The political history/present/future of Northern Ireland is pretty simple in actual fact. Its status as part of the UK won't change in our lifetimes at least, for better or worse. It will be a while before Catholics outnumber Protestants in NI, and even after that, a substantial proportion of these will be soft unionists with a small U. Even if eventually Nationalists somehow obtain a 50%+1 majority in a referendum, we can be sure that the hard-core loyalist population will not take this lying down, and will unleash a campaign of the most violent, thuggish and sectarian barbarism, making any nascent 32 county Republic impossible to govern and putting the lives of the Northern Catholic population in general at severe risk. The 50.1% may triumph, but what of the 49.9% left behind?
The lesson? A United Ireland is certainly impossible in our lifetimes and in our childrens' lifetimes. As part of the UK, we enjoy more or less all the freedoms that we could hope for in a free society. Pretending Northern Ireland does not exist, avoiding the use of the term, and indulging in crass rhetoric such as "a United Ireland by 2016" is a blind strategy that takes no account of political realities as they really stand.
Let's face it, the SDLP and SF are sitting up in Stormont helping to administer the rule of the United Kingdom as part of a devolved government with few real competences. With little prospect of change on the constitutional front, surely it's about time we grew up and engaged with the real left-right, liberal-conservative, Keynsian v Monetarist politics of the age. I am of course conscious of how much easier that is to state than to inculcate. In conclusion, the lessons that I've learned as a young GAA-playing man from the Catholic community having studied and worked abroad lead me to the conclusion that when John Hume once spoke of entering a post-Nationalist era, people like myself back then should not have mocked him so.
The lesson? A United Ireland is certainly impossible in our lifetimes and in our childrens' lifetimes. As part of the UK, we enjoy more or less all the freedoms that we could hope for in a free society. Pretending Northern Ireland does not exist, avoiding the use of the term, and indulging in crass rhetoric such as "a United Ireland by 2016" is a blind strategy that takes no account of political realities as they really stand.
Let's face it, the SDLP and SF are sitting up in Stormont helping to administer the rule of the United Kingdom as part of a devolved government with few real competences. With little prospect of change on the constitutional front, surely it's about time we grew up and engaged with the real left-right, liberal-conservative, Keynsian v Monetarist politics of the age. I am of course conscious of how much easier that is to state than to inculcate. In conclusion, the lessons that I've learned as a young GAA-playing man from the Catholic community having studied and worked abroad lead me to the conclusion that when John Hume once spoke of entering a post-Nationalist era, people like myself back then should not have mocked him so.
