www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Ireland: full unification possible under the Lisbon Treaty

I talked to an Irish Marist priest once who felt that Éire [en.wikipedia.org] should invade Northern Ireland, so that the NI conflict would become an international conflict, complete with UN peacekeepers.

Frankly, I don't agree. I think the people of Northern Ireland have to work out things for themselves.

It's pretty much worked out. Once the Republic became wealthier than Belfast, the immigrant flow began to run the other way. Why would the Republic want Belfast now? And, inter alia, how long do the Protestant Scots-Irish have to be in Ireland before they are officially Irish? Since the Scots originally came from Ireland, do they have a "right of return"?

I was not refering to the Scots-Irish only the British government.

Well, insofar as Northern Ireland was established at the behest of the Protestant majority of Belfast, and insofar as the British government remained there from the 1960s through the 1990s mainly to protect the Catholic minority, I don't see quite how the British could not be there today. Would those who want a united Ireland override the wishes of the majority of the population in the North in order to impose unity?

History is not something that can simply be ignored or overwritten, and though it may irk Irish patriots, the division was probably the only workable solution at the time, and the one with which everybody is stuck. Instead of bearing old resentments, perhaps a modus vivendi between the Republic and the North will, over time (a very long time, since 300 years of history cannot be forgotten overnight) allow for the gradual reunification of the country.

In the meanwhile, it is silly to think of the British government as being "unwanted neighbors"--they are there because the residents of Belfast want them there. And when they no longer want them there, I am sure the British government will let it go most expeditiously, as it costs the United Kingdom more to keep it than it brings in.

Dear Stuart,

Sorry, but you've been taken in by some mythology:

1. "Northern Ireland was established at the behest of the Protestant majority of Belfast". Not so - and if it had been so one could sensibly ask why a majority of the inhabitants of Belfast should be able to dictate the allegiance of six counties.

The partition of Ireland was not wanted by much of anybody in the Irish population - the large majority wanted independence; a relatively small minority wanted Ireland to remain a part of the "United Kingdom".

2. "the British government remained there from the 1960s through the 1990s mainly to protect the Catholic minority"! The Catholics of the six counties neither need nor want British protection. All they ask of the British is that the British should go away.

3. "Would those who want a united Ireland override the wishes of the majority of the population in the North in order to impose unity?" What majority and where? What England calls "the North" consists of six counties. Of those six counties, British census figures inform us that 1.5 counties have a Protestant majority; 4.5 counties have a Catholic majority. Since when is 1.5 a majority of 6?

County Donegal is part of the Republic. It is also mostly to the North of what England calls "Northern Ireland".

3. "History is not something that can simply be ignored or overwritten" - quite true, so how come we are repeatedly told that we should forget our own history?

4. "the division was probably the only workable solution at the time, and the one with which everybody is stuck". There is no reason to believe that partition was the only workable solution. Nobody in the Republic (then called the "Free State" then or since has been carrying on pogroms against Protestants, burning Protestant places of worship, or discriminating against people on religious grounds.

We are stuck with partition at the immediate moment because England wants it that way.

5. "300 years of history cannot be forgotten overnight" - England first invaded Ireland well over 800 years ago, and keeps refusing to go away.

6. The English "are there because the residents of Belfast want them there"? Check the data again; demographics do change from time to time. The gerrymandering is becoming more and more difficult, which is why Nationalist political parties in the Six Counties keep increasing their vote.

But again, what do the desires of Belfast have to do with the matter? Nobody will argue that Derry City has a large Catholic majority, and that the majority does not want the English cluttering up the place. So why are the English still occupying Derry?

And so on.

Fr. Serge

That minority was mainly located in the provinces that became Northern Ireland. Whether you believe their reasons for wanting to remain within the United Kingdom were legitimate or not, the Protestant minority of Ireland would have resisted incorporation into the Republic with violence. Partition of countries on ethnic or religious lines is a common enough phenomenon in cases where geography and sectarian lines do not correspond. Not a perfect solution by any means, but one which is often necessary to ensure peace and stability. Would the Republic have been able to develop as it did if it had to deal with a simmering Protestant insurgency for decades--remembering that the Irish invented and pretty much wrote the rules on urban guerrilla?



But, being the legal authority in Northern Ireland, the British government had both a moral and a legal obligation to maintain order and prevent both sides from killing each other. Their initial approach might have been ham-fisted, but over time the British did in fact succeed, and mainly by adopting a policy of remarkable self-restraint in which soldiers interposed themselves between terrorists on both sides.


