservative party representing primarily the propertied and professional classes and struggling to get 20% of the vote. The people chose an active and progressive politician, Catherine Connolly, very much in the tradition of the previous and popular incumbent, Michael D. Higgins.
All the candidates suffered on-line abuse, unfortunately a growing trend in all democracies. Northern Ireland was not an issue front and centre during the campaign, and if anything, Heather Humphreys’ religious background was a positive for most voters as she had few other distinguishing characteristics. But whatever about Northern Ireland, you don’t get to win elections in Ireland just because of your religion.
Why not just celebrate the outcome of a popular democratic election? Why not celebrate Fine Gael’s best performance in a Presidential election in over 50 years? The successive elections of Mary Robinson, Mary McAleese, Michael D. Higgins and now Catherine Connolly demonstrate that Irish people overwhelmingly want to be represented by progressive candidates who seek to bridge the divide between rich and poor, owners and renters, businessmen and employees, men and women’s rights, multiple minorities, old and young.
Why drag an obsession with religious identity into it when that is simply not relevant to the vast majority? And why must the activities of a few on-line trolls be allowed to set the agenda for an entire country in order to facilitate the rewriting of history? Why must the vast majority in Ireland be tarred with a sectarian or racist brush because of the activities of a few on-line trolls, often not even Irish or based in Ireland and funded from abroad?
There are many potential reasons to criticise Ireland, but if you are desperate to find a stick to beat Ireland with, you must try harder. In the meantime, the vast majority are happy to be represented by a Head of state and a Government that, however imperfectly, represent the interests of the vast majority of people living on this island, and can be unelected if they perform poorly. Would that be so for all the people on this island!
Frank Schnittger is the author of Sovereignty 2040, a future history of how Irish re-unification might work out. He has worked in business in Dublin and London and, on a voluntary basis, for charities in community development, education, restorative justice and addiction services.
Discover more from Slugger O'Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
