The View
Many problems in life arise from the habitual gap between ideals and realities. The Church knows this well, as it works at the coalface trying to bring into some harmony the ideal of a Christian life and a Christian society with the realities of personal sinfulness and sometimes dire societal failings. Churches are often afflicted with difficulties of their own. The ambition to present newly independent Ireland as a model Christian country aligned to Catholic teaching was confronted with the difficulty of dealing with behaviour that fell outside that framework. There was also the problem of institutional abuse by people in trusted positions. The instinct in every organisation, and it happened elsewhere, was to maintain the façade and bury the problem. Society is still coming to terms with catastrophic failures outlined in many reports of the last 20 years, not exonerating the State itself or practices which often preceded its foundation. Painful progress should not be viewed as cancelling out either the conscientious endeavours of the vast majority or the positive advances made in the past century, including advances in Christian understanding and compassion.
Equality
Because independence and/or equality of rights were hard won, even if it is work unfinished, in the Republic a high value is attached to the State and to the nation to which we belong. In Northern Ireland, lack of consensus on identity makes patriotism pull in opposite and sometimes threatening directions.
A variety of theories have been constructed to explain relationships between different people and peoples in these islands. Even the best of them provide only an imperfect approximation to reality.
One might think that there are only two states in these islands, the United Kingdom and Ireland. The world recognises two categories, sovereign independent states, almost all UN members, then states in federations like the United States or Federal Republic of Germany, such as Alabama and Bavaria. Many historians loosely refer to the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland as equivalent states, when Northern Ireland was always a devolved region of the UK, albeit starting with some of the trappings of statehood, such as a government, a parliament, and a prime minister. Since Stormont was suspended in 1972, language used to describe its institutions has been scaled back to executive, assembly and first minister, albeit still housed in a monumental parliament building. Nobody today refers to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland as states, though Scotland has ambitions to be one. Allegiance to Britain or Ireland is mostly stronger than any specific allegiance to Northern Ireland, the long-term existence of which is still politically contested. Though at best an approximation, the description nation-state fits independent Ireland, which is relatively homogenous though growing more diverse, quite well, even though part of the nation on the island is outside the state. The two concepts are distinct in the Constitution.
There are four ‘home’ nations in rugby, which, like most sports apart from soccer, is a one-nation activity in Ireland”
Many people will have read of one- and two-nation theories. Confined to these islands, it is possible to count more variants, ranging from a no-nation theory up to a four-, and five-nation theory. The last admittedly relates only to soccer, and the bid by Britain supported by Ireland to host the world cup. Two ‘nations’ exist on the island of Ireland for this purpose, Northern Ireland and the Republic. There are four ‘home’ nations in rugby, which, like most sports apart from soccer, is a one-nation activity in Ireland. Like the churches, few sports were partitioned in 1921-2. Rugby differs from the GAA in that it is not culturally Irish, and is neutral on the constitutional question, causing periodic controversy about non-use of the national anthem.
The civil wars of the 17th century were referred to as the war of the three kingdoms, ignoring the principality of Wales. The logic of the United Kingdom 1801-1921 and its symbolism was that it consisted of four nations, one of which was Ireland. The British government recently resumed referring to the four nations of the UK, implicitly counting Northern Ireland as a nation, perhaps optimistically hoping that over time this will generate a common allegiance. At present, those calling themselves Northern Irish probably see it as complementary to being either British or Irish. Originally, some Ulster unionists objected to the name Northern Ireland, lest it be taken that they were Irish. The appropriation of Seamus Heaney in a celebration of Northern Ireland’s centenary was done insensitively without seeking family or other consent.
Two nations
The ‘two nations’ of medieval Ireland, the Anglo-Normans and the Irish, gradually co-mingled, despite laws to keep them apart, and were brought together gradually by resistance to the Reformation and the plantations. In Jacobite parlance the ‘old English’ became the ‘new Irish’. A Catholic Irish nation came together in the 17th century, only to be conquered and dispossessed, but surviving underground to rise again. A similar effort influenced by the Enlightenment and the American and French revolutions to form one nation from Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter was made by the United Irishmen at the end of the 18th century, Wolfe Tone recognizing that the Catholics were “the Irish properly so-called”. The United Irish and Defender movements were shattered in the bloodbath of the 1798 rebellion followed by the Act of Union. A generation later, their inclusive ideals were revived by the Young Irelanders, who added a cultural nationalist dimension. The tricolour brought from Paris in 1848 represented a one-nation flag, aspirationally uniting, and symbolising peace between, green and orange.
The tricolour, while a source of pride to the vast majority of Irish citizens north and south, was never seen as a beacon of reconciliation by Unionists”
As stated earlier, theories and symbols at best approximate to reality. Even in the early days, important figures rejected Orangeism, such as Bishop Stock of Killala briefly made prisoner by the French in 1798 and the Duke of Wellington. While the Orange Order later became a dominant element in unionism and Ulster Protestant identity, it never represented the whole of that community in Northern Ireland, and had little presence outside of Ulster. The tricolour, while a source of pride to the vast majority of Irish citizens north and south, was never seen as a beacon of reconciliation by Unionists (to be continued).