Quote from: Applesisapples on August 23, 2018, 10:36:06 AMBoth spot on. It always amazes me how a lot of commentators, journos and the "why don't they all just get back to work" brigade seem to ignore this point.Quote from: seafoid on August 23, 2018, 09:57:08 AMAnd not just party members, many ordinary nationalists are flabbergasted by the total lack of respect emanating from Foster and the DUP the supposed leaders of Unionism.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/foster-has-blown-an-important-opportunity-by-not-meeting-the-pope-1.3604235?mode=amp
However, there remains an enormous appetite in Northern Ireland for symbolic acts of rapprochement. There have been three such moments since Stormont collapsed: Ian Paisley jnr thanking Martin McGuinness for his leadership and friendship to the Paisley family; Foster and O'Neill shaking hands at McGuinness's funeral; and DUP and Sinn Féin former ministers Edwin Poots and John O'Dowd speaking of the need for reconciliation, after Sinn Féin's Barry McElduff was accused of mocking the Kingsmill massacre. All provoked an outpouring of public emotion. Such acts might not sway a single vote for Sinn Féin and the DUP but they demonstrate the desire for agreement amid the fog of anger, making agreement easier to reach.
Meeting the pope could have been another such a moment, in large part because it is the only unionist gesture comparable to McGuinness's 2012 handshake with the Queen. The sense among republicans in particular that this has never been reciprocated, and that McGuinness had thus been made to look a fool, was no small matter in Stormont's collapse – it was voiced strongly to the Sinn Féin leadership by party members.