It's not the demography of the individual counties that matter, but that of the overall region. When the partition was made--and Irish politicians were also involved with that decision--it would appear that the six counties were considered to be a single political entity. The decision was made, and for the Republic, at least, it worked out quite well.

.

That's like saying Detroit is north of Windsor, so it should be part of Ontario. Donegal was, for reasons the negotiators at the time thought valid, not part of the entity called Northern Ireland.



No one says the Irish should forget their history. Indeed, they should remember it--as it was, not as some would like it to be. To be a useful guide, history has to be viewed as objectively as possible, warts and all, with a minimum of myth-making. An historian once said that "a nation is a group of people who share a common misconception about their own origins". There is something to that. If the Irish looked at their history, they would recognize that not everything can be laid at the feet of the English, and also the limits of both the possible and the desirable in the future development of their country.


But the Protestants thought it would be so, and were adamantly opposed to incorporation into the Free State, so the British were faced with the choice of either forcibly jettisoning them or submitting to their legitimate wish to be British. If the British had left Ireland altogether, there probably would have been a civil war in Ireland lasting for decades.


I seriously doubt that, given the devolutionary forces that have granted increasing autonomy to both Scotland and Wales, not to mention the net drain of Northern Ireland on the British treasury. But withdrawal would be wildly unpopular among a majority of the residents of Northern Ireland, thus socially and politically destabilizing, which would probably result in a return of "the Troubles". I for one am firmly convinced that the underlying social causes of sectarian violence were not eliminated by the Mitchell Agreement (which I also think had nothing to do with the end of the war), but the changing economic situation in Ireland papered over them for the time being. It would be extremely reckless to overturn the applecart at this point.

At some point, though, assuming that Ireland regains its prosperity (likely, since there was nothing structurally wrong with Ireland's economy or its economic policies, as opposed to those in some other European countries), the idea of assimilating Northern Ireland into the Republic will become more popular. When it does, a simple plebescite ought to be enough to get the Brits out of Ireland faster than you can say Erin go Bragh. Because the British ruling classes certainly don't want to be there, but feel they have to be there.

C

Exactly. At some time there will come a tipping point, and incorporation can be achieved peacefully through democratic means. The important thing is not to force the issue. History tells us attempts to rush the process usually results in violence.



Probably a recognition that incorporation cannot proceed piecemeal, but must be done with all six counties simultaneously.

I do not say that the British should remain in Ireland, or that the present situation is ideal, only that a problem three centuries in the making cannot be solved by fiat, and that politicians on both sides need to move cautiously and prudently.

I also think the Irish ought to be careful what they wish for. West Germans from 1945 to 1989 thought of nothing but reunification. They got it, and now a majority of West Germans regret that decision, seeing the Osties as being lazy, corrupt, and a net drain on Germany. South Korea looks forward to a reunification with the North, but when they get it, they may find the costs of reunification greatly exceed any actual or even perceived benefits. If and when Ireland reintegrates the six provinces, it may discover it has traded one set of problems and disadvantages for another--particularly if Britain cannot effectively revitalize the industrial base of the North.

I should also point out that both Father Serge and I seem to be in firm agreement that any "unification" that results from "federation" under the EU would be no unification at all, but a total loss of Irish nationhood and identity. All that makes Ireland unique would be lost in a flurry of dictats from Brussels.

Dear Stuart,

Here we go again:

1. "the Protestant minority of Ireland would have resisted incorporation into the Republic with violence". That might have been true in 1912; there is no reason to believe that it was true after World War I. Since you offer no reason to believe your statement, there is no need for me to offer any reason for my rejection of that statement!

2. "Would the Republic have been able to develop as it did if it had to deal with a simmering Protestant insurgency for decades--remembering that the Irish invented and pretty much wrote the rules on urban guerrilla?"
a) we still have no evidence to show the likelihood of such a "simmering Protestant insurgency for decades". However,
b) thanks for the compliment on Irish expertise on urban guerilla [warfare]!


3. "over time the British did in fact succeed, and mainly by adopting a policy of remarkable self-restraint in which soldiers interposed themselves between terrorists on both sides."

Which decade would you propose as exemplary of this alleged "remarkable self-restraint"?

4. "it would appear that the six counties were considered to be a single political entity." In this case, the appearance is not even an illusion. There was no such "single political entity" of the six counties until the English government imposed partition.

5. Ontario is not and never has been defined as "Northern USA", nor was it created by a partition of Michigan!

6. "No one says the Irish should forget their history." Would that this were true! Our national enemy actively wants us to forget our own history - along with our language and our Church - because as long as we remember who we are, we represent some sort of threat.

7. to be continued - after my lunch.

