Shifting if not changing
Rawle Knox
Things have happened in Ireland since Westminster took over from Stormont, but nothing has fundamentally changed. During Telefis Eireann's biff-by-biff coverage of the recent general election in the Republic Ted Nealon, in the finest political running commentary I've seen in any country, remarked that the computer would have to learn a few tricks about Irish politics (and he proved himself right and the computer wrong). London also has much still to learn.
Take, for instance, that general election. The voters' almost total disregard of the new and old ' republican ' parties, Aontacht Eireann and Sinn Fein, would seem to mean a general southern repudiation of unifying Ireland by unorthodox means. Yet who were two of the highest scorers at the polls? Neil Blaney in Donegal and Charley Haughey in Dublin, both cast out of the Fianna Fail cabinet by Jack Lynch for alleged complicity in the north-bound arms traffic scandal of 1970. In Ireland people tend to go for a man they know, and take their politics from him.
They say at the moment of writing that, with Lynch in opposition, Cosgrove is Finding it hard to get good representation from Cork in his cabinet. Seriously. It's as important as Archbishop Makarios finding loyal talent in Limassol. I doubt if either Edward Heath or Harold Wilson is able, or, to be fairer, has the time to look at Irish politics like this. But some Englishman has to do it; because the value of leadership in Ireland is as great in the north as the south. So that if you lock up all the leaders of a movement, however criminally ghastly their activities may have been, you do not then find yourself negotiating with a band of reasonable men who are grateful that the lunatics are behind bars; only with people who have the same emotions as those interned but lack their authority and ability.
Brian Faulkner may wave the Union Jack, but even his Ireland is as foreign to London as Cyprus or Singapore. The ' loyalists ' always knew this, but were content to keep quiet about it while London was content with their simply being loyal. William Craig's independent Ulster is no new idea. The six counties have been independent this last half-century, to the political, if not financial, relief of London. Even Lord O'Neill, in his squirearchy days, flew the 'Red Hand' flag whenever possible. The Union Jack is used only to taunt the papal bull.
There were few Union Jacks out at last week's Border poll. Sure it was a foregone conclusion; and a triumph for law and order, and for the Protestants, and for the Catholics. And if there were as many people sinisterly struck off the electoral roll as Ian Paisley says, then the Catholic charge of Protestant "personation " at the polls must be true — otherwise the Protestants have recorded more than their known numbered strength. Also it was convenient for all Catholic parties to follow the IRA in forbidding their followers to vote — that way intimidation can't be seen to happen. It hasn't been overlooked in Northern Ireland that on the day of the poll BBC-TV's evening news devoted fifteen of its twenty-five minutes to the two bombs that exploded in London. We had five bombs here that day in Derry — a relatively much more peaceful place than Belfast. Admittedly there were no casualties, but then the police have had some three years' experience of bomb warnings.
The polling paper asked citizens of the northern six counties whether they wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom or be joined with the Republic of Ireland. 591,820 said they wanted to be with London; 6,463 with Dublin. No one voted for anything. Few people ever do in Ireland. By the expected 50 per cent more voted against being thrown into the Republic than failed or were scared not to vote against remaining under British control. True, a number of the majority voted for God and the Queen, but both, seen from here, occupy rather nebulous thrones. And the minority who abstained from the poll are all for Our Lady and the Church, though the traffic of young men through the confessional is, I am told, small. (Irish girls are always quicker with an answer.) Among other things we knew already, the poll showed that Brian Faulkner is a cleverer politician than William Craig. Craig, however, may prove the better Ulsterman, just as Cosgrove, for the future of his country, may turn out to be a better Irishman than Lynch — though to judge by the past history of coalitions in the Republic he'll need to become one in the next six months. Craig's current talks with the leaders of the Social and Democratic Labour Party which, in brief, advocates a temporary condominium by London and Dublin of the six counties, have been denounced by most of his Protestant colleagues. That doesn't mean a thing. Everyone else wants to see how things go without having a whiff of the stink on him. The SDLP does not believe in joining the Republic as at present constituted. Nor indeed does William Craig. (Nor the IRA, since the penal code in the Republic doesn't yet include a punishment of shooting in the kneecap for pilfering.) But the Republic is shifting, if not changing, and Craig is not the only northern Protestant to see that there may be room on the bench for Belfast.
The White Paper is going to be too late. No one can alter that. Time has been given for everyone to express his views and everyone has expressed the view that his family has held for the past three hundred years or more. The White Paper still doesn't have to try and be nice to too many people. The army naturally doesn't want to have to deal with a UDA uprising, but — despite recent understandable leaks to the contrary — it could if it had to. I understand that Cosgrove told Heath it's better to be firm than popular, and he's certainly now in a position to know.
Previous page
