Ireland’s future appears more important than Ireland’s present

Patrick Murphy, Irish News, June 22nd, 2024

OH good, we are going to get a united Ireland. Yes, we are heading for what Aontú’s Peadar Tóibín last week called “that sunny day”.

Mary Lou McDonald said it would mean “freedom” (within the EU, from which 70% of all Irish laws now come – an odd concept of freedom) and Leo Varadkar declared that Irish unity was indeed a good thing.

Michelle O’Neill promised to rebuild Casement Park (will it come before or after a united Ireland?) and the general atmosphere confirmed that Kathleen Ni Houlihan is alive and well and living in Belfast’s SSE Arena.

A rather harsh interpretation of the united Ireland campaign, you say. Possibly, but the sceptical view of mass rallies for constitutional change arises because they are rather like a religious belief: never mind your troubles in this life, all will be well in the heaven of a united Ireland.

As the man sings about the valley where his true love lives, Níl gaoth aduaidh ann, níl sneachta cruaidh ann (There is no north wind there, no hard snow there).

Meanwhile, just up the road from this latest rally, 32% of west Belfast children live in poverty. The Audit Office reports “little sustained progress” from Stormont in tackling the problem.

Child poverty here results largely from the Tories restricting welfare benefits to the first two children in most households. Stormont introduced that policy here and two executive parties (Sinn Féin and Alliance) spoke at the Ireland’s Future conference. Neither addressed the problem.

Child poverty does not represent a failed northern state. It represents a failed northern government. Dublin’s failed government has left one in seven children in poverty in the south.

Meanwhile, 550,000 people here are waiting for medical treatment. Will they have to wait for a united Ireland to see a doctor?

A third of people here wait more than two years for treatment. Less than 1% face a similar wait in England, even though we spend seven per cent more per patient. Try blaming that on the border.

Some SSE Arena speakers suggested a conversation about an all-island health system. No-one proposed a conversation about people currently dying on the north’s waiting lists. Ireland’s future appears more important than Ireland’s present. Unlike Casement Park, no-one promised to re-build the NHS.

Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar is interviewed by Jim Fitzpatrick during last weekend’s Ireland’s Future event at Belfast’s SSE Arena

The audience cheered Leo Varadkar, even though his party will support Ursula von der Leyen’s appointment as EU President. She has offered Israel unconditional EU support, obstructed recognition of the state of Palestine and overseen the export of £300 million worth of German arms to Israel last year. Advocating a united Ireland granted Fine Gael absolution.

A united Ireland is a noble ideal. It is somewhat less noble as a fig leaf to cover Stormont’s failure to deliver. The current levels of human suffering and deprivation are not caused by the border. They are caused by Stormont’s sectarian self-interest at executive level.

Yes, partition is a barrier to a more effective and efficient governance, but that cannot excuse Stormont’s collapse of public services.

And if there were a new all-Ireland government tomorrow, how does anyone know what that government’s policies will be? They might include welfare reform and they might not. Constitutional change does not imply social or economic advancement.

The last monster rallies in Ireland were held by Daniel O’Connell for Catholic emancipation. In 1829 he achieved his aim, promising a new Ireland. Twenty years later, a million emancipated Catholics died of starvation and another million emigrated. Their “freedom” counted for little during the Famine. The rich lived and the poor died.

There will be rich and poor in a constitutionally-led united Ireland.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, the argument for unity has been based solely on economics. That case has some merit, but the republican argument has been based on the existence of the Irish nation. Sinn Féin abandoned that and told us the Protestants were British.

So overnight, many of Ireland’s patriot dead became British: Wolfe Tone, Thomas Russell, Henry Joy McCracken, Mary Ann McCracken, William Orr, Jemmy Hope, John Mitchell, Thomas Davis – oh, and Sam Maguire.

If the united Ireland campaigners knew more about Ireland’s past, they might have a different approach to Ireland’s future. They could start with Wolfe Tone’s concept of an Irish nation, with the people of no property at its core.

That would lead them to reject the sectarian division on which the failed Stormont is based and hopefully encourage them to take a new path to a unity of Irish people.