Scottish people are really Irish???

I am proud that my son has an Irish fringe: http://hphotos-snc1.fbcdn.net/hs152.snc1/5650_516283302786_82500158_30704860_2571772_n.jpg
http://hphotos-snc1.fbcdn.net/hs203.snc1/7029_516818774696_82500158_30722936_1497279_n.jpg

A very difficult thing to prove one way or the other, insofar as people did not offer opinions freely on such matters. Faced with the reality of governance from an overtly Catholic government, how would the Orangemen have reacted?


On (a) see above. On (b), the tactics developed by Michael Collins and his associates are still the fundamental handbook for urban guerrilla (I may be pedantic, but "guerrilla warfare" means, literally, "little war warfare"). I certainly study it, and I know that it read at the U.S. Command and General Staff College, among other places.


I refer you to the work of my good friend, the historian Martin van Creveld, in his book The Changing Face of War: Lessons of Combat from the Marne to Iraq, in which he devotes an entire case study to the British in Northern Ireland (pp.229-235). He points to several phases in the British attempts to suppress the Troubles, beginning in 1969, when Wilson sent in the British army to supplement the RUC. In the initial phase, the British maintained what we would call a "heavy footprint", flooding areas with troops and using firepower to suppress riots and disturbances. As van Creveld notes, in guerrilla, such tactics tend to be self-defeating, in that they (a) alienate the population and (b) demoralize the troops. After 1972, and particularly after Bloody Sunday, the British army reevaluated its tactics and came up with a new approach that emphasized working within the legal system (OK, so it was the British legal system, but for the most it operated fairly and justly), relying mainly on police rather than military forces (which required extensive screening and retraining of units such as the RUC to eliminate extremist elements from its ranks), and--in his opinion most important of all--the army imposed very strict rules of engagement that effectively precluded the use of lethal force except against specific targets in narrow circumstances that minimized the chances of civilian casualties. The British never deployed tanks or heavy weapons, relying at most on infantry small arms (but preferring non-lethal weapons whenever possible). The British eschewed collective punishment (a favorite tactic in 1920-21), and even minimized the use of arbitrary imprisonment, coercive interrogation and targeted assassinations after the 1972 Parker Commission Report.

Van Creveld points out

The British experience in Northern Ireland is closely studied by the U.S. military. British officers were among the earliest and most vocal critics of U.S. tactics in Iraq in 2004-2006, and they were a great influence on General Petraeus in the formulation of the new U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, which, like British doctrine, stresses self-restraint and population protection over the indiscriminate use of firepower to inflict casualties on the enemy.

Van Creveld contrasts the British approach in Northern Ireland to what he identifies as the only other unqualified success against insurgents since World War II--Hafez al Assad's suppression of the revolt in the Syrian city of Hama in 1982. I expect you are familiar with that ghastly episode, which succeeded because it threw off all self-restraint and was utterly ruthless and indiscriminate in the use of violence. Simon de Monfort in the Albigensian Crusade would have approved of Assad's actions in Hama.

To a large extent, yes. The Scotti, from whom the country gets its name, were a Celtic tribe from Ireland that began raiding Caledonia (as the Romans called it) in the third century, and began settling down from the fourth century onward. They displaced the indigenous peoples, whom the Romans called indifferently "Picti", who today are found mainly above the Highland Line. Adding to the admixture of Scottish nationality, there were also waves of Saxon, Viking and Norman invasion, though in each case--if the genetic analysis is correct--these seem to have come in as a military ruling caste and never displaced the people already there.

The genes don't lie, and this makes for some startling--and sometimes disturbing discoveries. For instance, it is well known that the Japanese and the Koreas loathe each other, a legacy of centuries of invasion, oppression and racial discrimination. But genetic analysis has shown, conclusively, that the Japanese (with the exception of the indigenous Ainu) actually came to Japan from Korea. That is, the Japanese and the Koreans are the same people.

So, by the same token, the Scots and the Irish have very similar genetic ancestry.

"Viking"...would Norse be more accurate?

Probably with lots of annoying marching in what looks like road safety gear.

The points made are, overall, so ludicrous as to defy discussion and I compliment Father Serge on his willingness to engage in debate on them. However, I am unable to restrain from commenting on the above.

Tanks or heavy weapons were not an option

- where do you or your friend, Van Creveld, suggest that they might have been used?

Tanks rolling up High St in Derry City?

Call artillery in on the Bogside?

However, your friend is correct - it was high-velocity sniper bullets that killed - not air-to-ground missles or one-ton bombs - and I'll bet the dead felt better for that!

Wht poppycock!