Mary Kenny
A hundred years after Northern Ireland was established by an act of partition is a timely moment to look back over that historical development.
And I think, if we are being honest, we on the southern side of the border had an ambivalent attitude over many decades. We deplored partition – naturally – and it was a point of national honour to denounce it and blame the British. As Dominic Behan’s poignant ballad The Patriot Game says: “I’ve learned all my life/Cruel England to blame.”
Free Staters
And yet, we ‘Free Staters’ – as the ‘Nordies’ called us – weren’t always that positive about the North. In Dublin, the six counties were often called ‘the black North’, and many southern Catholics regarded northern Catholics as a different category – smarter, maybe, like Corkonians! Yes, there was sympathy when Catholics were under attack – as they had been in 1921-22, and later, when the civil rights marches began. But in between, I think there was some quite passive indifference, or at least acceptance of the status quo.
My mother’s best friend was a woman dentist in Banbridge, Co. Down. She was the only Catholic dentist in the town, and when another Papist proposed to drill local teeth, he was told: “There’s already one Catholic dentist here – there can’t be two.”
The situation was more or less accepted, and only in recent years have I come to realise that Catholics in Northern Ireland often felt abandoned by the ‘Free Staters’.
A fragile entity
Looking at the bigger picture, I suppose it is to some degree understandable. The Free State only survived by the skin of its teeth. It really was a fragile entity and could have collapsed – the IRA’s avowed intent in the 1920s and 1930s was to de-stabilise it. So, people may have felt they couldn’t afford to ‘rock the boat’.
In the late 1950s, my uncle and aunt decided – greatly daring – to spend their summer holidays driving around the northern coast, and venturing inland, too, at many points. They returned exhilarated. “Do you know,” they said, “they are very, very nice people. All over!” Perhaps a few more folk might have made that discovery earlier!
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For years, Gráinne Kenny (no relation, by the way) has campaigned against the dangers of cannabis as a recreational drug. As sometime president of EURAD, the European agency combating drug addiction, she has deservedly received many honours – from Sweden, the Netherlands, Brazil, the Phillipines and the Lord Mayor of Dublin, among others. Gráinne has warned of the mental health problems associated with cannabis, now a recognised factor by agencies dealing with conditions such as schizophrenia and depression.
But the message is, apparently, not getting through to younger people, according to the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland. One in three use cannabis recreationally on a weekly basis. A lot of youngsters try it out at between the ages of 12 to 14. There is still a “general feeling” among the public that the drug use is mostly harmless, according to college president Dr William Flannery.
Kids will always try risky behaviour, but the knowledge should be out there about the mental impact of weed. But until this knowledge is transmitted through mainstream culture, in films, stories, broadcast discussions and electronic media, it won’t be made known. Unfortunately, the big battalions seem to be on the side of marketing cannabis. But psychiatrists are coming to recognise the problem and Gráinne’s pioneering work will stand.
The brilliant baroness
Detta O’Cathain was a pupil at Laurel Hill Convent in Limerick, and then went on to do economics at UCD. She started her working life as an accounts clerk at Aer Lingus. After moving to England with her husband William Bishop, she became a successful economic adviser to a string of major British companies.
Baroness O’Cathain, as she became, was a very big cheese in the London business world, and the City of London appointed her to head up the £150 million Barbican Arts Centre. She did wonders for the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Shakespeare Company, but struck terror into her staff for her ‘Thatcherite’ tough approach to management. Detta didn’t suffer fools gladly. But she had a caring side – she cared for her husband for many years when he became paralysed by a stroke.
Raised a Catholic, Lady O’Cathain became a strong Evangelical Christian, and in the House of Lords, was a decisive social conservative. She tabled a motion to allow blood relatives to benefit from the civil partnerships bill introduced for gay couples.
Detta O’Cathain died in April, aged 83. When she became a peer in 1991, I had to ring Laurel Hill to ask the nuns about Detta as a pupil. They were bursting with pride about the brilliant schoolgirl they had taught.