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« on: February 09, 2020, 12:03:48 AM »
We're living in remarkable times and sometimes when you're in the middle of something its hard to see the bigger picture.
My take is that Ireland is a good country with decent people, shaped by history,spirituality and the weather. We are reasonably tolerant, hard working and enjoy life but are well aware of the impact of poverty, hunger and unfairness. Like all nationalities there is a darker side, manifested in intolerance which we saw in the brutal murder of Paul Quinn when none had the courage to say stop.
Times move on; the right wing populists in England forced a weak PM into a nonsensical referendum at a time that the decent majority had no leadership and the UK sleep walked into leaving the one decent structure in place to moderate against extremism from left or right.
On this island the short sighted bigotry among some unionists led them to support the UK leaving the EU without thinking of what would happen next. A bit like the otherwise decent Blair government supporting the American war on Iraq.
So now in 2020 we have the decent majority in the North saying that we reject the extreme voices who are essentially nihilistic
And now in the South, most young people have said they want a change from the boring rhetoric of two right wing parties, to support a party who are far from perfect but offer hope of a nation once again. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
This is a GAA forum. We welcome different voices. However there's nothing wrong with supporting a party who are upfront about wanting a United Ireland.
Varadkar and particularly Coveney have served our nation well at an important time. If Martin is to be the next leader of the 26 counties I hope he will have the courage to be a true soldier of destiny.
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