Mick Clifford: Rocky road to reach a real united Ireland

Nominally it is non-political. Yet in the front row of the audience sat Gerry Adams, flanked by McDonald and O’Neill. A report in the Irish Times suggested the crowd sounded heavily Sinn Féin, which on one level is entirely to be expected. Unity, after all, remains the primary goal of that party. One might well ask, however, what that does for the perception of Ireland’s Future as a truly civic society body entirely separate from all political parties.

Later this year an excellent documentary film, The Irish Question, made by Alan Gilsenan and written by journalist John Walsh, will have a cinema release. It contains a multitude of contributions from everybody from Bill Clinton to former German politicians, a few former Taoisigh, Adams and a range of economic and political commentators. The film had a screening at the recent Fastnet Film Festival in Schull.

The narrative looks at the past and looks east to the experience in the re-unification of Germany, all with a view towards predicting a future for this island. One of the contributors is current press ombudsman, Susan McKay. Over the last three decades McKay has written cogently about the North and particularly the unionist community. She, like many others in the film, spoke about the different ways that we could advance from where we are today.

“I think it’s better to talk about an Ireland that is in some way united rather than a united Ireland because a united Ireland is seen as a goal of Sinn Féin and before that the goal of the IRA,” she said.

'Freedom'

Last Saturday, at the SSE Arena, Mary Lou McDonald was asked what Irish unity would mean for her. “Freedom,” she is reported to have replied to cheering from the audience. The response put in perfect context that which McKay references in The Irish Question. For Sinn Féin members a united Ireland is the culmination of the so-called fight for freedom perpetrated by the Provisional IRA. The campaign had no mandate from anybody and involved murdering over 1,700 people, around a quarter of whom were from a Catholic or nationalist background. In 1998, with the Good Friday Agreement, it was decided to further the war aim peacefully and now the promised land is in sight.

Framing unity as freedom retrospectively justifies the killing. Look at that through the lens of the current controversy over the UK government’s legacy act, which is opposed by all parties in the North and the Irish government. 

Sinn Féin, like everybody else, obviously believes that security force personnel should be pursued through the courts for historic murders. Unlike everybody else, however, the party believes Provos should not be pursued as their actions were justified.

That is the backdrop against which the party and others are pushing hard for a border poll as soon as possible. It might well be asked whether this is the best way to proceed to a new dispensation on the island that would present itself as an Ireland for all.

Another contributor to The Irish Question is Leo Varadkar who also spoke at last Saturday’s event. In the film he offers the view that the IRA’s campaign held back unification. This view is not confined to Fine Gaelers — by his party’s standard Varadkar is pretty green on the national question — but it would never be accepted by Sinn Féin. 

To that extent, the party wishes to proceed to a single entity on this island with its narrative and justification intact. Does that bode well for reconciliation or the smooth bedding down of a thirty two county state?

The Irish Question examines the prospects of a border poll but does so in a wider context. Historian Diarmuid Ferriter raises the question: “Do you think of a united Ireland in 20th century terms when trying to devise one for the twenty first century.”

The film also looks south for some enthusiasm or support from the general public but Fintan O’Toole finds relative apathy. “Most people in the Republic are living in a never never land about a iunited Ireland,” he says. “Would you pay extra tax? No. Would you change the flag? No. Would you do anything, any concrete proposition? No. It’s very obvious that what you have is a genuine aspiration which is devoid of content.”

Most polls suggest he is on the button about that.

So where does this leave the drive for a poll ASAP? Is it coming primarily from a section of the nationalist community in the north and is its sole focus just to get over the line with the result?

One northern nationalist who wants more is Mick Fealty, who runs the Slugger O’Toole political website. “A border poll is not a vision,” he says in The Irish Question. “We need a vision to project into the future and currently nobody is providing that vision.”

One other aspect to the push for a border poll is the bad faith shown to anybody who raises awkward questions. A few months ago, the economist John Fitzgerald and a colleague produced a paper that put a high and long term economic price on a united Ireland. The outcomes were disputed by other economists but that’s the nature of the dismal science and its practitioners.

The response to Fitzgerald’s paper veered from ridicule to insult. Some allegedly serious people on social media attempted to rubbish his professionalism, one indicting him with a ludicrous interpretation of his father Garret’s politics fifty years ago. The message was clear; you’re with us, or you’re agin’ us. Once more, not a good starting point on the road towards unity.

This island will one day be a single political entity. That makes sense, economically and increasingly in terms of tackling climate change among other issues. Aspiring for that day to hurry along is an entirely honourable pursuit. But there’s a lot more uniting that could be done in the interim rather than placing the main focus on a border poll being conducted within six years.